The Justice Department’s decision to seek a court order forcing Google to turn over one million random Web addresses and the records of all Google searches from a one-week period isn’t just overbroad and unnecessary, in my humble opinion, it’s also dumb politics.
Take this reaction from “Good Morning Silicon Valley,” a popular blog run by SiliconValley.com: “What if we promise not to show the records to Karl Rove?” John Paczkowski, the blogger, adds, “Here’s hoping the company prevails. The release of such records sets a truly unsettling precedent. And if the goverment’s claim that other, unspecified search engines have already agreed to release similar information proves true, we have already lost our footing on a very slippery, very dangerous slope.”