You've Got Jail
In case someone in the Justice Department is reading this, let me hasten to explain why I just clicked on the Victoria's Secret online catalog photo featuring a certain "Very Sexy Lace & Mesh Garter Belt." AOL made me do it.
Yes, the very same AOL that, like Yahoo and MSN, but not Google, has readily agreed to let you government snoops scrutinize the search words and results from its online search engine data archives. If AOL is going to let the government know where I've been, it should admit it entrapped me!
(Honestly, officer, I heard that perky voice say "You've got mail," and then this ad popped up, and there was this lady in her undergarments, and anyway it was just research.) (from Truthdig)
This raises an interesting point. Why are we afraid of our search engines giving our searches to the Feds? I think the answer is pretty easy, look who we're giving it too! Yahoo!, AOL and MSN have given their search data (with potentially personally identifying information) to the Federal Government that is led by a guy that (besides having conversations with God) has claimed Czarhood over this country. His cronies are yesmen that will do anything he, or a corporation says. He has lied to us on more than one occasion (and that was just today).
Our President, Emperor Bush, is known for spying on out Emails and phone conversations. Why in Hell would we want to give anything else to poke around in?!?!?!?!
Bottom line is these guys in the Bush administration are obsessed voyeurs, poking their noses into everyone's business, whether the excuse is squelching pornography or preventing terrorism. They simply do not believe civil liberties and privacy are important. It is an executive branch power trip, and completely anti-democratic.
Corporations, of course, are not built to think about such lofty ideas as democracy, however, focusing instead on profits. In the world of high-tech privacy, companies like AOL are also two-timers, collecting data on us users of their services so they can better feed us advertising and other revenue-generating products, even as they try to protect that data from identity thieves.
In acquiescing to the unwarranted demand of the Justice Department to pore over the companies' records, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft are sliding down a slippery slope, unconvincingly claiming that the data dump to the feds has no implications for online privacy. Does anybody think they won't cooperate if the government comes back and asks for IP addresses - your computer's unique signature on the Web - for everybody who dared type in a questionable search like 'growing marijuana' or 'fertilizer bombs'?
The fact is, until Google made its demur public, these companies didn't even tell us about the deals they were cutting with the feds, and they are still not being forthcoming with what exactly they've given up to date. We only have their word that they are protecting our privacy.
This anti-porn law was struck down in 1998. Why are they fighting to reinstate it NOW? Could this be another of Bush's stupid falsehoods so they can root around even deeper in our personal lives?
Come on, people. How many times are we going to have to go through this?
Click here for the entire article:
You've Got Jail
posted by Mindwolf | 1/27/2006 02:51:00 PM
2 Comments:
"...have given their search data (with potentially personally identifying information) to the Federal Government..."
My understanding is that they gave no identifying information. They stripped it before giving it. My question is, why are the search companies collecting and keeping identify information in the first place. It's no more their business than it is the Government's business if I search for porn on the internet.
I had heard that, but I decided to put in potentially personally identifying for the specific reason that they might not have. Remember that we would have not known of this little "data transfer" if Google did not speak up. It sounds to me that Yahoo, MSN, and AOL made those statements as more of a CYA than a "we did the right thing" statement.
If the Bush Administration wanted unidentifyable information, would Google have put up such a fight?
Post a Comment
<< Home