Re: Google said no; Yahoo, AOL, MSN yes

["Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

Shame on Yahoo!, AQOL, and MSN. People should pay attention
to this.

The 'War on Terror' is obviously important to the Bush
Adminsitration (as it rightly should to us all), but apparently
so is the 'War on Porn'.

30 August 2005
Attorney General Gonzales' Internet Priority? Porn, not Terrorists
http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/2005/08/attorney-general-gonzales-internet.html

19 January 2006
Feds After Google Data to Revive Porn Law
http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/2006/01/feds-after-google-data-to-revive-porn.html

19 January 2006
Is Porn a Growing or Shrinking Business?
http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/2006/01/is-porn-growing-or-shrinking-business.html

..and now this (below).

The Bush adminstration, in addition to its preoccupation with
spying on law-abiding U.S. citizens, also seems to be obsessively
interested in our fetishes and sexual interests online.

This is starting to border on trying to enforcthe administration's
religious moralities through legislation -- something that should
scare the pants off of each and every one of us (no pun intended).

Now, A Reuters newswire article, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

[snip]

An influential U.S. Senator warned the adult entertainment industry on Thursday that if it does not develop a rating 
system for its Internet content, Congress will.

My advice to your clients is that you better do it soon or we will mandate it if you don't," Republican Sen. Ted 
Stevens (news, bio, voting record) of Alaska, chairman of the Commerce Committee, told Paul Cambria, general counsel to 
the Adult Freedom Foundation.

Cambria told the committee hearing that it was the first time his group had been invited to testify before Congress on 
the issue and he would take the message back to his clients.

[snip]

More here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060119/wr_nm/congress_pornography_dc

Americans, your rights are under seige by the religious right,

- ferg



-- "Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com> wrote:

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/19/_doj_search_requests.html

Thursday, January 19, 2006
DoJ search requests: Google said no; Yahoo, AOL, MSN yes.

Update: Earlier today, I asked a Justice Department spokesperson which search engines other than Google received 
requests to provide search records. The answer: Yahoo, AOL, and MSN were also asked to supply search records 
information, and all complied. Google did not, and that is why the DoJ asked a federal judge on Wednesday to order the 
company to do so.

Another fact to consider as you sift through news coverage: Justice is not requesting this data in the course of a 
criminal investigation, but in order to defend its argument that the Child Online Protection Act is constitutionally 
sound.

It seems apparent that Google objected to the request not on privacy grounds, but because the request was overly broad 
and burdensome. Privacy advocates I spoke to today, including attorney Sherwin Siy at EPIC, say while the DoJ's request 
would not identify individual users, the scope and nature of this request sets a troubling precedent. Today, they 
argue, only search strings and urls; tomorrow, perhaps, the IP addresses of all users who typed in "Osama Bin Laden." 

[snip]


--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg () netzero net or fergdawg () sbcglobal net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/


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