US demands Google provide search data

This needs to be known by everyone on internet.

US government demands Google hand over Internet search data


The US Department of Justice has asked a federal judge in San Jose, California, to compel Internet search giant Google to comply with a subpoena issued last year to turn over records that detail millions of Internet searches.

Google denied requests for the data, while rivals Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL have all handed over records to government lawyers, who claim they need the data to bolster claims that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) does not violate the Constitution. The act was introduced by the Clinton administration in 1998 under the auspices of protecting children from online pornography. It established criminal penalties for any commercial distribution of material harmful to minors. The legislation was suspended a year later after a successful suit by the American Civil Liberties Union and others claiming the act violated the constitutional right to free speech.

Like all such legislation, its scope was far broader than its supposed target, making it an offense for web sites to post material deemed “harmful to minors,” which, as civil rights campaigners said at the time, could criminalize sites of some art galleries and book stores.

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