Convicted in 1994 of sexually assaulting a young boy, John Henry Skillern of Texas once again finds himself incarcerated and awaiting trial, this time for possession and production of child pornography.<\/p>\n
Skillern\u2019s arrest comes courtesy of Google. Few, I expect, will shed tears for Skillern with respect to his alleged sexual predations. Nonetheless his case once more brings Google into the privacy spotlight, this time as an arm of \u201claw enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Google makes no secret of the fact that it \u201canalyzes content\u201d in emails sent and received by users of its Gmail service, mostly for purposes of targeting advertising to users most likely to click thru and buy things. That\u2019s how Google makes money \u2013 tracking users of its \u201cfree\u201d services, watching what they do, selling those users\u2019 eyeballs to paying customers.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also understood by most that Google will, as its privacy policy states, \u201cshare personal information \u2026 [to] meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.\u201d If the cops come a-knocking with a warrant or some asserted equivalent, Google cooperates with search and seizure of your stored information and records of your actions.<\/p>\n