Google Says Gov Clueless, ACLU Jumps in Case

Google made an official response [PDF] to the Government's Motion to Compel, being unafraid to call it how the saw it:

In one particularly scathing section, Google's lawyers ridiculed the government's belief that a list of search requests would help it understand the behavior of Web surfers.

"This statement is so uninformed as to be nonsensical," the lawyers wrote.

The ACLU is also getting in on the case:

"If the government utilizes the information in any manner, we're very likely going to need to do follow-up discovery," ACLU attorney Aden Fine said.

A legal brief the ACLU filed with a federal judge in San Jose, Calif., on Friday says its request would seek to learn how Google's search engines operate, how Google serves up links in response to queries and whether there is "any way to distinguish between queries generated by actual individuals and queries generated by artificial programs or software."

So if Google gives the government ANY data ACLU wants their algorithms to be public knowledge. THAT would rock a few boats.

SEW has great background on the case.