Google Alert

Better think twice next time you try to Google something. Big brother is trying to watch you.

From the American Progress Action Fund:

PRIVACY -- GOOGLE GOES TO COURT TODAY TO DEFEND USERS' PRIVACY RECORDS: Google heads to a San Jose federal court today to defends its customers' privacy records. The Justice Department lawyers asked the company in January "to turn over millions of users' search requests and one million randomly selected Web site addresses within 21 days of a court decision." Google resisted the subpoena on the grounds that supplying the government with the information would violate users' privacy. Google is also resisting the move because it fears that the records could expose trade secrets on how its search service works. The government, on the other hand, is seeking the information to buttress its defense of the Child Online Protection Act, a federal law that has been designed to keep children from sexually explicit content on the Internet. The Supreme Court previously blocked implementation of that act. "This case comes at a time when people are starting to recognize that the information they put into their computers creates a record," said Lauren Gelman, associate director of Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society. To what extent those records can be demanded by -- and turned over to --the government will be central question for the court. "The government is not entitled to go on a fishing expedition through millions of Google searches any time it wants, just because it claims
that it needs that information," said ACLU staff attorney Aden Fine.