Don't Google Al Qaeda

Eye in the Sky

A couple of years ago, in the heady days after 9/11 and our nation's jingoistic response, I was reading news on the computer and got curious about Al Qaeda. I can't remember the specifics of my curiosity, but I started to google them.

While I was trying to remember the proper spelling--my English-educated mind always wants to insert a "u" after the "Q," but that always ends up looking like a brand of nacho cheese--my fingers suddenly froze. "Don't google Al Qaeda," I thought, "it will put you on a watch list somewhere." I carefully deleted each letter from the search box and quietly closed the browser window. It was like Eric Stoltz's character in Pulp Fiction after he hung up the phone on John Travolta, shouting, "Wrong number! Wrong number!"

Later I cursed myself for either being paranoid or chickenshit. It turns out I was chickenshit.

Our Dear Leader signed a presidential order in 2002 allowing the NSA to sift through telephone calls and e-mail messages inside the United States, in clear violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. And now, even while they deal with the potential political damage of this revelation (note that I say "potential," since it remains to be seen if Americans care about spying within their own country), the administration is now pressing Google and other search engines to provide data about searches. This is, supposedly, in reference to a anti-porn law that has already been struck down by the Supreme Court.

Give up your search queries. Think of the children!

Anyone who trusts this administration to be dealing above board is a goddamn moron. Nearly everything they've done conclusively demonstrated their collective avarice, incompetence, or both.