Prediction (updated)

Last week, I made a prediction about Bush administration's secret domestic surveillance and the continuing lawlessness being justified in the name of his "constitutional duty to keep Americans safe:"

The arrogance that has always been a Bush character trait--now freed from the need to dissemble to gain re-election and encouraged by the cabal of conspirators around him--has been elevated to a governing principle.

Why is Bush insisting on the prerogative to torture, to wiretap anyone whenever the notion strikes? For the worst possible reason: Just because he can. Just to demonstrate that he really is beyond the reach of mere federal law.

If I'm right, there'll be an easy way to tell: It won't stop. He'll continue to stage demonstrations that the law doesn't apply to him, not because whatever act he wants to commit (torture, wiretapping, gulags, etc. are only the beginning, if I'm right) matters much in itself, but because he wants to establish the principle that he and his circle are a law unto themselves.

This week comes this bit of news (emphasis added):

In court documents filed Wednesday, the Bush administration asked a federal judge in San Jose, Calif., to force Google to comply with a subpoena for the information, which would reveal the search terms of a broad swath of the search engine's visitors.

Prosecutors are requesting a "random sampling" of 1 million Internet addresses accessible through Google's popular search engine, and a random sampling of 1 million search queries submitted to Google over a one-week period.

Google said in a statement sent to CNET News.com on Thursday that it will resist the request "vigorously."

The Bush administration's request, first reported by The San Jose Mercury News, is part of its attempts to defend the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, which is being challenged in court in Philadelphia by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU says Web sites cannot realistically comply with COPA and that the law violates the right to freedom of speech mandated by the First Amendment.

The search engine companies are not parties to the suit.

An attorney for the ACLU said Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL received identical subpoenas and chose to comply with them rather than fight the request in court. [ . . . ]

Jack Samad, senior vice president for the National Coalition for Protection of Children and Families, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based advocacy group, said search engines should be willing to help the Bush administration defend the law.

"Young people are experiencing broken lives after being exposed to adult images and behaviors on the Internet," Samad said. "I'm disappointed Google did not want to exercise its good corporate branding to secure the protection of youth. I think (complying with the subpoena) would substantiate the basis of COPA if they get a free exchange of information on youthful use of the Internet."

Raise your hand if you really think the government's interest in this motherlode of data begins or ends with concern about "protection of children and families." Anyone? Anyone?

[Update: Dan Drezner also speculates that it's basically bullying Google for its own sake, or something almost as bad, that's motivating the Google subpoena.]