Google defies US over search data

[Jack]

Is Bush intent on beating Nixon in the history books as the most Constitution-abusing president? If so, does he understand that's not a title one should desire to attain?

[gr8fuldaniel]

Quote by: bishop you keep pushing this photo line, even though the first photo from your previous post was clearly doctored.

I didnt reply to your other comment because I wasnt sure which picture you were talking about. The web page seemed reliable enough and none of the pics were obviously fakes, IMO. Here is the BIO for Paul Sperry:

ABOUT PAUL SPERRY Paul Sperry is a Washington-based investigative journalist and Hoover Institution media fellow who has broken a number of national stories on the war on terrorism. His articles have appeared in the New York Post, Investor's Business Daily, Wall Street Journal, Houston Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, The American Conservative, Reason, The American Spectator, WorldNetDaily, D Magazine, and other publications. Author of the blockbuster book Crude Politics--cited by Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc as a top investigative book of 2003--Sperry has made regular appearances on Fox News, Sinclair Broadcasting Group, and other national media outlets.

He doesnt sound like some fly by night that has nothing to lose.

i'd like to see these pictures myself (and see them shown in a reputable source).

We all would. I am interested in why Mohammed Atta was on Abramoffs casino boat right before 911 and why this kinda guy would be on bush's transition team

heh, this has nothing to do with google of course.

Except google has access to photo imaging hosts. The gummint wants to get its claws into google code for some reason. It wants control of Googles web crawler. Maybe so they can use it to find Hunter S Thompson's White House kiddie porn? :eek:

[bishop]

this was the picture.. i dug around based on what was said in your article and came up with this:

http://news.baou.com/main.php?action=recent&rid=20729

that picture is undeniably a fake.

[gr8fuldaniel]

That photo wasnt in the web page I linked to

[bishop]

no, but the same exact time article was mentioned.. anyways, i'll just wait and see if something real surfaces. i won't be surprised if there is one since jack was so well connected. of course a picture proves next to nothing and still has very little to do with this topic (google being pressured by the gestapo). the topic at hand is MUCH more important than "pictures" of bush and jack barebacking on a chartered yacht.

as i said before, i think case law supports the unconstitutionality of the feds' demands since the supreme court previously ruled that COPA violated the first amendment. this issue is about the government's attempt to begin regulating information on the internet. it is the next step on the slippery slope:

http://weblog.infoworld.com/foster/2006/01/20.html

Well, the U.S. Supreme Court for one, which in 2004 barred enforcement of COPA because, while the law was having no noticeable impact on child pornography, it was clearly demonstrating "potential for extraordinary harm and a serious chill upon protected speech." It sent the case back to the lower court in Philadelphia, and it's there that the Justice Department hopes to use the information from Google and other search engines to argue against the ACLU for COPA's reinstatement. Now, let's think about this a minute. When COPA was enacted, it was widely predicted that it, like most legal attempts to define what is and is not pornographic, would inevitably be overturned on First Amendment grounds. And it was. Even if Google had cooperated as the other search engines did, in the end the courts would still recognize that COPA is blatantly unconstitutional. So why did the administration decide not only to pursue a case it's not going to win, but demand more information (two months of Google searches) than it could possibly digest? Well, we each might have our own theories about that, but I believe that protecting children from pornography is just the stalking horse here. Any government that wants to exercise some control over what its citizens can read on the Internet has got to start by exercising some control over Google. If Google had acceded to the Justice Department's original demands, imagine what additional requests for information might have resulted once the government got to look over the data. "Oh, yes, it's true we were primarily interested in pornography, but we've noticed patterns that suggest possible terrorist communications ..." What we can all understand, though, is that there is much at stake in this case. In fighting over the constitutionality of COPA, the feds shouldn't have any more rights to demand information from a non-involved third party like Google than the ACLU does. And when it demanded that information, Google shouldn't have been the only search engine that told them no and stuck by it. If the government can get any information it wants any time for any ill-defined purpose, far more than the privacy of our search engine queries will be lost.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: bishop as i said before, i think case law supports the unconstitutionality of the feds' demands since the supreme court previously ruled that COPA violated the first amendment. this issue is about the government's attempt to begin regulating information on the internet. it is the next step on the slippery slope:

There won't BE a slippery slope if the government can get away with demanding information and the law prohibits the source of the information from saying anything about it. It appears in this case we didn't even KNOW anything until Google spilled the beans. The other ones didn't say a word.

It can't be a slippery slope if you never know anything about it. It will be the precise slope the government WANTS to be on.

[bishop]

very true, i didn't think of it like that.. google is definitely one stand-up company.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: bishop very true, i didn't think of it like that.. google is definitely one stand-up company.

I did something I never do. Last night I wrote an email to Google applauding their actions and telling them I would use Google exclusively from now on.

Actually Google is ALL I use anyway, but I thought I'd leave out that part.

[bishop]

hmmm... i think i'll piggyback that idea. google does rule, in more ways than one. and, it's a rare day when you see a corporation actually do something that's pro-consumer.

eventually, i think the company will cave in - because it'll cost too much to hash it out in court. i hate this shit government more and more every passing day..

[Chris]

I sent them a letter of support and they sent me this back:

Hi Chris, Thank you for your note about the United States Justice Department's request for Google's aggregated search data. Google is not a party to the lawsuit in question, and we believe this demand for information overreaches. We participated in lengthy discussions with the Justice Department to try to resolve this issue, but were not able to. We intend to resist their motion vigorously. Regards, The Google Team

[Matt W]

Good for them in the US, not so good in China...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4645596.stm

Leading internet company Google has said it will censor its search services in China in order to gain greater access to China's fast-growing market. Google has offered a Chinese-language version of its search engine for years but users have been frustrated by government blocks on the site. The company is setting up a new site - Google.cn - which it will censor itself to satisfy the authorities in Beijing. Google argued it would be more damaging to pull out of China altogether.

[Scribbler1]

There's a big difference between censoring their content and turning over lists of what people use their services FOR.
But if Google is as adamant about giving information to the government there as they are here, they will no doubt have to make a decision whether to pull out of China entirely when the government THERE starts asking for lists of search results. I somehow suspect the Chinese will be doing that in time.

Stay tuned.