Google, Hero

Today a study revealed that 56 percent of Americans favor Google in its fight to keep Big Brother's hands off your search information. More frightening, 90 percent of Americans believed their searches were private. I won't debate the wisdom of Google retaining the information, after all, they need demographic information to sell their advertisements and make their money. I will praise them for their decision to fight the Government. Forty-0ne percent said they would stop using Google if it acquiesced. They should immediately stop using Yahoo and MSN Search. Those search engines already have.

Strange how the fight against Big Brother takes on a whole new meaning when it's the individual involved. After all, everyone uses Google, right? When it's some nebulously defined group of individuals placing overseas calls to Al-Qaida (do they answer the phone, in Arabic, of course, Al-Qaida, how may I help you?), the numbers change - it no longer involve me, right? What doesn't change is the principle of Big Brother as personified by the Bush administration and Republicans who turn a blind eye to his criminal behavior getting his hands on your personal information without you knowing it. The searches will not stop at a few individuals making calls to Al-Qaida. Are registered Democrats next? Here's a news flash for those of you who support domestic spying: Those big white golf balls at Buckley AFB and Mildenhall, England can intercept far more than a few select phone calls and the computers that analyze the signals must do far more than filter out a select few calls, after all, they have to pick out whatever words are on the watch list. Don't say your baby made a dirty bomb in his diaper, for God's sake! Since our Democratic senators couldn't penetrate Alito's wall of obfuscation, I'll let you in on something. If confirmed, his vote will go to King George the Fratboy and your personal data will be open for, well, just about anything.

Ultimately, there is little difference between mining of Google's data for porn surfers and mining the national telephone system for calls to Al-Qaida. Both involve intrusions into a person's private sphere, the sphere the Fourth Amendment of the document the George referred to as a piece of paper (proving, again, his ignorance: It's written on parchment) is designed to protect. King George the Obfuscator has already claimed the right to tap your phone calls because, well, because he wants to. He has the right to search your house without a warrant thanks to the Patriot Act. His Justice Department is now seeking the right to search your search engine records. Confirming Alito is another diamond in King George the Torturer's crown, another loss of your civil liberties all packaged up in legal mumbo-jumbo and well reasoned rationalizations of his radical right-wing position. He will support King George and Roberts will crown him.