Google is latest victim of government intrusion

This weekend, a federal judge denied part of the Justice Department’s request for the popular Internet search engine Google to turn over files that would have given the government insight into who searches for what on the Web. It’s yet another example of a government that is quickly leaving notions such as “we the people” behind and replacing those notions with a society in which only the government’s rights are absolute.

It is hard to imagine a world in which one could not type something into the search window that is now ubiquitous in many popular Web browsers and have an instantaneous stream of knowledge and data returned within a matter of seconds. “Googling it” has become synonymous with conducting Web research. What could be more basic than the inhabitants of a free and democratic society having such unbarred access to information?

The judge presiding over the case said in his ruling he felt there were “privacy concerns” and would therefore not entirely rule in favor of the Justice Department. The verdict did, however, call for 50,000 Web addresses to be handed over to the government.

In this particular case, the Justice Department asked Google and other Internet-based companies to hand over search-related data in order to stifle Internet pornography, particularly pedophilia.

Stopping pedophilia is definitely a cause that’s worthy of the Justice Department’s time. Who wouldn’t want perverse exploitation of children to stop? But while the intentions behind this request were probably honorable, the idea of the U.S. government having the right to know what its citizens are doing on the Web is dubious at best and scary at worst.
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American debtors must find a new capitalism

Capitalism has long been a cornerstone of the “American Dream.” A system based on the flow of money that gives everyone the same chance to own that house in the suburbs, picket fences and all, which Americans secretly crave - or so they are told. But it is becoming increasingly obvious that unchecked capitalism can be quite detrimental to society, as it is beginning to seriously hamper that “pursuit of happiness” it was said to bring.

Historically, America will not budge when it comes to protecting its right to capitalism. The United States spent trillions of dollars and quite a share of human lives in its battle against communism during the Cold War era. U.S. officials justified the expenses similarly to how they now frantically try to justify the expanding cost of the war in Iraq: America needs to fight for freedom throughout the world.

But the opposite is true. An increasing number of Americans are in debt, especially students. Financial aid is being cut while tuition is rising, leading to record numbers of students in debt, a large amount of which is credit card debt.

At the same time, the government has actively catered to the credit card companies and made it harder for individuals to declare bankruptcy. This leaves credit card companies reaping profits while the people elected to represent citizens’ interests sell off their rights. How is that for taxation without representation?

Most of these individuals would hardly say they are “free,” as they are trapped in paying off credit card bills and the like. Suddenly, paying the rent or buying groceries becomes so hard that goals the individual meant to pursue are no longer feasible.

Yet after the attacks of Sept. 11, President George W. Bush famously announced in an address to Congress that if citizens want to help the United States prevail, they should go shopping.

This was evidenced in the case of General Motors. After GM initially announced late last year that it would lay off 30,000 workers - about 22 percent of its remaining workforce in North America, according to CNNMoney.com - and close nine of its factories in the United States, the corporation’s stock went up for the first time in months.

After this, 30,000 Americans faced the grim prospect of not only being unemployed, but also having to worry about future retirement benefits getting cut. Yet the financial market celebrated the event - and by buying into the company’s stock, it even indirectly profits from GM’s grim fate.

But who could be surprised by this if even one of the most basic ways of measuring “progress,” - the gross domestic product - has a blind spot for unsustainable models? Combining a country’s total consumption, investment, government spending and exports, but subtracting imports usually computes the GDP. The value usually used as a representation of a country’s economic health gives no indication about sustainability. If Saudi Arabia were to sell all the oil it has at once, its GDP would shoot through the roof. But what then? A war can also raise the GDP. Germany’s per capita GDP went up after WWII, when the country recovered after being bombed to bits by allied forces - but is hardly something America should strive for.

Another increasing problem is that many individual corporations now own every aspect of a product’s path to a consumer. They no longer only make a product and sell it to a wholesaler; they now also have the means to hype the product on media outlets they own and sell the product in its own stores. This concept of vertical integration means a corporation makes more profit and can more effectively corner a market and freeze the competition even more.

Ironically, vertical integration is also one character trait of communist regimes, the key difference being that in a capitalist model, the company is privately owned. In effect, capitalism is even worse than a communist setting as the private company has no duty to the common good, only a duty to its shareholders.

Capitalism, or rather Americans’ understanding of it, will therefore have to change, as the way it exists in today is unsustainable. While nobody would argue that the model should be abandoned altogether, America needs to re-evaluate how it allows capitalism to control its citizens’ lives before the country creates a new way of feudalism in which corporations take the role of nobility or landowners of the past.

Sebastian Meyer is a senior majoring in political geography and is a former Oracle opinion editor.

Bush’s India trip

Just saw this caption under a photo depicting the mauhem and protests surrounding President Bush’s trip to India in the St. Petersburg Times:

As the president tries diplomacy, protesters chant “Death to Bush” and hold a mock funeral.

I know what you are thinking: He is trying diplomacy?