Google subpoena

cj

Active member
http://news.com.com/FAQ+What+does+the+Google+subpoena+mean/2100-1029_3-6029042.html

THE ISSUE: The Bush administration wants Google to turn over material from its databases to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.

WHAT GOOGLE SAYS: It opposes releasing the information, saying it would violate users' privacy and reveal trade secrets.

WHAT'S AT STAKE: Privacy advocates are concerned that the vast amount of information Google and other search engines know about their users could be thrown open to anyone with a court order.

Im interested to hear poeples thoughts on this. I for one find it to be a horrible invasion of privacy. The Bush administration is going to far. If you or anyone you know has ever searched anything incriminating, marijuana cultivation for example, you are open (if the subpoena goes thru) to criminal investigation, with a court order. This subpeona is not only for google, it includes AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Yahoo has already complied and AOL and Microsoft have not released information on weather they have or not. Again, this is a horrible invasion of privacy. The Bush administration needs to be disbanded, theyve been messing around long enough.
 
DAMN IT i was JUST about to post that...yeah i know it's so fucked up...total invasion of privacy. This is a fucking outrage. We are going to spend millions of taxpayers money to find out who's been looking at porn.
 
that the hell?, that's crap, Bush should start worrying about more important things like innocent people getting killed instead of how many times a day people jack off
 
Its not just porn, porn is the median there using to get the information. Bush is trying to obtain ALL SEARCH REQUESTS enterd into google aswell as a list of sites that google links to. This means that if you search for somthing like "how to dispose of a body" (even as a joke, and lets hope a joke) you are open to criminal investigation.
 
DAMN!! no more kiddie porn!! j/k guys but i think that this is horrible! while im for the patriot act, this goes waaay too far!
 
^ i know man, i couldnt believe it first time i heard about it...i wonder what, if anything, there is that people can do about it...i hope it dosent come to having to stop using google...
 
sometimes i would like to be a canadian. this is just another instance of disapointing choices the bush administration has taken to "ensure" or freedom by taking it away.
 
im interested to know how this will affect people outside the US. ie, will canadians be blacklisted for searching certin terms on google...
 
this is ridiculous! i can understand them investigating child porn, but this, this is pathetic! bush probably uses it as much as the next guy!
 
i think its a good idea. they arent just watching porn. you can find ANYTHING on the internet. aka how to make super weapons. where do you think most of the more recent bombers (not terrorists, but like pipe bombs and such) learned how to make them?
 
if somone wants acess to said information for research purposes only, ie no intent of using them, they will be investigated. sure, they shouldnt have anyhthing to hide but its still a hastle and a waste of tax dollars let alone a ghastly invasion of privacy. theres nothing illeagl in looking at that kind of information.
 
waitt.. are you trying to say that the goverment will file a law suit if you use google as a porn searcher?
 
nope, the gov is just using a court case involving a porn law to subpoena googles search requests. the gov wants to know how much porn is being seached for. however if they just "happen" to stumble across some other possibly incriminating searches they will not be able to just ignore them and will likley investigate. bassicly the bush administration just wants to be able to spy on what people are looking for on the internet.
 
Columbine happened under a different administration, and more importantly, when search engines were nowhere near as comprehensive as they are today.

I was wondering as to whether the govt. actually had a legitimate reason for the subpoena, i.e., terrorism.
 
these claims made by that website are extremely weak. I just read carefully the details from several different sources and to indicate that every single person out there who has searched the internet is going to have their privacy evaded is false.

'If you or anyone you know has ever searched anything incriminating, marijuana cultivation for example, you are open (if the subpoena goes thru) to criminal investigation'

Not true.

Let's look back over at something on that page.

But what's important to note is that the Justice Department has not been asking for any information that would link those search terms to your identity. It hasn't requested Internet Protocol addresses.

So if you typed in search terms indicating that you, say, have a healthy interest in marijuana cultivation, the data turned over won't implicate you.


This subpoena does not have ANYTHING to do with people's personal identities. If Google does cooroperate with the justice department all what they will get is a page filled with what people have searched for. Not containing any ip address or mention of who searched it.

But now you may be thinking,

'But the site tells me that they can get a second subpoena then to find out it was me who searched about drugs. And if they see that someone searched for 'killing people: for dummies' then they have to investigate.'

No. This is what the site says.

-----------------------------------

If the disclosed search logs show evidence of criminal activity, that language may be vague enough to let prosecutors return with a second subpoena to demand the identification of one or more Internet addresses linked with those search terms.

---------------------------

It MAY be vague enough to let prosecutors return with a second subpoena. Emphasis on the MAY. It may snow 20 feet tomorrow, Richard Simmons may be our next president, and simple plan may come out with a good album. is it really going to happen though? not a chance in hell.

Do you realize how many hoops, boundaries they would have to cross, lines they would have to overstep, and things they would have to do illegally to prosecute you on those grounds? They would have no case. They aren't going to bother going through all that bs, when there are thousands of prime suspects in clear view.

The whole purpose of this subpoena is to crack down on websites that violate the child protection act, and to help rid of the ones that show illegal pornography, etc. Theorize about conspiracies, smoke screens, or how it's just a ploy to invade all of our privacy and throw people in jail because they searched about marijuana all you want. But it's not true. Bottom line.

I have worked in internet security and can tell you that the FBI have readily had access to tools to catch criminals a hell of alot easier than this. Do you really think they are going to waste all this money, jump through all these hoops, overstep boundaries, and try to invade people's privacy in CLEAR view of media and people?

come on.
 
man you guys are so ignorant! bush is trying to stop terrorism and help the country and you flip about a google search? if some arabs are trying to make bombs and search them under google, well i sure as heck would wanna know about it. all you stupid left wing radicals arre the reason bush is having such a hard time right now!

I support this 100% and you are dumb if you dont!
 
except it in no way ties ANY identity to the search terms, so any arab checking out google will be just as anonymouse as you. Go rape your sister or something you fucking inbred.
 
Man you dumb liberals are what makes this country weak! Hes our commander and cheif and you wanna kill him? WTF is wrong with you? I cold get the p act on you so fast your head would spin, one call jerk!
 
Incorrect my friend. Google keeps records of what individual computers search for. Saw it on a news story about the guys who started google. So, I strongly disagree with the subpoena for the reason that it isn't the governments business what anyone looks up. What would be next? Would they keep track of what kind of TV shows we watch? What the hell? I'm a conservative, but this is pretty much the last straw with this administration. They want to quantify how much people search for porn? Here is the answere- A lot. So stop the fucking subpoena.
 
my problem is that people are so quick to jump to conclusions (on both sides of the fence.)

Even a great number of people that dislike Bush completely have been getting tired of hearing him blamed for every single damn thing. 'Bush caused global warming. Bush is responsible for the dark ages. Hell, he probably killed the easter bunny too.
 
soon to be conseratives! dont hate on canada my friend, not cool. and he was obviosly joking. i dont see how this escalated from porno searches to you bitching about 'telling ' on some ns humor!
 
Melvs will you just ban GodBlesstheUSA please and save us the trouble of pointless arguing with what is obviously a joke?

Anyway, even if this subpoena doesn't track personal usage, another might, so it is still bullshit. Again, they want to know how much people search for porn? The answere is a lot. End of story.
 
nothing to do with this topic, but still...

Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. - US Federal Bureau of Investigation

Read the sentence carefully. It’s the official US FBI definition of terrorism. In its official definition, the FBI does not limit terrorism to stateless individuals or groups. In its official definition, the FBI does not suggest that terrorism cannot be perpetrated by the leader of a nation state. But even more amazing is that the official FBI definition of terrorism describes exactly what George Bush did in the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11!
 
Melvs is right on this one. but you are right too about google. Google does have a massive database on collected information from user groups and specific internet addresses. But the subpoena will return information completely anonymous. Will contain only records of a bunch of search terms.

So the arab terrorist searching online will be no different than anyone else.

The whole 'second subpoena' to get people's identities from it that the site had mentioned is BS and not going to be happening.

This whole thing is kind of a waste for the justice to do, but for whatever reason, they feel that having a million keywords that people type into search engines will help them determine which sites generally come up and how to fight some of the criminal ones.
 
that was an example.im not even talking criminals that kill people. kids that are just fucking around blow there hands off and shit.

the internet is a gateway to blowing shit up. thats all im tryin to say here.
 
hah. that's pretty ironic.

by the way kevo. would love to ban GodBlesstheUSA, but unfortunately am unable to at the time. will see if I can get something rolling on that though.
 
yes. As far as gmail, all the sent/received mail is stored on their servers so I'm sure that they can pull the records on it.

Here's some info pulled straight from their policy agreement:

When you use Gmail, Google's servers automatically record certain information about your use of Gmail. Similar to other web services, Google records information such as account activity (including storage usage, number of log-ins), data displayed or clicked on (including UI elements, ads, links); and other log information (including browser type, IP-address, date and time of access, cookie ID, and referrer URL).
 
You're a fucking moron. It was a joke. Stop saying "You liberals" I fucking hate people who generalize with you. THAT is what makes our country weak. Fucking ignorance, gotta love it.
 
I actually watched the report on TV and the comments i made are still legit. It IS an invasion of privacy to me. It also is a waste of taxpaying money to me. Don't know if you meant me when jumping to conclusions, so I thought I'd clear thigns up.

I totally agree with you, people tend to blame everything on Bush. That's how people deal with shit though, they blame it on something. Human nature needs answers. We don't like not knowing, that is why we research...
 
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