kljpmsd opened this issue on Mar 09, 2015 ยท 254 posts
Morkonan posted Fri, 20 March 2015 at 6:45 PM
On Google and/or ISPs:
Private companies are not Law Enforcement. In fact, while they have a duty to uphold the laws that they operate under, they have no duty to enforce the law in regards to their users or, in some cases, their product. And, if they take action in an effort to become some sort of "law enforcement" or, at the very least, an active "informant", they risk opening themselves up to litigation and embroiling themselves in a region that is frankly not in their domain.
Google removes links from its searches as a "service." It's not doing this in an attempt to act as a law-enforcement agency.
An ISP, during the course of normal network analysis, can issue an alert to a user that they may be engaging in illegal activity or can send such a notice at the request of a third party or, most definitely, at the request of Law Enforcement Authorities.
Any private concern, whether or not its an individual or a company, can report someone for suspected illegal activity to appropriate Law Enforcement agencies.
That a communications company performs certain services or transmits certain communications and warnings does NOT make it a Law Enforcement agency. That being the case, we can't give them attributes like a Law Enforcement Agency and, most certainly, the last thing anyone would want is to be made to rely on search engine providers, ISPs and other private companies for Law Enforcement services. Yes, they can help. However, we must remember that they are not law enforcement agencies and we must never attempt to give them that sort of power. That's not the service that they are designed to provide users and they are not bound by the same restrictions that "due process and privacy" laws attempt to enforce upon Law Enforcement.