Should Search Engines Hand Over Data to the Feds?

Re: "...the U.S. is a country where it's not a given that the government gets access to any information it wants, no questions asked."

You MUST be joking. If Bush already feels that he has the right to eavesdrop with impunity on private citizens who are not under any suspicion of terrorist activity, why on Earth wouldn't he feel entitled to gain access to whatever information he wants, no questions asked?

All you young people need to study the damage done by the government communist witch hunts of the 50's. It sounds like someone has an agenda and is starting to build a paved road to get there.

With the "seemingly" moral guidance that this administration gets from the religious right and its "above the law" attitude, nothing they do surprises me.

Why does the government now own the rights to the moral fiber of America's children? Wasn't this country originally founded under the premis of escaping such totalitarian dicatation of something so personal? How about parents take some time with their children instead of leaving it to their duly elected officials.

Bush has no right to access Googles info.
The rise of the 4th reich is here. Damn Nazi's

Yet another example of government trying to shift responsibilty from the individual to some unseen evil internet force. If you don't want kids finding porn online, install software to filter out the content. If my business can do it, parents can too. I'm really sick of government trying to make laws on the premise that the children need to be protected. I thought that's what parents were for?

I am REALLY very surprised that so many people can watch the daily TV news where day in and day out children are kidnapped, raped, and murdered to satisfy some porno crazed screwball and you think that we should ALL stand by and do nothing! Do you think this will all go away by itself? Or are you just nervous that they might find out what YOU have been looking at on the Internet? When people talk about morals it is funny how uneasy some folks get. If you are not surfing the porno sites they will not come across you, will they?

to Diane: today they ask for search of porn material. Tomorrow the may ask for sear for tree huggers, the day after tomorrow it will be something else. I am sure you do not search for porn based on your writing. That is very upstanding. Hopefully when the US government looking for tree huggers you will not be one of them either.

The U.S. Government?s attempt to force Google to turn over search engine data only further compromises the integrity of the entire Internet experience as a whole. Even more so, it exposes the vulnerability of highly inflated businesses like Google whose business and operational models are virtually (wholly) dependent on the Internet space to survive. Wall Street should be paying very close attention to this tug of war.

Microsoft?s Windows engineers are probably laughing it up right now.

I believe raising Kis is a parent's responsibility. They can use many ways and tools to block what comes in to their Kids pc. If govermant going to do all this, whats parent responsibily ?

I think that, as usual, people are not using common sense but then again I know few people that even have any. Get a Life! It is nobody's business what we search for on the internet, in a magazine, in the yellow pages, etc. I don't think kids should be involved in porn, however, where are the parents that are supposed to care about them and teach them.
It is my opinion that adults are getting more stupid every day ! Common Sense? Doesn't anyone still have it? Oh, that is right thanks to the government and lawyers we can't use it anymore.

again, the media blows everything out of proportion. how many people were this irate when Yahoo willingly turned over their subpoenaed records last year? if you've got nothing to hide, then there is no reason for alarm...unless you do have something to hide...?

I guess this is an eye opener. Privacy and freedom is being snatch one at a time. I search for porn that doesn't make a criminal. Most these politician watch porno too. Enforce the law A__ wooping and talk to your kids.

If the Fed Govt. were really interested in defining better guidelines and control for the porm websites they should had encouraged the .xxx web extension. Doing that simple act of moving all foul content to one red light area would had provided an easy place to control the in/out activities.
Currently, I am forced to see more than I want in simple searches in Yahoo even with SafeSearch On. Then the same content is found in an identical Google search.
The govt. has excellent resources, they just lack the proper IQ and wisdom needed to implement them.

This is just another government careless decision being done because it doesn't have a sense of right or wrong. Clearly it shows poor responsibility and accountability which is often reflects an attitude learned from their superiors.

While some govt. departments/agencies do our country much good, it seems other departments just do things to look busy.

HE HE HE HE Another goal for mr. bush, how long are the United States of America citizens going to tolarate so much bull***t ?.

Well what can you expect from a person that allows supersecret prison camps (read Torture camps), alters information to go to war (read weapons of mass destruction), keeps it's citizens terrorized with alleged nonexistent terrorist attacks (two weeks before the last presidential elections) and so on??.
Oh, forgot that also thinks and talks for his wife (about her not pursuing any political job)

Always remember this quote:
"If you are not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about."

It was said by the Russian KGB, and I have been noticing this same quote being said by more than a few people that argue for warrantless wire-taps. I am sick of this administration acting like a King sits in the White House.

I don't find it a breach of my privacy if there is no way to filter down to the individual. It's just a way of collecting generalizations. Perhaps those generalizations could be compared to seized offenders' personal searches or browsing habits to form specific M.O.'s to aid in the capture of criminals. The motive for the data is not apparent.

It's easy to pick on Big Brother when you don't stand to benefit. I always get a kick out of people when they talk about how they don't want the government involved in policing the internet until a phishing scam bites them, or a virus shuts down their business for days. Suddenly, the same people can't understand why the government isn't doing something about it. We can't have it both ways. As citizens, we expect protection from our police, fire, TSA, FDA, etc. The internet is just another means to an end. The end is a criminal act in some cases.

Also, I happen to know more about computers than my children...for now. The tide may turn not so far down the road. I know far too many families where the parents know almost nothing about computers, and kids can make them sing and dance. What chance do they have in protecting the children from suspect content? Although the burden is on parents, rightly so, there is a gap that possibly needs to get filled to protect children. We have some growing pains in store for us as this new medium matures. Hopefully the end justifies the means in this case.

NO. Thats private information. The government should keep out of things that are none of its business.

That is invasion of privacy, but, look at what else that sorry excuse for a human being, let alone a president has done. He's already done more wrong than whats necessary for a legal impeachment, and whats bad, the a-hole's gotten away with it.

Why does everything have to become a partisan hatefest? Just because it said the government made this request does not mean that Bush or any 'one' person made this decision. For all you know it could be a Democrat that is behind the idea. Get real and get a life folks!!! We want the government to stay out of our lives until we need help then expect them to take care of everything for us. While I don't approve of them getting the search engine data, I'm not worried if they do either. Whatever makes for a safer country, especially for our kids should be looked at with serious contemplation.

All these holier than thou people, really need to wake up, read the Bible, TheSong of Solomon, a little porn there me thinks. What may be porn to me, may not be porn to you. Get a grip folks, parnents do your jobs, may take a little extra effort on your part, but quit trying to make other people do your job!

1984 should be required reading for everyone as a reminder of what can hap[pen when you start giving up a few rights here and a few freedoms there. All tyrants justified there deeds as being for the "good of the people".

Listen to the finest reading of George Orwell's "1984" as 6 minute segments per weekday on the Mike Malloy Show on Air America Radio.

I listen online. Mike is the best Liberal Talk Show Host online and undisputedly heads the Liberal Talk Show Hosts ratings.

http://TalkShowRatings.blogspot.com

Scary as hell.

I can't believe these people. Well we know what to do come November don't we? It doesn't have to be a democrat either! but it can't be one of these self-rightious nut jobs inflicting their view of God on the rest of us. If this is their view of compasionate conservatism I'd hate to see their view of a hard core conservative. We?ve seen in the
last few months that the government has a fairly
loose interpretation of what?s lawful.I'd like to think that nobody wants kiddy porn. I haven't seen it, & usually there are ways to report it if you do, depending on the site your on. Maybe it's like the loch ness monster? People have sworn it's out there too!

Diane, NOBODY here is even remotely suggesting or implying that we stand by and do nothing about crimes like murder, rape, kidnapping etc. That is a pure strawman. What we are saying is (a) that we should not be giving up our own rights to fight crime and (b) that it's a bad idea to give governments massive amounts of power to spy on people without oversight. Installing cameras into every room of every home would also help fight these crimes, but do you think it's a good idea? This is just the online equivalent. There are plenty of ways to fight crime without blatant invasions of privacy and handing over way too much power to a government.

Note that the government DOES NOT NEED actual search data for the purposes for which they are claiming they need the data, as they could simply script several thousand searches and use those results for their research. In other words, there is DEFINITELY an ulterior motive here that the government is not admitting to.

This action by the administration, like others, is merely a smoke screen to pander to public fear and win approval for the data mining the NSA has been doing illegally, by presidential order, for years. By picking child pornography, a topic that has no possible redeeming vailue, Bush hits another emotional panic button and obscures the real damage done to our Constitutional protection from unwarranted search and seizure.

To those who say "what do you fear if you've nothing to hide?" I say, is it the buisness of government to track your interest in your health and mental problems? What books you read? What if you want to know more about Alkieda (which you should)? Does that make you look like a terrorist? A lot depends on who provides the context. Do you trust your government to do this? Come on, people! THINK!

Please. Government. Just stop.
The common person has a right to privacy and someone giving out search results without anonymity is against the law. Anyone who thinks otherwise would do better to argue with the Constitution, or the Declaration of Independence. On the other hand, search engines could give out the data in a Totally Anonymous graph of what people search for most often on certain engines.

Suggestions-The Department of Justice are Idiots for even thinking about this, much less trying to enforce this. If they want to see what people are searching for they might as well put a trojan on every computer while its being manufactured.....Which is illegal.

Bush..tell that to the marines!!!

The DOJ is acting on laws existing in the books, duly passed by Congress and signed into law by Slick Willy, the Monica dude, remember?

Now all the libiots pronounce that some cowboy is the originator, they go as far as calling him Nazi, the same thing that Castro calls him, BTW, and bring up McCarthyism.

The kids get exploited. Nobody gives a hoot.
The communists killed millions. Ditto.

Yet Google turned over the records of a blogger in China when requested to do so. He's now in jail for using the word "liberty", and nobody gives a hoot, after all, profits come first.

Cynics.