The Government Wants to Oogle My Googles

As soon as I read the title that said "Do you care if the government knows what you Google," a red flag popped up in my head and that red flag was addressed later in the article. This red flag is the issue of privacy and free speech. There is no way to sugarcoat this desire of the government to make peoples' searches their business. It is an intrusion of the first amendment.

I'm torn, though. I recognize that the government has some very practical reasons for monitoring the sites that people search on a daily basis. They want to protect our nation from foreign threat and, as such, the Bush administration has been conducting domestic eavesdropping post 9/11. I have to admit, if the government eavesdrops and finds out that a terrorist is planning an attack of some kind and this is a way of catching said terrorist then I'm all for it. I would rather have the government know what research I'm doing then have a loved one be affected by a foreign attack of some kind. I also think that the government should intervene when it comes to sexually explicit websites involving children. These sick people need to be discovered and serious consequences must be enforced.

I think it's sad that our privacy has to be infringed upon, but the fact remains that there are legitimate reasons for the government to monitor what people are looking at on the internet. If you're not doing anything wrong (looking at illegal websites, creating illegal websites, etc), then you should have nothing to be ashamed of. For the good of the masses, I guess we'll just have to let the government oogle our googles. :)