U.S. Government Wants Google Search Records 917
JimBridgerBowl writes "According to the San Jose Mercury News, The Bush administration wants access to Google's huge database of search queries submitted by users to track how often pornography is returned in results. This information would be used for Bush's appeal of the 2004 COPA law, targeted to prevent access to pornography by children. The law was struck down because it would have restricted adults access to legal pornography. Google is promising to fight the release of this information." From the article: "The Supreme Court invited the government to either come up with a less drastic version of the law or go to trial to prove that the statute does not violate the First Amendment and is the only viable way to combat child porn. As a result, government lawyers said in court papers they are developing a defense of the 1998 law based on the argument that it is far more effective than software filters in protecting children from porn."
The solution is obvious! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The solution is obvious! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The solution is obvious! (Score:4, Funny)
The solution is obvious! Let's all submit pornographic requests to Google.
...and make sure that they all hit either goatse or tubgirl on the first link! That will make sure that the screeners go blind, solving the problem.
Re:The solution is obvious! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The solution is obvious! (Score:5, Funny)
People can look for Dick porn, too.
Re:The solution is obvious! (Score:5, Insightful)
This was already used years ago to try to shut down the mail order porn industry - a DA would order something (via mail) to some county with a sympathetic judge and file suit there for violating community standards where it was recieved. It's an unacceptable burden to require someong fulfilling a request to first analyze the community standards of the reciepient, and the problem is even worse on the internet.
Lastly, it's important to remember that the internet is *not* like the real world, and that "community standards" a pretty questionable standard to apply to it anyway. Unlike physical locations, you can't be required to pass by a porn site in order to get to somewhere else. If you're looking at porn on the internet, then you're either doing it with full knowledge of your circumstances, someone has subverted your computer, or you're doing foolish image searches. And even if it's the last, I think it's extremely questionable that we need legislation to "protect" against this. I suspect that the amount of porn "delivered to children" when those children weren't actively seeking it out is extremely minimal and unlikely to happen enough to damage someone.
I'll give an allegory for the whole "accidental search" thing. When I was in high school a few friends and I were on a road trip to Seattle. We were wandering around the city and saw a sign for some shop that was something like "fantasy bookstore". I'm sure you can see where this is going - it was, of course, an adult sex toy/bookstore, not at all the right kind of fantasy. But just like when you mis-click on a search result, it took about 10 seconds for us to realize that we'd made a wrong turn and go back out. The fact that a minor can accidently walk through the door of an adult bookstore (much less a minor who actively tries to sneak in past the proprietor) does not mean we need legislation to "protect" that.
Recipient Standard is Civil Rights Law (Score:5, Interesting)
There is legal precedent for a recipient standard which causes the most easily offended micro-minority's sensabilities to rule. Take for instance the "Hostile Environment" standard in sexual and racial harrassment cases. According to the law, no obscene or offensive intent is required. If the most easily offended receipient or observer in a work environment decides that something is offensive, then by law, it is. Of course, this has a chilling effect on speech. But then again, that is the point. The feminist and civil rights lobbies (who
Of course, any suggestion to roll back the draconian restrictions on free expression are instantly labled "racist, sexist, reactionary, etc, etc, etc." Seems that a lot of people who have problems with the standard applied to porn have absolutely no problem applying the standard to other things.
Re:The solution is obvious! (Score:5, Insightful)
You mention that kids entering a porn shop should be shown the door. That's 100% correct. However, kids entering a website. How is the owner to know that it's a kid? What if the kid lies and says "Sure, I'm 18!" There's nothing anyone can do about that, and I don't care how great your programming skills are.
The truth of the matter is that porn is going to be on the internet, the mail, the TV and video etc because there are a lot of legal adults that are interested enough in it to make it profitable, so it's not going to go away. What needs to be done is place the responsibility of supervision firmly where it belongs... the parents or guardians. If little billy-joe-bob is wandering the llama sex sites, why should the llama sex site owner be sued? (ignoring the obvious llama activity) billy-joe-bob's parents should be supervising his internet usage and controlling his access.
There also needs to be reasonable limits set on accesibility. Sure an 11 or 12 yr old kid shouldn't have access to porn, although I know a few that would actively look for it if they could. Hell damn near every 13 yr old (or older) boy on the planet is most likely actively looking for porn. I personally feel that if a child is able to decide to go looking for the stuff, and his or her parents aren't monitoring that connection, the website owner shouldn't be penalized. If the website owner is spamming porn or placing links in google that are deceptive that's another story. Luring people of ANY age to your porn site should be illegal period. However if a 13 yr old clicks on a link "RED HOT TEEN PUSSY THAT WANTS YOU!" well.. that 13 yr old certainly isn't looking for pictures of burning felines waiting to be adopted.
Re:The solution is obvious! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The solution is obvious! (Score:5, Insightful)
Back when our parents were children, there was very little mail order shipping. There was no wired transmission of digital media. Basically, if you wanted obscene content, you had to walk down to your neighborhood adult store and buy it. Of course, no one wants a porno shop next to their children's daycare, and some rightfully saw these establishments as blights on their community. While no one should have a problem with you consuming hardcore BDSM material in your home, some understandably had a problem with the stores you had to buy it from setting up shop right down the road. NIMBY, basically, just with porn and not waste.
Not that I nessessarily agree with it, but this is why community standards were put into law. Basically, you couldn't sell anything in a community where the "average person" disapproved. That wasn't supposed to mean that you couldn't buy it in the next town over and then bring it back to your home -- they just couldn't distribute it in your city limits.
We all know that these kinds of things mean nothing in today's world. But, many politicians and many judges are older and have not grown up with this worldview, and do not completely understand it. Others just hate porn and realize they can control it this way. Some are just power hungry. Whatever the reason, the old "community standards" no longer apply. If I buy a dildo from goodvibes.com, did they sell it to me in the community they're based in? Or the community I'm based in? The online community? The community where the billing took place? All of them? If I download a video from bangbros, isn't it technically "delivered" in any jurisdiction those bits happen to pass through?
Besides, who cares what you bought or where you bought it from, or how offensive it is when it comes to your house in a plain brown box -- or if it comes to your house through digital wires, completely hidden from anyone who might have seen it? The problem is, these laws started as a way to keep people from inadvertantly seeing obscene content they didn't wish to see and have changed into a way of keeping anyone from seeing obscene content.
Hopefully, the courts will eventually get this right, but one thing about our government is that it does nothing quickly.
Re:The solution is obvious! (Score:4, Interesting)
1) What countries is that server in? If you go to a country in which pornography is legal, and see a billboard with a naked lady on it (THE HORROR!), then since I can put a billboard up along a freeway, it's legal. And what about countries where you can't get porn at 18? Why should your filthy standards apply to them?!
2) You don't have to go past every website to get to another one. The billboard anology may make sense if in order to get to
Hate to break it to you, but teh 3v1l pr0|\| isn't hunting THE CHILDREN down... but rather, the other way around...
Nephilium
Re:The solution is obvious! (Score:5, Insightful)
(Terrorism is the alternate password).
Miserable failure (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Miserable failure (Score:4, Funny)
Compared to the last two Presidential Administrations, this has been quite a success.
Before anybody mods this as a troll, I am directly replying to a modded up comment. Modding me down for simply disagreeing with your opinion is mod abuse.
Re:Miserable failure (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Miserable failure (Score:5, Funny)
Of course there is. The moral axis is defined by good, neutral, and evil, while the ethical axis is lawful, neutral, and chaotic.
Re:Miserable failure (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush has proven himself, time and time again, to be a bad guesser.
When he says "trust me"
We should fire his ass. (not wait for him to leave)
Of course Democrats NEVER use unfunded mandates
This doesn't make it right, it makes them BOTH wrong.
The battle cry of all pacifists.
Are you saying non-pacifists like to be lied to?
WMDs was simply one of the reasons for the war.
You mean, one of the false reasons for the war.
How do you feel about all the mass graves (approximately 500,000 men, women, and KIDS) we are finding there?
I think they should kill the motherf*ckers responsible.
Starting with the industrial complex that created and sold them... and, don't forget the Dick & Donald show, either.
History doesn't remember all the intelligence fuck ups that happened in WWII...
Those weren't intentional.
These are...
That's one of the problems.
Re:Miserable failure (Score:5, Funny)
Plus, anyone who mods you as a troll is unpatriotic, unamerican, and quite possibly a terrorist/child pornographer.
Re:Miserable failure (Score:5, Funny)
Google "I'm Feeling Lucky" using "Failure" [google.com]
Re:Miserable failure (Score:4, Interesting)
That they actually pay attention to their government and feel passionate when it screws up?
So now you have me wondering; your question made it sound as if the answer was both obvious and would reveal some nasty truth about liberals or Slashdotters... what was this answer? I'm quite curious to see how one can spin getting worked up about a corrupt government as some silly or reprehensible thing.
If there were no logs of searches... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If there were no logs of searches... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If there were no logs of searches... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a double-sided sword. It cuts both ways."
I have seen this bandied about several times...It is utter bunk. Pray, tell us how keeping track of searches "improve their effectiveness"? The only thing it does is allow for targeted advertising. It has nothing to do with improving anything other than their income.
B.
Re:If there were no logs of searches... (Score:3, Insightful)
AFAICT, they've GOT a Bayesian filter running on search results for logged in users. If I search for an "interesting" search term, it'll give me sites that are somewhat more relevant to what I click. Either that, or the Bayesian will go overboard, and give me stuff that I wrote
Re:If there were no logs of searches... (Score:4, Insightful)
There's nothing wrong with google seeking a profit.. even a huge profit. That's sort of the way our economy works, but if you're not into that, I'm sure moving to China is an option.
Re: Keep anonymous logs (Score:5, Interesting)
When someone logs in, or provides their cookie, Google could continue to provide more targeted ads, because they can match the MD5 of your IP and cookie to their logs.
When you use GMail, Google could log the SHA-1 of your IP and cookie.
Later on, when Big "bush" Brother comes knocking, they can provide the logs. Niether the search engine nor gmail logs reveal your IP or cookie. The search and gmail logs cannot be correlated at a later time. (Thus any correlation analysis of your gmail for concepts relating to ads would need to be done "right away" before the original IP/cookie information is discarded. For any suitable definition of "right away".)
When Big "bush" Brother comes knocking on your individual door, they can retrieve your cookie and correlate you individually to your gmail and searches. (Note: It may be unnecessary to obtain a court order or have any judicial or congressional review, since, after all, you might be gmailing to or searching for... gasp... Nuculoor Weapons or Al-Queda, located in Iran, which needs to be "liberated".) Nevertheless, they might need to come to you to obtain your cookie individually, rather than just be able to massively sift through Google records.
In the end, it would be simipler if the government were our ISP's, and we all used government provided e-mail servers and search engines.
Re: Keep anonymous logs (Score:5, Informative)
Bad Idea!
A brute attack is trivial here. There are 2^32 IP addresses so building a complete inverse mapping for this data can be done on an ordinary PC in no time.
Re:If there were no logs of searches... (Score:5, Interesting)
So every search you do is tied to the ID in that cookie, when you log into Gmail then that cookie is also tied to your Gmail account.
If you log into your Gmail account from another computer then the cookie ID on that computer, and all the searches performed since the cookie was created, are also tied to your Gmail account.
Google won't let you use Gmail if you block the Google cookie either. Do you see where I'm going with this?
More info on the cookie from Google Watch [google-watch.org]
Re:If there were no logs of searches... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just use the standard Firefox feature of "keep cookies.... until I close Firefox". Given the memory leaks and minor issues with extensions, you'll end up closing the browser eventually (I close it approximately 1-2 times/day). Or use private browsing option in various browsers, and it'll do the same thing.
Then again, if you're a mainline IE user (not avant/myie2 user) this doesn't apply. Of course, if you're using IE, you've probably got bigger problems :-)
Results are in (Score:3, Interesting)
Interestingly enough, the first results all deal with being victimized by pornography. There goes my buzz.
Re:Results are in (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Results are in (Score:4, Funny)
Why do I get links to a high school orinthology club?
Re:Results are in (Score:4, Funny)
Mr. Bush, I know you didn't do too good in school, but go to hxttp://al4a.com. That is the best start for a variety of porn. It is even has it categorized into the misleading url hxttp://al4a.com/movies.html where you can pick from 51 different categories in either pictures (if you net connection is already too clogged from CARNIVORE) or movies. You have the complete variety from teeny girls, gay sex. bi sex, fat girl sex (Clinton!!!), BSDM, tranny porn, midget porn, redheads, brunets, big titties, little titties, big cocks, the who 9 yards (the cocks are not that big though).
What is the big deal with porn? Its great. Watching professionals have sex is many times cheaper, better and safer than picking up the drunk girl left at the bar right after last call.
Porn stars are often very intelligent, humble, and adjusted people. Listen to them talk in an interview.
Actually, I would rather have Ron Jeremy in the Whitehouse over you.
What else do you want to know?
(Since when did slashdot start autolinking http://whatever.com/thingies? [whatever.com]).
Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
That aside, this is pretty alarming. But let's haul out two old arguments: 1. the media tends to be alarmist (true), and 2. if you're innocent, you shouldn't have to worry (true, but only if the government isn't violating the rights of the innocent, and leads to the possibility of forfeiting other rights).
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Being a innocent can cost you your home and job. It does not have to be a government that violating your rights;
It can be a name that matches yours. Then you have to prove that you are not the matching person. Think Indentiy Theif.
It can be looking like another person. Then you have to prove that you are not that person. Think Misintification.
In both case you are out the money it cost you clean it up. The public memory can be short, but with the internet... it can be long. This means that you will have do the fight over and over.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
As to the assumption some people make that the innocent have nothing to worry about, I ask you this:
If the FBI showed up to your office and started asking your boss questions about you, would you bee cool with it just because you've "nothing to hide"?
-Eric
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
Mistakenly converting to an integer? ;)
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
More alarming is that many innocent people lost their careers during the McCarthy era. Any one remotely connected to a communist group pretty much had their lively hood destroyed. Innocence is judged by the whim of those in charge and not by a consistant morality.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is extremely firghtening. The Forth Amendment says, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" NOT "The Goverment shall search through any your posessions and records, but if you're innocent you should have nothing to fear."
"We need two prisons, one for the guilty and one for the innocent."
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
The sad thing is that even the innocent have to fear these days. I'm sure if you look hard enough you can find the story about the toddler on the no fly list [usatoday.com] and other examples of the innocent being at the very least inconvenienced. At some point we have to draw the line and say enough is enough. Unfortunately I think that line should've been drawn about 10 years ago...
Ok - you're wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the logical fallacy of the sheep. Why is it so many people prefer to bury their heads in the sand, and refuse to learn?
Sir, please open your eyes. Millions of innocent people have been slaughtered throughout human history (often within their own laws) by various governments. As shocking and frightening as it must seem to you, being innocent is no safeguard. Indeed, innocence has nothing to do with it when government officials are granted vast, unchecked power.
The only safeguard between yourself and unjustified prosecution and imprisonment (or even death) is a thin, old piece of paper. And people's willingness to uphold the words written on it.
I suggest you acquaint yourself with it.
Or perhaps I should make it more simple. The Bush administration has shown itself willing to abuse the power it had before the Patriot Act was passed. The question now before us is what are the limits to its current power?
You may not like the answer. Your "rights" have been redefined, and so has the definition of "abuse".
Innocence isn't going to save you if you are currently viewed as the wrong type of person. Indeed, in such cases you no longer have a right to legal counsel, or to let other people know you have been detained. Or the right to a speedy trial.
Welcome the new world that your elected representatives have given you. But please don't be under the mistaken assumption that innocence will protect you, or that the government isn't abusing your legally defined rights.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Social Democrat.
When they arrested the trade unionists,
I said nothing; afterall, I was not a trade unionist.
When they arrested the Jews, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Jew.
When they arrested me, there was no longer anyone who could protest.
That's all I have to say. Mod me down if you want.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Age ranges? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Age ranges? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the impression that I got FTA. Poring through a massive database of search logs would be much more difficult, time-consuming and inaccurate than simply writing a script to query Google with ramdon words and logging any results that lead to porn.
It seems to me that they want to do some data mining, maybe to identify terrorists (or dissenters), and they could just be using the "what about the children" thing in their attempt to gain access.
If Google is to remain un-evil, maybe it's time for a solar flare to wipe out the records (until the backups can be restored after this is all over).
Did I miss something? (Score:5, Insightful)
Duh, the NSA will tell them (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, the NSA has a full profile on you to cross-reference.
-Eric
Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the government is trying to tie ages to queries. They are just trying to prove that it is easy for anyone (including a minor) to find pr0n on the internet. Although I don't agree with this attempt at massive violation of privacy, the government is correct in its assertion that finding pr0n is childishly simple (pun intended). All you have to do is a Google image search with no filters on the results. Type in pretty much anything and you are almost guaranteed to get nude or hardcore photos somewhere in your results.
Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Insightful)
They are just trying to prove that it is easy for anyone (including a minor) to find pr0n on the internet.
Would it not be much simpler and far less invasive for them to just submit a bunch of queries themselves? Of course it would! There's something more going on here that is not related to pr0n. The war on pr0n is a Trojan Horse to get them into the database.
Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Insightful)
Um... oh well?
I'm so tired of this "won't someone please think of the children" scenario. This is a parental issue through and through. If parents haphazardly allow their youngsters onto computers without knowing jack about them, it's like allowing your child to watch TV without any idea as to the content of the programming.
If I subscribe (this is only hypothetical) to the Spice channel and don't lock the TV, my child has access to that channel whenever. If I don't use CyberNanny or the like, my child has access to pornography on the internet.
Parental responsibility is failing, and I'm tired of the government trying to clean up the pieces. This is why I'm all for having to have a license to have a child.
Unfortunately, this seems to me to be quite obviously a ploy to try to get at the most massive user-habit database on the planet. Oh, they want it for porn research - my ass. You think once they are done looking for "tits" they're not going to look up "impeach bush" and place a NSA watch on the IP address that the search came from?
Slashdot used to interest me. Now it more scares me than anything...
Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Interesting)
With Democrats, we get unneeded and excessive government involvement in our personal lives.
With Republicans, we get unneeded and excessive government involvement in our personal lives, along with unprecedented violations of civil rights and unbelievable corruption.
I was saddended yesterday by the Supreme Court's decision in the latest abortion case.
Why does no one see the irony in an administration that spouts off about, "A culture of respect for life in every stage", which then pushes for the death penalty for a wide range of crimes.
A defending freedom and liberty, while infringing our rights at every turn, and NOT limited to the realm of national security.
Hilariously, as a fairly old school conservative, the only policies of the Bush administration I can agree with was the supposed IRS reform bill (which never came), and the start of Iraq war 2 (which was our exit strategy from a 10-year announced war/bombing campaign). Both of these were botched miserably, and now we have the constitution figuratively on flames.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school, "compassionate" "save the children" 'Republicans' can rot in hell.
P.S. last comment not directed at you, I'm just working on a new sig.
Looking for the wrong data (Score:3, Insightful)
Which one is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no more sure-fire way to push people's buttons than to mention child porn... bah. Always makes me feel that it trivializes the problem when it's being used to push someone's agenda.
Seems Like There Are Simpler Ways.... (Score:3, Informative)
Google pr0n queries?? Probably take the worlds fastest super computer a year to parse!
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Which one is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd guess this is by virtue of being one of those topics that still exceeds polite conversation. Child abuse of any type is universally publicly deplored.
I can't agree with that. A child of 12 simply does not posssess the judgement (nothing to do with intelligence) to understand and accept the consequences of being filmed having sex with someone else, or themselves for that matter. Participation in porn goes way beyond put that thing in here, no matter how it's done. And it's hard to avoid asking the question: why does an adult want to see a child in sexual poses, when the adult knows or should know that children simply don't understand sex? Have you ever hooked up with someone a good bit younger than you? You know how they interpret everything you do with meanings far different and greater than what you intended? If an adult goes specifically looking for that kind of reaction, a la child porn, it's hard not to conclude that the adult is looking for control/power/manipulation through a sexual lens.
I believe you felt/feel that way. But if you look at the people who did do that, it generally turned out much worse than they expected. Sex is potent stuff, and it takes a fair bit of self-knowledge to learn how to handle the physical, emotional, and relationship elements of it, and make it something good for you. People learn to use sex for all different kinds of purposes in their lives, and as adults, they're welcome to whatever they do, but at 12 or 13, once again, someone simply doesn't have the judgment to make those distinctions. It's a tricky balance - no parent I know wants to stop their 12 year old from checking out members of the opposite sex, making out, maybe taking a few halting steps forward from there, but none that I know wants to find out their kids have been sleeping around just to prove they can have sex (which IMO is almost universally what drives teenage sex).
So yes, you can call the child pr0n scare a whipping boy, and a trojan horse for all kinds of government intrusion into people's privacy and expression, and I believe it is that. But that doesn't make child pornography itself a good thing.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
No one "protected" me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No one "protected" me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No one "protected" me (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember as a pre-teen, my then nursing student sister bought my other sister a book called It's Your Body - A Woman's Guide to Gynecology. I frequently swiped it out of curiousity, and learned a great deal, as it thoroughly covered both male and female anatomy, birth control, STDs, etc. including many clinical pictures t
Re:No one "protected" me (Score:4, Funny)
Have women changed then? Granted, it's been a while since I saw one close up, but I was kinda hoping they'd be sufficiently similar next time so I'd know which bits to do what to, and stuff!
Re:No one "protected" me (Score:4, Funny)
How is this possible with the pages all stuck together?
Re:No one "protected" me (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead of telling them they are wrong for wanting to learn about it, how about we guide them as we are best able? We show them how to be safe, caution them against the dangers and pitfalls, but otherwise give them free access to any material they think they want ( after a certain age ) to learn?
I have a strong belief that a great deal of the sexual crimes commited in this country is due to repressed sexual urges. A teen age boy is told he's not supposed to masterbait, it's shameful. He becomes ashamed of who he is, and it happens for so long that he needs to shame other people to have sexual release. Maybe that comes out as child molestation or rape, who knows?
We don't need to protect our children from porn, we need to protect them from the politicians.
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Privacy rights are eroding (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't this an invasion of privacy?
What ever happened to parents and not the government being responsible for their kids?
Silly rabbit, we're at war! (Score:5, Funny)
Well, not if the president orders it, dummy. Thank God we here in the U.S. has a leader with the courage to come out and say "I am above the law as long as this war, which will never end, goes on."
I only wish he would take the next logical step and declare that presidential elections in a time of war could make us vunerable, and therefore they must be indefinitely suspended until we defeat terrorism.
-Eric
Re:Silly rabbit, we're at war! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Silly rabbit, we're at war! (Score:5, Insightful)
Because we allow any citizen, even those who can't read or write, to vote.
-Eric
Porn for dummies (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Porn for dummies (Score:5, Funny)
What really concerns me (Score:5, Insightful)
The most important part is missing (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Google were resisting the subpoena
and
2) Others (unnamed) had complied with the subpoena
which is slightly worrying for those that use other search engines.
Re:The most important part is missing (Score:5, Interesting)
Scary
Re:The most important part is missing (Score:5, Interesting)
Likewise, if you searched "Katrina" in google before August, 2005, you maybe ended in the page of someone named like that.
These are basic examples of informaiton that can be obtained with the "time" factor of the google logs. Remember that time gives another dimension to your data, which lets you extract more information from it. Something among tht lines of image-pattern recognition, it is easier to match patterns from a moving image than from a static image.
Re:The most important part is missing (Score:3, Funny)
Welcome to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to China!
Foot in the door (Score:4, Insightful)
US: formerly known as land of the free, currently aquiring police state status and on the fast track to fascism.
Talk about your open-ended grabs for power (Score:3, Insightful)
One imagines the dedicated team of talented evaluators at Justice combing the list of returned sites, carefully categorizing them as pRon or non-pRon. No waste of tax dollars there -- noooo. Glad to see we're spending our dollars on the big issues that face us as a society.
The Supreme Court decision back in June 04 [cornell.edu] went back, again, to the first amendment. The series of decisions made over the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) and the earlier Communications Decency Act, came back to the laws not being "narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest" and to whether less restrictive alternatives were available.
In response to those two reservations, Bush and company are apparently looking to prove how very compelling their government interest is -- by showing that kids are awash in the stuff on Google. Apparently the part where they get access to this enormous, open-ended source of information about searches doesn't set off any bells with them about the other half of that decision -- where the idea was to minimize the restrictiveness of the law and keep government intrusion to a minimum.
These were the "small government" conservatives, right?
I see a couple of flaws. (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, just because a search term has a sexual/fetish connotation is not sufficient to imply a search for pornographic material. Even if it is, it does not explain the motive. Case in point, there is a registered sex offender in my neighborhood. From the local sex offender database, it appears he had either received or downloaded child pornagraphy. I have two young children. So, I'd like to know more about this particular type of fetish. However, if my understanding of the law is correct, an attempt to research this on the internet could put me in the position of violating the same law that required him to register as a sex offender.
My purpose is not to obtain illicit material, but rather to get inside the head of someone who may be a danger to my children. How would Bush or anyone else know the difference based upon a Google search?
Results 1 - 10 of about 271,000,000 for "bush " (Score:4, Funny)
Don't forget who signed COPA into law (Score:5, Informative)
Information (Score:3, Interesting)
To be honest, I'd far rather they didn't have to fight this because they didn't actually keep the information in the first place.
so many things wrong with this (Score:3, Insightful)
So...it has begun... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wake up people. While I am all for Google and Share the knowledge with everyone policy - I am less for the privacy issue that arises here. You all know it - Gooooooogle ADS are everywhere and you have a couple of cookies that identify you. Probably not the Slashdotters as we regularly clean our cache, but people with less knowledge will eventually suffer privacy issues.
As far as I am concerned - Google is the smartest internet move in the world. CIA, FBI and NSA loves this stuff. Why do you think the "military" abandoned the internet to the public? Imagine if you create a system that everyone uses...and Imagine you have full access to it...given all of that...you dont really need that much imagination to imagine how bad this COULD be. You can monitor just about anyone and everyone - find out their habits, what do they like? Are Johnny-Pedo watching the "family-album" on a Gooooooogle ADS partner online-photo-album today? If so...is he also logging onto his GMAIL today? Maybe Alichk-WoludbeTerrorist is visiting the do-it-yourself-bombmaker site a bit too frequently and of course using his nice free big juicy google mailbox?
While thats kind of obvious to most of us...there is something FAR more sinister at hand...something you might need to be a bit of a paranoid person to think of (like me!)
Imagine that youre a worried "family dad" and want to educate yourself, finding out what "bad stuff" there is out there and what your family could be subjected to, or just curious in general. Imagine that you are subscribing to the same Goooooogle ADS partner sites and you are a man of your habits...you read certain news in online newspapers with great interest, you also give up what you prefer to eat, what people you hang with, which chat groups you visit, what products you prefer etc. All this can and WILL create a profile of you which Google easily can use for 2 things. 1) Direct their marketing at you with almost lethal accuracy and 2) Sell your information to the highest bidder...wether this is the government that make a "sweet trade-deal" with them...or the sinister business corporate that want to make sure that they only get "pure and clean" employees that fit the "corporate profile". This kind of information is worth more than Gold these days.
All that I am saying guys...is...Honestly, if you didnt see this coming then youre simply to plain naive. Remember - Knowledge is YOUR power too.
Jenna and Barabra gone wild (Score:3, Funny)
Sounds like a fishing expedition (Score:5, Interesting)
In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.
Why should the government be able to access Google's privately-held database, which contains sensitive information about millions of users, just so the government can try to defend a poorly written law? I see this as nothing more than a fishing expedition. Lord knows half the searches on google are probably for porn-related stuff, which the government could use damned lies and statistics to "prove" is bad for children. But the government has no right to demand this information.
You know what's really bad for children? A tyrannical government bent on taking away the rights and liberties of its citizens. Will a child born today even taste freedom after they reach age 18? The way things are going, I rather doubt it.
I hope Google fights this all the way and wins.
Re:Sounds like a fishing expedition (Score:3, Insightful)
Thin end of the wedge (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that the current administration has shown that they're willing to spy on US citizens domestically without warrants, even though warrants are easy to get retroactively, why should we trust anything they say regarding 4th amendment rights?
If at first you don't succeed... (Score:5, Insightful)
...beat a dead horse. Is protecting minors from unwanted and unintended exposure to pornography a good thing? Yes! Can the government mandate it? No! It goes back to the problem of parenting. If parents are giving their kids unfettered access to the Internet, they're going to see this stuff. It's no different that parents not watching what programs their kids see on TV. The US Government is trying to parent the nation's kids, when it can't even govern the country effectively (NOTE: this is not Bush-bashing; the Democrats are just as ineffectual as the Republicans).
It's good that Google has drawn the line. They aren't responsible for what their search engine turns up; the Internet is free territory and if you put up pornography or any other type of content someone finds objectionable, it may turn up. That doesn't make it Google's responsibility to police what its users are doing, anymore than it makes it the government's responsibility. At some point parents need to take back the power.
In Soviet Amerika (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't read the above without realizing how paranoid it sounds. Still doesn't make me any less apprehensive.
If Shrub Gets that Info (Score:5, Interesting)
Alito is the final piece of the puzzle (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt it is a coincidence that the Bush administration is bringing this up again.
Funny thing... I do not hear any complaints from Microsoft and their search engine... Do you think the feds forgot to ask Bill for his data?
Re:Protecting the children from free speech (Score:5, Funny)
That only works if he can read.
-Eric
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Couldn't find this quote anywhere. (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Couldn't find this quote anywhere. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Couldn't find this quote anywhere. (Score:4, Insightful)
I will tell you that 5 seconds of searching gives you little information, besides a bunch of articles referencing the one you linked. Many of them, such as http://www.ioerror.us/2005/12/09/bush-constitutio
Wishing something was true doesn't make it so.
People on both sides need to cut this sort of thing out. They need to cool off and be reasonable with each other again. Both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of open hostility and attacks.
Re:Protecting the children from free speech (Score:3, Insightful)