Bush vs Google

[hamilton]

From www.ctv.ca :

Google rebuffs U.S. gov't demand for search data

Google Inc. says it will "vigorously" fight the Bush administration's demand that it turn over information about what searches users have been asking it to perform.

The government wants a list of all requests entered into Google's search engine during an unspecified week. With an average of 70 million searches per day, that could mean tens of millions of search requests.

The White House also wants one million randomly selected Web addresses from various databases of the world's leading search engine.

The request was first made last summer. Google refused to comply, prompting U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week to ask a judge for a court order to force a handover of the requested records.

In an official statement, Nicole Wong, Google's associate general counsel, said: "Google is not a party to this lawsuit and their demand for information overreaches.

"We had lengthy discussions with them to try to resolve this, but were not able to and we intend to resist their motion vigorously."

The Bush administration says it needs the information in order to revive the 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA) which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court on grounds it violated the First Amendment.

What Google is most opposed to is the breadth of the government's request. The California-based company also says the information could reveal trade secrets.

The subpoena has also raised serious privacy concerns.

Pam Dixon, executive director for the World Privacy Forum, said it's not unusual for search requests to include names, medical information, or Social Security information.

"This is exactly the kind of thing we have been worrying about with search engine for some time," Dixon said. "Google should be commended for fighting this."

Gonzales rejected suggestions that the subpoena might violate individual privacy rights.

"We're not asking for the identity of Americans. We simply want to have some subject matter information with respect to these communications. This is important for the Department of Justice and we will pursue this matter," he told reporters.

The U.S. Justice Department said Friday that Yahoo Inc., America Online and Microsoft Corp. had all complied with similar requests.

However, Yahoo stressed it hadn't revealed 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.''

The Bush administration is already under fire from rights groups over security measures it has taken since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on America, including eavesdropping on some telephone calls.

With files from The Associated Press

Fucked up, man.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Thanks for this, H.

The Bush administration says it needs the information in order to revive the 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA) which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court on grounds it violated the First Amendment.

Didn't they get the idea, i.e., the first time around? Is this a water-wears-away-the-stone thing to them?

[StoneMtn]

Good for Google! They've got the guts and the funds to resist this; sweet!

In case anyone's geeky enough to be interested, here's a link to a Canadian article discussing COPA and whether it would be Constitutional in Canada.

http://www.geocities.com/jjwalsh1/copa.htm

Funny enough, COPA is actually the second such law to be struck down in the U.S., after the demise of the Communications Decency Act. This article was written when COPA was still in effect in the U.S., and concludes that due to technological limitations, such a law probably wouldn't be Constitutional in Canada. It's nice to see it was actually struck down in the U.S.

(The article also considers, however, that if such technological limitations were to be overcome, such legislation could actually survive a Canadian Charter challenge by way of a S.1 override ... something many civil libertarians would prefer not to think about.)

[timouse]

thank you jeebus for US term limits on presidency.

the only thing that sustains me when reading things like this is the knowledge that Shrubya will be out on his ass in a couple of years...2008 can't come fast enough