Feds Want To See Google Searches.

Apparently, they want to see how many times I looked up "barely legal plushie hentai" this week (Seventeen times, if you have to ask. Hint: always use quotes in your Google searches).

From the A.P.:

The government wants a list all requests entered into Google's search engine during an unspecified single week — a breakdown that could conceivably span tens of millions of queries. In addition, it seeks 1 million randomly selected Web addresses from various Google databases.

In court papers that the San Jose Mercury News reported on after seeing them Wednesday, the Bush administration depicts the information as vital in its effort to restore online child protection laws that have been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Search engines now play such an important part in our daily lives that many people probably contact Google more often than they do their own mother," said Thomas Burke, a San Francisco attorney who has handled several prominent cases involving privacy issues.

Anyway, this doesn't really rub me all that badly. I mean, it's not like Uncle Sam will discover my personal searching habits from this information. Google could, of course, be at risk for losing some of its trade secrets, but even that argument is rather specious. Personally, if one wants to complain about the lack of privacy in America, I'd look at the United States government long after I looked at other, worse, candidates: credit bureaus, insurance companies, and the Scientologists.

Okay, I made that last one up. Just wanted to see if everyone was still awake here.