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Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 15:39:15 -0500
To: Philodox Clips List
From: "R. A. Hettinga"
Subject: [Clips] Yahoo admits it let White House access its databases
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-10889-2002169-10889,00.html
The Times of London
Times Online
January 20, 2006
Yahoo admits it let White House access its databases
By Jenny Booth and agencies
Yahoo has admitted that it granted the US Government access to its search
engine's databases this summer, as a battle develops over the right to
privacy in cyberspace.
Google, by contrast, promised last night to fight vigorously the Bush
Administration's demand to know what millions of people have been looking
up on the internet.
It emerged this week that the White House issued subpoenas to a number of
US-based search engines this summer, asking to see what information the
public had accessed in a two-month period. It said that it needed the
information in order to help create online child protection laws.
But Google refused to comply with its subpoena - prompting the US Attorney
General this week to ask a federal judge in San Jose for an order to hand
over the requested records. Details of the confrontation emerged after the
San Jose Mercury News reported seeing the court papers on Wednesday.
At the heart of the battle is the potential for online databases to become
tools for government surveillance.
Yahoo has stressed that it didn't reveal any personal information. "We are
rigorous defenders of our users' privacy," Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako
said last night. "In our opinion, this is not a privacy issue."
The Google court papers show that the US Government originally asked for a
list of all requests entered into Google's search engine between June 1 and
July 31 last year. When Google argued, the request was whittled down to a
week's worth of search terms - a breakdown that could nonetheless span tens
of millions of queries. In addition, the White House has asked for one
million randomly selected Web addresses from various Google databases.
Every other search engine company served similar subpoenas by the Bush
administration has complied so far, according to the court documents.
The co-operating search engines were not identified. Microsoft's MSN, the
third-most used search engine, has declined to say whether it received a
subpoena. "MSN works closely with law enforcement officials worldwide to
assist them when requested," the company said in a statement.
The US Government says that it is not seeking any data that would allow it
to identify which individual made which search request.
Experts say nonetheless that the subpoena raises serious privacy concerns,
especially after recent revelations that the White House
authorised civilian phone-taps after the September 11 attacks without
obtaining court approval.
Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse charity in
California, called the subpoenas "the first shoe dropping" that online
privacy advocates had long feared.
"These search engines are a very tempting target for government and law
enforcement," Givens said. "Look at the millions of people who use search
engines without thinking of the potential to be drawn into a government
drag net."
The subpoenas were a "classic fishing trip" by federal prosecutors, she
added.
Thomas Burke, a San Francisco lawyer who has handled several prominent
privacy cases, said that many people contacted Google more often than they
spoke to their mother. "Just as most people would be upset if the
government wanted to know how much you called your mother and what you
talked about, they should be upset about this, too," he said.
Pam Dixon, executive director for the World Privacy Forum, warned that the
content of search requests sometimes contain information about the person
making the query, such as names, medical profiles or Social Security
information.
"This is exactly the kind of thing we have been worrying about with search
engines for some time," Dixon said. "Google should be commended for
fighting this." She warned people to be careful what personal information
they entered into search engines.
The Department of Justice argues that Google's cooperation is essential in
its effort to simulate how people navigate the web. In a separate case in
Pennsylvania, the Bush Administration is trying to prove that internet
filters do not do an adequate job of preventing children from accessing
online pornography and other objectionable destinations.
Obtaining the subpoenaed information from Google "would assist the
government in its efforts to understand the behavior of current web users,
(and) to estimate how often web users encounter harmful-to-minors material
in the course of their searches," the Justice Department wrote in its court
petition.
Google issued a statement last night promising to fight the case. "Google
is not a party to this lawsuit and their demand for information
overreaches," wrote Nicole Wong, Google's associate general counsel. "We
had lengthy discussions with them to try to resolve this, but were not able
to and we intend to resist their motion vigorously."
But Google's vigorous defence of privacy rights in the face of demands from
the US government is apparently at odds with the search engine's stance in
China.
There, human rights activists have complained that Google collaborates with
the Chinese government, which controls the activities of its 111 million
web surfers with one of the most stifling internet censorship policies in
the world.
Google is locked in competition for the lucrative Chinese market, along
with Yahoo and MSN, and the homegrown Chinese search engine Baidu.com.
All the US companies have been criticised for censoring news sites, search
engines and weblogs that China's communist government considers subversive
or obscene. For example, a web user in China who tried to search Google or
Yahoo for subjects such as democracy and human rights would find nothing in
his search results.
There was outrage in September when it emerged that Yahoo had supplied
details to the Chinese authorities of the personal e-mail account of Shi
Tao, a 37-year-old journalist. He was found guilty of "spreading state
secrets" and jailed for 10 years, for forwarding to a foreign website a
Chinese government circular banning the media from reporting the 15th
anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
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R. A. Hettinga
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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R. A. Hettinga
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'