PrintJanuary 18, 2010
Who's Watching the Climategate Gatekeepers?
Who would have thought you couldn't trust a search engine in America?
Back in 2005, the U.S. Justice Department asked several internet companies to supply data that would help in the development of law enforcement techniques that were intended to protect children from online indecency and worse. Because no identifiable individual information would be supplied, but only raw statistical data such as anonymous search requests and website addresses, all companies complied -- except Google. Google sanctimoniously contended that its compliance would impose on the privacy of would-be molesters.
Google took a stand against censorship, saying such compliance to help the Child Online Protection Act would have a "chilling effect". However, in 2006, Google quickly complied with blatant censorship in China, setting up a blacklist of forbidden sites not to be seen by Chinese citizens. It seems the "warming effect" of profits from China can outweigh the chilling effects of censorship. Now that China is hacking Google for information -- and thereby stealing trade secrets -- Google, like Claude Rains in Casablanca, is shocked! shocked! that it has been a party to censorship in China.
Now, Google's pièce de résistance of hypocrisy: Climategate. In a January 16th article in the National Post entitled "Better off with Bing", Lawrence Solomon documents a devastating statistical account of how Google censored news accounts of Climategate.
Has Google invested heavily in "green" anti global warming technologies? Google has close ties with Al Gore and Obama. Anyone looking for information on Climategate is directed to links critical of Climategate and no suggestions for it. Rather than doing injustice to the great work of Lawrence Solomon by trying to recount the specifics, I would direct you to the article itself. Better to cut and past the link as I would advise not using Google to look for it.
