Google tells Gonzales to Shove It.

Submitted by kebernet on Fri, 01/20/2006 - 08:33

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Politics

SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. is rebuffing the Bush administration's demand for a peek at what millions of people have been looking up on the Internet's leading search engine Ã¢â‚¬â€ a request that underscores the potential for online databases to become tools for government surveillance. Mountain View-based Google has refused to comply with a White House subpoena first issued last summer, prompting U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week to ask a federal judge in San Jose for an order to hand over the requested records. The government wants a list all requests entered into Google's search engine during an unspecified single week Ã¢â‚¬â€ a breakdown that could conceivably span tens of millions of queries. In addition, it seeks 1 million randomly selected Web addresses from various Google databases. [edit] Every other search engine served similar subpoenas by the Bush administration has complied so far, according to court documents. The cooperating search engines weren't identified. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo stressed that it didn't reveal any personal information. "We are rigorous defenders of our users' privacy," Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako said Thursday. "In our opinion, this is not a privacy issue." Microsoft Corp. MSN, the No. 3 search engine, declined to say whether it even received a similar subpoena. "MSN works closely with law enforcement officials worldwide to assist them when requested," the company said in a statement.

AP/Yahoo Ok, seriously. Where in the HELL does the DOJ get off thinking they have a right to this data? At best this is proprietary, privately owned (Google) data that is not pertinent to any pending judicial matter. At worst, this is a fishing expedition that goes against any kind of privacy (personal) rights. And BTW, a big Fuck You to MSN and Yahoo too. At least they are equal opportunity stoolies; I mean they both cave to the Chinese and American police states just as quickly. The truly worst part about a story like this, however, is the fact that if Google had not taken a stand on this issue, this is exactly the kind of thing that would have gone completely unremarked in the media.

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RE: Google tells Gonzales to Shove It.

Submitted by Ben (not verified) on Fri, 01/20/2006 - 10:03.

Well said ....

RE: Google tells Gonzales to Shove It.

Submitted by atrox (not verified) on Fri, 01/20/2006 - 10:17.

Yeah I read this story the other day and completely agree. Props to Google and what in the hell is the govt thinking, they need ALL SEARCHES for a random week and so on? How could the other companies NOT say fuck you? What is going on man, how could they even ask that. There is no current legislation or congressional probe or court case, they just want some more stuff to prop up their position for next time? How can you subpoena that? And their contention is so that they can see what people search for in order to prop up their anti Internet pornagraphy - protect children from porn law - which was struck down by the SCOTUS? So if you do see all searches for a week and many of them relate to fuck and pussy and so on what the hell does that show? Sure there IS porn on the net and sure people search for it, so what? Kids should not be allowed free reign on the net, not on search engines, not anywhere, thats the issue here, parenting, rather than Republican/Conservatives trying to force more government regulations into the mix so the government can do the parenting (which is a position that has so many flaws its just insane, its not enforceable, its not the governments job, every time the govt tries to do such a job it fails miserably at a cost of billions of dollars, etc). Just for the record, I have kids, my kids are behind a squid WHITELIST and Google aint on the list. Now if they go to a friends house or the library or something they could arguably get to porn - even on accident with a search engine (or when they get a little older and start figuring out how to hack the browser settings or the squid conf ;)). But again all of those things are MY RESPONSBILITY to be aware of, I should know what the situation is at their friends house and the library and so on, WHEREVER THEY GO ITS MY JOB TO MAKE SURE THINGS ARE APPROPRIATE FOR THEM. This is not an impossible task as some claim, far from it, it does require some effort and some boundaries with the kids, but it is not impossible at all.

RE: Google tells Gonzales to Shove It.

Submitted by atrox (not verified) on Fri, 01/20/2006 - 12:43.

"In a separate case in Pennsylvania, the Bush administration is trying to prove that Internet filters don't do an adequate job of preventing children from accessing online pornography and other objectionable destinations." "Obtaining the subpoenaed information from Google "would assist the government in its efforts to understand the behavior of current Web users, (and) to estimate how often Web users encounter harmful-to-minors material in the course of their searches," the Justice Department wrote in a brief filed Wednesday " 2 things here. 2 completely wrong assertions to address. 1. Internet filters dont work. Untrue. The filters work if they are WHITELISTS but not as BLACKLISTS (even stupid ass blacklists Webtrends, netNanny and shit that update every day). Sure this makes the Internet a whole let less useful and requires pretty much full time maint of the list, but it works. Blacklists dont work, they always have holes due to new sites and name changes and just plain stuff they missed. You can get a very reasonable whitelist setup which gets you to most of what you need, and then have a process to add new sites by an admin after review, etc. Thing is NONE OF THIS WORKS black or white, if you mandate it and DONT FUND IT and NONE OF THIS IS THE JOB OF THE GOVT. 2. The govt needs the Google search data to "estimate how often Web users encounter harmful-to-minors material". Well first off thats a useless statistic. How often an unknown searcher encounters "harmful to minors" (that definition could vary eh) material is not related in any way to how often MINORS encounter harmful material. Worthless without the data about who is searching which even the govt seems to admit should be off limits - at least for now. Secondly if you want that data then GET IT YOURSELF, not with subpoeanas, and as Cooper mentioned to me you could do it in a meaningful way by say searching for every 2 word combo in a particular set of childrens books, or search for childrens books titles, etc. That would be better ammo it seems, even for this lost and stupid cause, but the govt doesnt want to do the research themselves, they want Google to do it for them and want to compel them to do so. This whole thing sort of smacks of not being about kids at all, but rather being about repressed conservative jackasses not liking the search results THEY see sometimes (Santorum is tired of getting teen pussy in the results on accident when he is searching for gay porn).