Power Corrupts...Absolute Power is Kinda Fun.
This play on the original saying about the human nature regarding power seems to be revealed more and more in today's society. This decade/century/millennium has had some amazing advances in technology which are exciting to me (being a nerd at heart) but lately have also been at the center of the opening quote. A couple examples of power to the extreme including the PATRIOT act are horrifying at least and I'm afraid that the majority of the country does not understand its implications. Another act of power abuse (imho) that has recently taken place revolves around a little company known as Google. The US government asked them for a list of queries performed by its users as well as a list of all URLs indexed by Google. The same request was made to Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL all who willingly handed over the information.
So should Google have handed over the information voluntarily? Many would argue, why not? The queries of the world may not be that impressive. A query on its own does not do that much damage does it? If you look in the address field when completing a query anonymously (not logged into Google) how much information is there?
Maybe the question should be, why, not why not. Why should a private company be required to hand over information to the government just because they asked? By asked I do not mean had a court order because they were investigating a criminal case. Currently this entire issue revolves around an instance where the government is NOT investigating anything criminally. Eventually the government came back with a subpoena. Note that at this point in my life I am not a lawyer. For those who may be so inclined or are just interested in a good read see the response to that subpoena here [pdf]: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/pdf/Google_Oppo_to_Motion.pdf
It is my opinion that I must be missing something crucial here and enlightenment from the public is appreciated. My current perception of this issue leads me to believe that there isn't any great reason for this information to be given out. My perception of law is that I'm innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The last time I checked the burden of proof of my wrongdoing was the government's job and, since I consider myself to be fairly straight-laced and law-abiding, that should be a fairly hefty task. Google has become a powerful company in the last few years by gathering and indexing information in a way better than all its competitors. Its web crawlers seem to crawl faster and archive better than competitors. They have caching of web sites in case a site is down. They have translators, image searches, video searches, cover blogs, newsfeeds, etc. They even provide the best free e-mail service online, at least in terms of searchability and mailbox size. If I were somebody looking for information on a third party and I had absolute power where would I start my search?
Note: I recently went to a couple websites to see if various articles I had posted under a couple different "handles" were available via search engines. The handles are unique-enough to show up on the first page wherever they appear but so far Google is returning multiple hits and the other search engines (microsoft & yahoo) are not. These articles weren't posted yesterday....they should be searchable already since at least one is a year old.
I guess this all comes back to should Google be giving up this information? When should any government simply be able to get information? The reason for the request is research into the creation of new pornography legislation. Research? Isn't that what government-funded studies have historically been for? Surely there is a graduate student out there who would gladly accept a grant to complete a scientific study without intruding into a company's information assets. If this was a trial perhaps the subpoena would be relevant but this is simply to help an "expert" witness be more "expert." Sure the request to Google may not be significant in our eyes but this is not how government is supposed to work.
Our nation was founded on the idea of government not interfering excessively with the lives of its citizens. Companies should be entitled to keep the information of itself, its employees, and its customers safe from prying eyes as well. In order for me to get information on my competitors in the IT field I need to follow certain procedures. Why should the government, doing research for potential new legislation, be granted any special rights to the same information I may want? I'm sure anybody reading this knows that a similar request from one of us to Google would, similarly, be rejected and appropriately so. What makes the government's requests for information regarding pornography more-special than ours? Is it because the government makes laws? Is it because they are on TV more than us? Could it be that we are used to the government having information on us from the census or from previous requests into our personal lives? Don't get me wrong....the government has a need for information at times but, while pornography is rotten, it is probably not an issue of national security requiring subpoenas for research that could be obtained via other methods. Still I believe we as citizens are becoming too willing to simply hand over anything to anybody in a uniform or with sunglasses and an earpiece because we see them as having the authority to retrieve that information without due diligence.
Citizens of the US have a lot of rights they may not realize. A government teacher of mine years ago helped us understand our rights when learning about the 9th and 10th amendments to the constitution (that little document that spells out how the government should work despite unconsitutional legislation that hasn't been thrown out yet). He explained we basically have the rights to do anything we want until we infringe on the rights of others. I have the right to throw my fist at somebody next to me until I hit them (or cause them to fear for their life...this is a generalization please remember), at which time I have infringed on their rights. I have the right to request information from Google and its search-engine competitors all day long. Nobody has the right to break into my house and take an old phone bill. Nobody has the right to use Google's technology or data without their permission. The data they aggregate because millions (or billions) of people use them is their own like my phone billis mine. Unless I tell others about my pornography queries that information aggregated by Google is theirs and mine alone. Who else should be entitled to it? The phone company and myself have my phone bill and appropriately so, but should the government get to see it just for fun? Maybe I've seen too many police shows but usually when the police, even the good police, want to get phone records they need a reason and a court order. What makes query information from search engines different?
9: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
10: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
This is real life people. Your rights are yours until you give them up. I would, if I could, encourage people to be educated on what the government is allowed to do and what it cannot. Many have argued counter to this point by saying, "If I'm not doing anything wrong why should I worry?" One response I might have would be the commonly-recited "Innocent until proven guilty." Indeed it is this latter statement that makes the former possible. Without the latter the former ceases to be. If we can be guilty at all before we are proven to be so what keeps accuzations from coming 24/7 from those who have something against us? As paranoid as this may sound I believe that it is true. This is the protection we, as teeny tiny people, have against corruption in the government. This ideology keeps us from being accused of random things that may be preposterous because the burden of proof is on the accuser and not the accused. While the flaws may exist in this type of system for the majority of law-abiding citizens (which I believe most people are) it is the best system and the government should promote a system that is best for the majority.
To wrap up on my tangents I believe Google's unwillingness to comply blindly with a random request for information is correct. The government has rights to information for its purposes in some cases but just because somebody in a suit asks for my SSN doesn't mean I'm going to bend over and give it to them. Private information is private. Public information is public. Trying to get to information you are not entitled to and getting a subpoena later when you still don't need the information makes me picture Uncle Sam more like Nephew Sammy with a bottle, a shaker and a tantrum...please let me be wrong.
This play on the original saying about the human nature regarding power seems to be revealed more and more in today's society. This decade/century/millennium has had some amazing advances in technology which are exciting to me (being a nerd at heart) but lately have also been at the center of the opening quote. A couple examples of power to the extreme including the PATRIOT act are horrifying at least and I'm afraid that the majority of the country does not understand its implications. Another act of power abuse (imho) that has recently taken place revolves around a little company known as Google. The US government asked them for a list of queries performed by its users as well as a list of all URLs indexed by Google. The same request was made to Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL all who willingly handed over the information.
So should Google have handed over the information voluntarily? Many would argue, why not? The queries of the world may not be that impressive. A query on its own does not do that much damage does it? If you look in the address field when completing a query anonymously (not logged into Google) how much information is there?
Maybe the question should be, why, not why not. Why should a private company be required to hand over information to the government just because they asked? By asked I do not mean had a court order because they were investigating a criminal case. Currently this entire issue revolves around an instance where the government is NOT investigating anything criminally. Eventually the government came back with a subpoena. Note that at this point in my life I am not a lawyer. For those who may be so inclined or are just interested in a good read see the response to that subpoena here [pdf]: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/pdf/Google_Oppo_to_Motion.pdf
It is my opinion that I must be missing something crucial here and enlightenment from the public is appreciated. My current perception of this issue leads me to believe that there isn't any great reason for this information to be given out. My perception of law is that I'm innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The last time I checked the burden of proof of my wrongdoing was the government's job and, since I consider myself to be fairly straight-laced and law-abiding, that should be a fairly hefty task. Google has become a powerful company in the last few years by gathering and indexing information in a way better than all its competitors. Its web crawlers seem to crawl faster and archive better than competitors. They have caching of web sites in case a site is down. They have translators, image searches, video searches, cover blogs, newsfeeds, etc. They even provide the best free e-mail service online, at least in terms of searchability and mailbox size. If I were somebody looking for information on a third party and I had absolute power where would I start my search?
Note: I recently went to a couple websites to see if various articles I had posted under a couple different "handles" were available via search engines. The handles are unique-enough to show up on the first page wherever they appear but so far Google is returning multiple hits and the other search engines (microsoft & yahoo) are not. These articles weren't posted yesterday....they should be searchable already since at least one is a year old.
I guess this all comes back to should Google be giving up this information? When should any government simply be able to get information? The reason for the request is research into the creation of new pornography legislation. Research? Isn't that what government-funded studies have historically been for? Surely there is a graduate student out there who would gladly accept a grant to complete a scientific study without intruding into a company's information assets. If this was a trial perhaps the subpoena would be relevant but this is simply to help an "expert" witness be more "expert." Sure the request to Google may not be significant in our eyes but this is not how government is supposed to work.
Our nation was founded on the idea of government not interfering excessively with the lives of its citizens. Companies should be entitled to keep the information of itself, its employees, and its customers safe from prying eyes as well. In order for me to get information on my competitors in the IT field I need to follow certain procedures. Why should the government, doing research for potential new legislation, be granted any special rights to the same information I may want? I'm sure anybody reading this knows that a similar request from one of us to Google would, similarly, be rejected and appropriately so. What makes the government's requests for information regarding pornography more-special than ours? Is it because the government makes laws? Is it because they are on TV more than us? Could it be that we are used to the government having information on us from the census or from previous requests into our personal lives? Don't get me wrong....the government has a need for information at times but, while pornography is rotten, it is probably not an issue of national security requiring subpoenas for research that could be obtained via other methods. Still I believe we as citizens are becoming too willing to simply hand over anything to anybody in a uniform or with sunglasses and an earpiece because we see them as having the authority to retrieve that information without due diligence.
Citizens of the US have a lot of rights they may not realize. A government teacher of mine years ago helped us understand our rights when learning about the 9th and 10th amendments to the constitution (that little document that spells out how the government should work despite unconsitutional legislation that hasn't been thrown out yet). He explained we basically have the rights to do anything we want until we infringe on the rights of others. I have the right to throw my fist at somebody next to me until I hit them (or cause them to fear for their life...this is a generalization please remember), at which time I have infringed on their rights. I have the right to request information from Google and its search-engine competitors all day long. Nobody has the right to break into my house and take an old phone bill. Nobody has the right to use Google's technology or data without their permission. The data they aggregate because millions (or billions) of people use them is their own like my phone billis mine. Unless I tell others about my pornography queries that information aggregated by Google is theirs and mine alone. Who else should be entitled to it? The phone company and myself have my phone bill and appropriately so, but should the government get to see it just for fun? Maybe I've seen too many police shows but usually when the police, even the good police, want to get phone records they need a reason and a court order. What makes query information from search engines different?
9: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
10: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
This is real life people. Your rights are yours until you give them up. I would, if I could, encourage people to be educated on what the government is allowed to do and what it cannot. Many have argued counter to this point by saying, "If I'm not doing anything wrong why should I worry?" One response I might have would be the commonly-recited "Innocent until proven guilty." Indeed it is this latter statement that makes the former possible. Without the latter the former ceases to be. If we can be guilty at all before we are proven to be so what keeps accuzations from coming 24/7 from those who have something against us? As paranoid as this may sound I believe that it is true. This is the protection we, as teeny tiny people, have against corruption in the government. This ideology keeps us from being accused of random things that may be preposterous because the burden of proof is on the accuser and not the accused. While the flaws may exist in this type of system for the majority of law-abiding citizens (which I believe most people are) it is the best system and the government should promote a system that is best for the majority.
To wrap up on my tangents I believe Google's unwillingness to comply blindly with a random request for information is correct. The government has rights to information for its purposes in some cases but just because somebody in a suit asks for my SSN doesn't mean I'm going to bend over and give it to them. Private information is private. Public information is public. Trying to get to information you are not entitled to and getting a subpoena later when you still don't need the information makes me picture Uncle Sam more like Nephew Sammy with a bottle, a shaker and a tantrum...please let me be wrong.
posted by djburgie at 6:25 AM
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