Google is endeavoring to fight a government subpoena of its records. They are to be commended for their determination to resist yet more government fishing expeditions into the private lives of American citizens.
Nowadays whenever the government strives to intrude into everyday life, two reasons are cited: It’s to fight terrorists, or it’s to protect the children. In this instance, it’s the latter, as the government is endeavoring to crack down on child pørņ. As always happens in these cases, if one defends a privacy right or a right of free expression, those in opposition try to paint you as immoral: “Don’t you care about keeping America safe?” “Don’t you care about protecting innocent children?” The answer of course is, Sure I do. I just don’t believe that the government should be able to do any dámņëd thing it wants in that pursuit, especially when it sets precedents for being more trampling on rights of the individual.
You know what’s interesting? This administration automatically believes that desiring a right to privacy is tantamount to masking wrong-doing (“If you’re having conversations with Al Quaeda, we want to know about it,” said Bush in his loopy disconnected way of justifying his impeachable action of illegal wiretaps). This is also one of the most secretive administrations around. Do they assume wrong-doing on the parts of others who want their privacy…because they themselves are up to no good, and thus assume that anyone who wants to maintain their privacy likewise is?
In any event, kudos to google for taking a stand. Google has done nothing illegal. If one is throwing about subpoenas, one should at least have SOME shred of proof that the person being subpoenaed deserves it.
PAD
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Oh, I agree, it’s just that the stories usually don’t age well. You read some of the MArvel and DC stuff from the 60s that tried to be topical and you want to laugh (of course “I Am Curious, Black” was funny even in 1970) http://millionaireplayboy.com/comics/blacklois2.php
You could say the same of some of those old Star Trek episodes that tried to make commentary on the cold war, such a the one were Klingons were arming primitive aliens with flintlock rifles.
Political messages often do have a short shelf life. That’s the price you pay for trying to be topical.
But that Lois becomes a black woman story had to have looked stupide even back then.
Then there are all those WW II comics that are dripping with racism by today’s standards. Imagine if the comics industry responded to 9/11 with covers like this:
http://www.superdickery.com/propaganda/54.html
Star Trek, good example. I’d say by and large the really overt episodes have aged terribly…Frank Gorshwin with his face half white shoe polish, half black shoe polish…
hey, since Prozacman brought up Politicians Saying Stupid Things–Here’s Chuck Shumer:
“No one’s going to take a back seat to Democrats on fighting a tough war on terror.”
-U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, CNN, January 22, 2006
Kind of reminds me about that Captain America line “Only one of us is going to leave this room alive… And it’s not going to be me!”
Star Trek, good example. I’d say by and large the really overt episodes have aged terribly…Frank Gorshwin with his face half white shoe polish, half black shoe polish…
Oh come on, that one must have been thought ham-fisted even at the time. That episode’s real problem was its general crappiness; if it were written well, it would still be interesting. (The Klingon/Federation quasi-Vietnam episode was actually pretty good, by contrast.) Compare it to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. The Red Scare isn’t still an issue, but paranoia is as endemic to human beings as xenophobia, so a well-written play still resonates.
// Star Trek, good example. I’d say by and large the really overt episodes have aged terribly…Frank Gorshwin with his face half white shoe polish, half black shoe polish… //
Have to disagree, I just watched the entire orignal series on DVD recently and was amazed by how well the series as a whole holds up. Sure, three are some episodes that are downright silly, (Spock’s Brain) and some that seem overly simplist in thier “message” (the Frank Gorswin one), and there are bits that are bizzare in morden context, (computers that smoke and explode when you confuse thier programs), and slightly sexist, (Kirk openly oogling his female subordinates) but for the most part the stories still hold up. In fact they hold up much better then a lot of other shows from that same era, and even better then a lot of shows that followed (Including a lot of the first 2-3 seasons of the Next Generation).
Even some of the cold war specific ones, hold up as good stories. The allogories may not be as strong as they once were but the stories still work as stories. And the acting and the production values are not as bad as you might think, in fact they’re pretty damm good.
It’s become common to knock Shatner’s acting but a lot of what people knock him for did not show up till later in his career. In the context of TV acting of that time Shatner was pretty darn good. If you don’t think so you may want to grab some other TV shows of that era, (Remember back then TV was still realitivly new, TV acting was seen as a step down from movie acting, (as movie acting was once seen as a step down from the stage), very often the really great actors wouldn’t take jobs on TV, TV being beneath them).
Simularly the production values are pretty damm good. Of course the special effects aren’t as good as we could do now, but then the car my dad was driving in 66 is no where near as good as the Civic Hybird I drive now, so what. In the context of the time Trek effects were just fine, as good as, or better then a lot of other TV shows. And the set designs, with thier primary colors and smooth looks were great, for more appealing to look at then any of the sequal shows.
// Oh, I agree, it’s just that the stories usually don’t age well. You read some of the MArvel and DC stuff from the 60s that tried to be topical and you want to laugh (of course “I Am Curious, Black” was funny even in 1970) http://millionaireplayboy.com/comics/blacklois2.php //
It depends entirly on the story and the issue being explored. Marvel just issued a trade of Steve Engelhart’s Captain America stories which deal with Watergate, (can’t get much more tied to specific time then that) and they hold up just fine, in fact the most dated part of them is some of the “black power” attitudes of the Falcoln and his girlfriend, which just seems so 1970’s. The Watergate stuff works perfectly in a modern context.
OTOH the much acclaimed much reprinted Green Lantern/Green Arrow series seems incredibly dated. Great art but painfully dated stories and attitudes.
It all depends.
// Then there are all those WW II comics that are dripping with racism by today’s standards. Imagine if the comics industry responded to 9/11 with covers like this:
http://www.superdickery.com/propaganda/54.html
//
OTOH after 911 I suggested on-line that Marvel and Alex Ross should get together and do a poster recreation of Captain America #1 with Osama standing in for Hitler. I was told by various posters that such a poster would be offensive to “good” Muslims. Could you imagine if Jack Kirby thought “will this be offensive to “good” Germans” when he drew the original? The WWII comics you refer to were to far in one direction, but it is possible to go to far in the other direction.
Please don’t get me wrong, I love Star Trek. And I agree that many of Trek Classic’s episodes compare favorably with TNG, for much the reason’s I gave–I think they were trying too hard to do “message” episodes in those first few seasons of Next Generation. When they switched to concentrating on ripping good yarns the show got much better.
Just for the record.. Peter and I couldn’t be further apart on the political spectrum. It’s quite likely that he’d say “left” and I’d say “right” just out of habit, and then argue points back and forth all day. The only thing we could probably agree on is to disagree.
But I’ve rarely read a PAD novel that I didn’t enjoy, and am quick to recommend him as a good read in the same breath Joe Straczynski, Michael Crichton, or Harlan Ellison.
I don’t post on Peter’s blog because I like being flamed [quite the contrary, actually.] I do so because I like the verbal sparring. I like to go back, argue a point I think is right, have someone argue back… that’s a great thing.
It’s when it degrades down to being called names, insults, and being cussed at in general that I find myself less and less interested in posting any kind of comment.
RLR
I am currently reading an ongoing story arc in Fables concerning “Arab” Fables (Sinbad etc.). I have to say its attitude towards Arabs seems to be very sterotypic and simplistic. The Bad arabs are primitive and fanatic, the good ones readily adopt western values.
This is the first time this comic disappointed me.
// The Bad arabs are primitive and fanatic, the good ones readily adopt western values. //
As compared to the real world where bad arabs live in caves, make thier woman wear beekeeper suits and declare holy war on anyone who doesn’t agree with them.
I heard an excellent point while listening to Air America the other day: if it’s true that the terrorists “hate us for our freedoms”, why are so many Americans willing to give those freedoms away?
“As compared to the real world where bad arabs live in caves, make thier woman wear beekeeper suits and declare holy war on anyone who doesn’t agree with them.”
I’m sorry, but this is exactly the kind of way of looking at the world that gives Americans a bad name.
The real world is much more complicated.
Anyway, the burquas (beekeeper suits) are an afghani thing, and not even all of them. And it is not always that they are forced to wear them, just as we don’t force our women to wear what they wear. Some muslim women around the world cover their heads, necks, and sometimes faces and body in different ways. The caves obviously have more to do with being terrorists than Arabs or Muslims. And the holy war is not because of freedom or disagreement about something, it is because in the twisted point of view of radical Islamists the west is attacking them. Although, being fundementalists, they would like to go back to the days when Muslims were conquering empires and promoting Islam.
“I heard an excellent point while listening to Air America the other day: if it’s true that the terrorists “hate us for our freedoms”, why are so many Americans willing to give those freedoms away?”
Because, like with anything that is given to you, rather than earned, most Americans don’t understand the value of the freedoms that past generations were willing to die for, in order to secure for them for us. Very, very few people living today have any memory of a true fight against an enemy that posed a realistic threat to our very culture, way of life, ideals, etc. Sure, we’ve been engaged in conflicts that threatened the lives of our soldiers, and we live in a world where we know that, even in our own homes, we’re not totally beyond the reach of those that want to kill us.
But there’s no administration that presents a serious threat to our very way of life. Other than our own government. And people seem willing to just hand over power and authority to that government, all in the name of safety. Because they don’t understand what it took to get those powers out of the hands of the government in the first place.
I know it’s been said before, but I feel the need to say it again since so many people seem to be not reading it…
This move by the Bush administration has absolutely nothing to do with child pørņ. There is already an abundance of FBI agents arresting people for that offence against humanity on a daily basis.
This proposed legislation is about preventing kids from searching up regular old legal pørņ that us adults are so apparently fond of.
That having been said, I hope google isn’t forced to actually give up the information. The Bush people are trying to make a point at the expense of privacy. Google isn’t on trial here, and to pull them into it for no other reason then to be able to twist some more random numbers so the Bush Administration can make them sound any way they want… it’s just plain sad.
This proposed legislation is about preventing kids from searching up regular old legal pørņ that us adults are so apparently fond of.
First of all, it’s not proposed legislation, it’s a subpoena. Second, so they find out lots of people are googling pørņ? Then what? How do they determine whether it was an adult or a child who was sitting at the computer when the search was initiated? Is the next step to order google to block pørņ from their search engines?
In other news, while defending his “I Spy on America” program, Bush says we should take bin Laden’s threats seriously.
Apparently Bush has decided bin Laden is important after all… when he needs to push a plan for further eroding personal liberties and such.
// “As compared to the real world where bad arabs live in caves, make thier woman wear beekeeper suits and declare holy war on anyone who doesn’t agree with them.”
I’m sorry, but this is exactly the kind of way of looking at the world that gives Americans a bad name. //
Actually, proving to the world that you are so PC you can’t even take a pretty straight forward joke is the type of thing that gives Americans a bad name. I mean come on, if we were talking about protrayals of Germans in comics and someone complained about how all the bad Germans seems to be Facist and the Good Germans wern’t, and I replied “As compared to the real world where all the bad Germans were Nazi’s and the good Germans got the hëll out and moved to America before they ended up in camps” would anyone have even noticed, never mind found it offensive.
// The real world is much more complicated. //
Sometimes, and sometimes the real world is really simple. People who make thier woman wear beekeeper suits, stone them when they don’t comply, then blow up innocent people who don’t agree with thier political and/or religious POV, are bad guys. There’s no shades or gray there.
// Anyway, the burquas (beekeeper suits) are an afghani thing, and not even all of them. And it is not always that they are forced to wear them, just as we don’t force our women to wear what they wear. //
Bull!!! Under Taliban rule it was against the law for a Woman to be out in public unless she was wearing a burqua. There was no choice involved. Women were sometimes beaten to death for not following the law, and this was widly reported before 911, when there was no reason for propaganda on the other side.
// The caves obviously have more to do with being terrorists than Arabs or Muslims. //
Um no, they have to do with being Muslim terrorist, are you aware of a non Muslim terrorist organization that lives in caves? (Hydra doens’t count). Lot’s of terror organizations out there, Al Queida is the only one I’m aware of that regularly sends out threatening videotapes made in a cave. And in case you haven’t noticed Al Queida is a Muslim/Arab terrorist group.
// And the holy war is not because of freedom or disagreement about something, it is because in the twisted point of view of radical Islamists the west is attacking them. Although, being fundementalists, they would like to go back to the days when Muslims were conquering empires and promoting Islam. //
So what part of ” “As compared to the real world where bad arabs live in caves, make thier woman wear beekeeper suits and declare holy war on anyone who doesn’t agree with them.” doesn’t apply to them? There might be “good arabs” who live in caves, but by any reasonable definition if they make thier women wear beekeeper suits and declare holy war for any radical reason they are bad guys.
In a comic bad Arabs are primitive and fanatical, in the real world bad Arabs are primitive, (the whole live in cave and beating women who don’t wear beekeeper suits thing is primitive under any reasonable definition) and fanatical. Saying otherwise it just PC BS. (And yes there are lots of shades between good and bad, but obviously I’m talking about the really bad) And this wasn’t a comment on the comic in question, (I haven’t read it), it was just something I thought was funny based on the wording of the original post, I still think it is funny. But in the world of Political Correctness, where sensitivity is elevated above truth, even to the point of absurity, I should have known better.
Regarding Darren’s comments:
As compared to the real world where bad arabs live in caves, make thier woman wear beekeeper suits and declare holy war on anyone who doesn’t agree with them.
And
Bull!!! Under Taliban rule it was against the law for a Woman to be out in public unless she was wearing a burqua. There was no choice involved. Women were sometimes beaten to death for not following the law, and this was widly reported before 911, when there was no reason for propaganda on the other side.
Just for the sake of accuracy, the Taliban and the Afghani people are not Arabs. Not every country that is predominantly Muslim is also Arabic. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Turkey, and many of the Muslim nations of Central Africa and the former Soviet Union are all non-Arabic peoples.
I started my day with a smile this morning. On the Today Show, Katie Couric had Howard Dean as a guest, and she asked him if he thought the American people were tired of the Democrats’ daily mud-slinging at the president and his administration regarding “domestic spying”/”terrorist monitoring” (and probably Google-Gate as well).
Dean, of course said something like “Americans are never tired of hearing about lawbreaking presidents” or somesuch, and then he made my day when he accused the president of being stubborn and headstrong. Isn’t that like a pickpocket calling one of his peers a thief?
Ah, politics. You gotta love it!
Being stubborn and headstrong aren’t totally bad traits…excpet when you remain stubborn and headstrong when you’re very clearly in the wrong.
After all the hysteria, after the NYT publishes an article talking about how some liberals are too afraid to type in certain words into Google…well, here’s the NYT…
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/26/technology/26privacy.html?ei=5090&en=37d114afd9344702&ex=1295931600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
In Case About Google’s Secrets, Yours Are Safe
…But the case itself, according to people involved in it and scholars who are following it, has almost nothing to do with privacy. It will turn, instead, on serious but relatively routine questions about trade secrets and civil procedure.
…In its only extended discussion of its reasons for fighting the subpoena, a Google lawyer told the Justice Department in October that complying would be bad for business. “Google objects,” the lawyer, Ashok Ramani, wrote, “because to comply with the request could endanger its crown-jewel trade secrets.”
…Even Google’s allies are shying away from legal arguments based on privacy. The American Civil Liberties Union, for instance, said it planned to file papers supporting Google. But not on privacy grounds. “We will probably not be making that argument,” said Aden J. Fine, a lawyer with the civil liberties union.
Other Internet search engine companies, including Yahoo, America Online and MSN, have complied with the same Justice Department subpoena, which also sought a random sample of a million Web addresses. The companies all said there were no privacy issues involved.
A Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, agreed. “We specifically stated in our requests,” he said, “that we did not want the names, or any other information, regarding the users of Google.”
Feh. One of these days there really will be some wolves out there but by then who will believe it?
Yes well, this administration has also said that Saddam’s WMD program was a “slam dunk,” that they always get warrants before spying on Americans, and that no one could have imagined that the levees in NO would break.
Excuse me while I take their assertion that they aren’t looking for names at the end of the day with a grain of salt.
Here’s an example of what Google.com(munist) will be like:
copare
http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen
to
http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen
Notice anything missing?
The more I think about it the more pìššëd øff I get. It’s not just the Google is dealing with oppressors; they are actually giving them the tools of oppression. “Do no evil”. Yeah, right.
The more I think about it the more pìššëd øff I get. It’s not just the Google is dealing with oppressors; they are actually giving them the tools of oppression.
Capitalism at it’s best.
Or Communism at it’s best.
Take your pick.
Nobody can control the Internet, but the Chinese are trying their dámņëšŧ.
Good point, Craig. Technically China isn’t a true communist country anymore since they’ve been allowing more private companies to do business, but they’re not a true free market society either.
I’m not sure how Google squares their “do no evil” corporate motto with getting into bed with the Chinese government, but I hope they’re able to sleep at night.
I guess Bill Gates feels the charitable work he and his wife do balances out their karmatic debt for doing the same.