more on NYT: "Internet Users Thinking Twice Before a Search"

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brock Meeks <Brock.Meeks () msnbc com>
Date: January 25, 2006 11:04:52 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] NYT: "Internet Users Thinking Twice Before a Search"

Oh give me a f**king break... "have caused some people to think twice
about the information they type into a search engine...."  I'm sorry,
what a waste of Hafner's journalistic talent to bother writing such a
piece but perhaps that's why I'm not an editor.

Look, I don't like this business about Feds trolling through online
searches either -- and just for those out there playing without a
scorecard, remember that my CyberWire Dispatch was one of the plaintiffs
that successfully challenged the constitutionality of the ill-fated
"Communications Decency Act" and got it overturned--but for people to
start being wary about what they crank into a search engine strikes me
as shamelessly meek.

Good grief, we don't fight injustice by going off the grid, so to speak.
I can understand if you really DO have something to hide that you would
double-clutch when punching up Google but for the vast majority of us I
say:  bring it on, Uncle Sugar.

The meme after 9/11 was that if we all stayed in our houses, stopped
traveling and hunkered down inside Fortress America then the terrorists
had already won; the image of a cowering and bleating American public
was (and is) flat out pathetic, embarrassing and just not cricket.

I will fight this latest government over-reaching any way I can but I
will DAMN sure not stop using search engines out of some misguided sense
of fear and loathing.



-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 07:46
To: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: [IP] NYT: "Internet Users Thinking Twice Before a Search"



Begin forwarded message:

From: Steven <stevenstevensteven () yahoo com>
Date: January 24, 2006 11:11:01 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: NYT: "Internet Users Thinking Twice Before a Search"

Excerpt from NYT story:  "But the government's move is one of several
recent
episodes that have caused some people to think twice about the
information
they type into a search engine, or the opinions they express in an e-
mail
message."

What was it Thomas Paine said.....

"When the people fear the government, you have tyranny. When the
government
fears the people, you have freedom."

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

NYTimes.com
January 25, 2006
Internet Users Thinking Twice Before a Search
By KATIE HAFNER

Kathryn Hanson, a former telecommunications engineer who lives in
Oakland,
Calif., was looking at BBC News online last week when she came across an
item about a British politician who had resigned over a reported
affair with
a "rent boy."

It was the first time Ms. Hanson had seen the term, so, in search of a
definition, she typed it into Google. As Ms. Hanson scrolled through the
results, she saw that several of the sites were available only to people
over 18. She suddenly had a frightening thought. Would Google have to
inform
the government that she was looking for a rent boy - a young male
prostitute?

Ms. Hanson, 45, immediately told her boyfriend what she had done. "I
told
him I'd Googled 'rent boy,' just in case I got whisked off to some Navy
prison in the dead of night," she said.

Ms. Hanson's reaction arose from last week's reports that as part of its
effort to uphold an online pornography law, the Justice Department
had asked
a federal judge to compel Google to turn over records on millions of its
users' search queries. Google is resisting the request, but three of its
competitors - Yahoo, MSN and America Online - have turned over similar
information.

[snip]

The full story can be found at:
http://tinyurl.com/dgy9k



Steven Hertzberg



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