Are you hiding something?

This is being written about all over the ‘net, but it is so disturbing — and how this has added to my continued outrage over domestic surveillance and its threat to our privacy — that I felt compelled to be yet another blogger posting about it.

According to a San Jose Mercury News article this morning, “Yahoo, Microsoft and America Online all complied with a government request for data on consumers’ Web searches, a Justice Department official said Thursday.

Court documents and sources maintain the information did not compromise users’ privacy.

But Google has refused to accede to government’s demand, and on Wednesday the Bush administration asked a San Jose federal judge to force the Mountain View search company to comply with the subpoena.”

Hallelujiah Google.

According to a Justice Department spokesman, Charles Miller, “My understanding is we were seeking what keywords are put in and URLs. Nothing personal.”

Come on…let’s get real. What’s going to happen if they match multiple inquiries to a given user’s IP address? Think that will be “just cause” to get a warrant and go after a given searcher if, say, they were going to child porn sites? Oh yeah I forgot…the government doesn’t need warrants anymore and — similiar to dissenter’s patriotism being called in to question after 9/11 — anyone fighting this will undoubtedly be painted as “siding with the pornographers and are against safeguarding our children.”

You’d better hope that your search history, web sites you’ve visited, library books you’ve checked out, non-cash purchases you’ve made, organizations you belong to, cell or phone calls you’ve made (all subject to tracking and being data-mined) couldn’t possibly provide just cause to law enforcement to come after you.

You’ve got nothing to hide, right?