Google refusing to hand over records to White House

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The Bush administration, in an attempt to revive an Internet child protection law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, has asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over some material from its databases. Google, when issued a subpoena for the material last year, refused to turn it over.

The subpoena includes a request for one million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period. Google has refused to comply because of concerns over the privacy rights of its search engine users and concerns over protection of its trade secrets.

The Supreme Court, in striking down the Child Online Protection Act, said that its reach was too broad and may indeed prevent some adults from accessing legal pornography sites. The court then gave the government a choice between developing a narrower law or defending the Constitutionality of the one struck down.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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