[Clips] Yahoo admits it let White House access its databases

[R. A. Hettinga]

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  Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 15:39:15 -0500
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  From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
  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 <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
  The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
  44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
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-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
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'