It's already a cliche to say that everything has changed since September 11th — but the worst part is that not enough has changed. Lots of individuals, especially those misguided liberty-loving geeks, are continuing to live their lives and operate their businesses as if hordes of Internet-savvy terrorists are not out to destroy our mighty nation.

Case in point: Google. I love Google - I couldn't imagine surfing the Internet without it. However, they are silently contributing to the terrorist cause with the Google cache, an automated Web crawling service that provides copies of discontinued sites.

This may seem like a perfectly innocent service — a way of reading outdated news articles and poring over your own long-dead websites. What could it possibly have to do with terrorism? Well, it turns out, a lot.

Shortly after 9/11, Attorney General (and barbershop quartet singer) John Ashcroft ordered the removal of sensitive information from public government websites and libraries. This information includes security plans for government facilities, chemical factories, and nuclear plants. Also included was a lot of information originally posted by the Environmental Protection Agency, like maps of oil pipelines and the potential kill-rate for explosions at poisonous chemical manufacturers. For example, this Department of Energy page removed page described the best methods for conducting a limited spill of toxic materials for research purposes. It had info that could be of use to terrorists, such as the upper limited for a controlled test (and, conversely, the bottom limit for a dangerous spill) and descriptions of how the wind could blow material from a test spill.

How do I know this? The Google cache of the site, of course.

A Search Engine Watch report picked up by ABCNews inspired Google to remove some of the caches. However, there is still a lot of material out there waiting to be pulled. "The net is changing so fast we can't manually change everything," says a Google spokesperson.

In light of their selfish disregard for security, caching sites like google and the Internet Archive should be regulated or removed by the government. In Orwell's famous book 1984 Smith's job is to remove information from the historical record that conflicts with national security. Ashcroft has already taken this step - even librarians have taken on the role of Smith. The Google cache is a useful thing, especially for people with slow Net connections, but it needs a Winston Smith.

Some people have said that the government should leave up information that was previously publicly available, like environmental information and security plans for people who live close to a nuclear facility. This information, they say, is more likely to be used by a family in an environmentally ravaged zone than it is to be used by terrorists.

But, as the 9/11 attacks themselves prove, terrorists don't use tools especially designed for their use to create their vicious attacks. They used a box cutter and a plane. Surely we will give up a little bit of the utility of our own tools in order to ensure public safety?