You've got jail!

[Guest guest]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/01/25/EDG\

HCGRV7O1.DTL

 

 

You've got jail!

- Robert Scheer

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

 

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 which, like and MSN, but not Google, has

readily agreed to let you government snoops scrutinize the search

words and results from their online search-engine data archives. If

AOL is going to let the federal government know where I've been, they

should admit they 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.)

 

OK, for the time being, the Bush administration claims that it won't

try to connect my name, or yours, with the massive bits of raw data it

is demanding from the companies with the most popular search engines.

Apparently, it is seeking evidence to prove that online porn is very

popular and easily accessible as part of a last-ditch lawsuit to

implement the 1998 Child Online Protection Act blocked by the courts.

 

I'm not sure that proving the popularity of pornography is going to

make the case for censoring it, but the point here today is my extreme

discomfort with the Justice Department's cozy relationship with online

giants such as Microsoft and AOL, who already know way, way too much

about how we as individuals use the Internet. Why should I trust the

Justice Department any more than I trust the NSA bugging phone calls

and scanning e-mails without warrants, or Homeland Security looking

for terrorists by scrutinizing bookstore purchases and library checkouts?

 

The 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 the bottom line. In the

world of high-tech privacy, companies such as AOL are also two-timers,

collecting data on 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, and Microsoft are sliding

down a slippery slope, unconvincingly claiming 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 questionable searches such as " growing marijuana " and

" 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 is the government's nose under the search-engine's tent, " said

Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. " If

companies like Google respond to this kind of subpoena ... I don't see

why the next subpoena might not say, 'Give us what we asked for the

last time -- plus a little more.' "

 

Fortunately, Google, the latest high-tech upstart giant, dared to

challenge the government's claim of an unbridled right to break into

our information-age virtual homes. While avoiding the privacy argument

as the others did because individual IP addresses were not requested

at this time, Google forthrightly sounded the alarm on government

arrogance.

 

" Google is not a party to this lawsuit and (the DOJ's) demand for

information overreaches, " said a company statement. The subpoena is

" overbroad, unduly burdensome, vague and intended to harass, " argued a

company lawyer.

 

Whether Google's motivation is moral or simply concern about the

bottom line, it is a good thing it has the corporate guts to resist an

administration that is addicted to overreaching.

 

As for the guardians of my data over at Time Warner's AOL, I can only

hope that when the thought police take their information demands to

the next level, that AOL will back up my plea that it was merely a

slip of the mouse that hyperlinked me to that Victoria's Secret

catalog, and not verboten lust.

 

E-mail Robert Scheer at rscheer.

 

 

URL:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/01/25/EDGHCGR\

V7O1.DTL

©2006 San Francisco Chronicle