Robert Kuttner: The patriots at Google are watching you

[billr]

By Robert Kuttner
American Prospect

The New York Times recently reported that in a North Carolina strangulation-murder trial, prosecutors introduced as evidence the fact that the defendant's Google searches had included the words "neck" and "snap." The Times noted that the evidence had come from the defendant's home computer, but could just as easily have come from Google.

Google's business model includes keeping track of users' searches by putting "cookies" (tracking devices) on users' own computers and then using the results to customize ad offerings that pop up when we use their ingenious free search service.

In the era of the misnamed USA PATRIOT Act, which allows warrantless police searches that are not even disclosed to the target, Google plus Dick Cheney is a recipe for undoing the liberties for which the original patriots of the American Revolution bled and died. Under the PATRIOT Act, anyone suspected of enabling terrorism can be subjected to these fishing expeditions. Depending on a prosecutor's whims, that includes all of us....

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10688