more on Search queries *can* contain personal information

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart () pobox com>
Date: January 20, 2006 7:59:03 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: more on Search queries *can* contain personal information

Lauren commented on the wide range of things that people search for,
and it keeps getting wider as Google and other search engines
add features.  I regularly type in names, phone numbers, addresses,
and lat/longs, IP addresses, AS numbers, patent numbers, Cisco part
numbers, etc., sometimes to find maps, or businesses, or phone book
information, and there are a number of websites I use for business
for which Google is a much more effective search tool than the site's
own indexes.  Sometimes I've even typed in my own name when looking
for cached versions of mailing list articles in the distant past
(non-specific ego-surfing isn't very useful if your name's not
sufficiently unique - AltaVista had over 50,000 hits for people
with similar names when it first came out - but there are times that
specific searches are useful.)

As somebody who regularly used Google during the specified period,
do I have a right to object to the court if Gonzales wants my data?
I hereby declare any phone numbers, addresses, and medical information
in my searches to be Confidential, though the subpoena doesn't allow
the recipients to declare their entire document as Confidential.
Furthermore, the subpoena indicates that for every document not
produced by Google due to confidentiality or trade secrecy, the
respondents want the authors' and recipients' names, addresses, dates,
etc. - but for this type of information, that disclosure includes
the confidential portion and more, not less.

Gonzales et al. allege that they're looking for information about the
effectiveness of web filters as a tool for protecting children, so they
want to look at popular search terms to see what people are looking at.
But if I search for a term like "Scooter Libby", am I looking for
information about him as an friend, or a Republican Henchperson,
or a well-known pornographer?  His original request wanted _all_ the
search terms, including my attempts to find relatives' current mailing
addresses, and makes it available to all attorneys and employees of the
Department of Justice who are involved in the case - but that's all of
them, given Gonzales's War on Obscenity, and nothing in the subpoena
forbids them from making other uses of the information, such as using
my searches for medical marijuana information for Drug War purposes.

Brad Templeton talks about issues of identifying IP addresses, and the
Tor project certainly helps - but there are other web surfing privacy
tools, like The Anonymizer and other proxies, which are generally
faster, more scalable, and effective at protecting content, though
they're still susceptible to subpoenas for any information that
they may have retained.

                Thanks; Bill Stewart



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