Feds Seek to Oogle Your Google

More data-mining, this time in the name of protecting the children. (Heavens, Myrtle! We’ve got to protect the children!)

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.

Dear Government,

It’s, like, 99% of the time. Because 99% of internet searches are for porn. That’s just a guesstimate, but I think it’s a pretty good one. If all you need to know is how often porn shows up, just go with that and save us all your bull-headed intrusion.

Love,
Shakespeare’s Sister

Meanwhile, Google is refusing to comply. (Good on ya, Google!) They have promised to vigorously fight the government’s request for 1 million random web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period. The government claims that it requires the records in its ongoing effort to defend the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act (struck down as unconstitutional in 2004), which they argue is “far more effective than software filters in protecting children from porn.” But, gee—I thought that conservatives believed that the government wasn’t supposed to operate as everyone’s nanny, and that the market will solve all of our problems. How can it be that the government will do a better job protecting children from the horrors of naked people than their own parents? Than the corporations who develop online filters?

Hmm. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that the law is so broad it could easily prevent adults from accessing legal porn sites, too. What a conundrum.

The King of Zembla notes: “No word yet on how the DoJ plans to ascertain which Google porn searches were typed in by minors as opposed to, say, John Ashcroft.“