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Google and the CIA?
snottgoblin writes "DailyTech has an article suggesting that Google might be involved in a partnership with the CIA. The article also quotes a former CIA officer that Google's refusal to comply with the DOJ over privacy issues was 'a little hypocritical [...] because they were heavily in bed with the Central Intelligence Agency.'" Because I'm sure no one would go on the air and try to drum up a scandal aimed at the biggest target they can find.
Wasnt the company that created the software Google bought for Google Earth originally funded by a CIA venture capital fund?
I would not be surprised in such a relationship as there has been a collaborative arrangement at least going back to the Google Earth project. For instance, when Google Earth was demoed to the folks at the NRO and NIMA, there was a collective smacking of foreheads followed by a long silence as they all realized that this was an easy way to represent data using superimposable layers. Soon after, agreements were reached with Google for technology development in exchange for funding and a significant amount of space in the South Bay area.
The fact that Google is very good at their core market (search engines and relational databases) and is aggressively entering new markets in a variety of fields, should make them an attractive partner for many federal agencies that cannot seem to get their IT $#!^ together (I'm talking to you, Robert Mueller).
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Just wondered.
Google gathers more information about interests, demographics - things then most anything right now.
I would already have expected the gvt to be with them.
If something is worth posting, I don't see why anyone would immediately discredit the article with a comment like "Because I'm sure no one would go on the air and try to drum up a scandal aimed at the biggest target they can find. "
Let people RTFA and discuss it in the comments.
Google *probably* works better than Echelon...
If it was on Alex Jones, it must be absolutely 100% true...
Good luck. Nobody ever really leaves The Company.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Certainly I wouldn't be surpised if the CIA is buying technology from Google -- be it search technology, information presentation technology (Google Earth), etc. What's wrong with that? The article contained no indications that the Google was providing the CIA with information about users!
How long until Google is as hated as Microsoft and 'do no evil' becomes a slogan of doublespeak?
snottgoblin writes ... ... Because I'm sure no one would go on the air and try to drum up a scandal aimed at the biggest target they can find.
ScuttleMonkey writes
I'm one to talk, but do screen names like that instill confidence in readers that more than just shit disturbing is going on by the writer?
Oh You POS
TFA does not give any details as to what Google and the CIA are doing, if anything. It could be that Google is helping them filter information (not necessarily providing it) or build a new IT infastructure. We simply don't know what's going on.
The article certainly seems to have it's own opinion on it, though.
=Smidge=
Google has posted openings requiring US govt. secret and SCI clearances for several years. This issue was raised back in 2001 or so...
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
GoogleCIA. If you add YouTube, it is now GoogTubeCIA. Can't get much scarier than that.
the article has no real content; anyone have any more info on this? it seems like it's pure speculation with reference to an unverifiable source.. hang on.. yeah, that's CIA involvement all right.
Absolutely.
Ok, but who is Assa Med?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Google bought out the CIA?! "Google CIA" doesn't seem right.
As a slightly annoyed Google employee (with a good knowledge of proxies!) I can confirm that, although the higher-ups try to keep the question unanswered either way, certain TLAs do pretty much have free run of our various tracking databases.
Note that this applies to national security level stuff, not regular ol' crime and random cases that are actually relatively unimportant despite attracting publicity, but for which it's good PR to make an ostensible public refusal.
Or, to put it in a Google-favorable light, you guys all know what this government is like - you think we could get away with refusing to give them something they really wanted?
To repeat the brilliant Illiad - where do I sign up ?. Don't panic it is only beta.
Jokes aside, it is a company sitting on american soil, why would it be wrong if they actually had a partnership with NSA or CIA. It is their patriotic duty, No ?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Google is working with the CIA to overthrow Yahoo and install a puppet regime in South MSN to counter potential communist forces in the north.
heavily in bed
Sounds kinda kinky
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
Why is ScuttleMonkey so skeptical of this story, it seems very likely considering how attractive the raw data-mining power of Google must be to the CIA, especially after the 9/11 Commission Report exposed the incredibly outdated technology they had been using prior to the current WAR ON TERROR (be afraid, be very afraid!).
TFA provides absolutely no useful information. Its basically "We know a guy and he totally says Google is helping the CIA do something."
Completely useless.
The merger of a huge intelligence agency and a powerful search engine begets only one question: Where in the world is Osama bin Laden? With google, you won't even have to touch that crusty old "almanac..."
Explains a few things though.
Consider the whole Iraq/WMD thing. Maybe CIA punched in a few keywords into intel.google.com/beta/search?q=WMD+iraq and ignored the fact that it was still in Beta.
Of course with this administration, we're talking about a bunch of people who wouldn't have noticed that the beta of intel.google.com was launched alongside amd.google.com...
Gee - no chance that one of the largest and smartest pattern-searching, data-mining, quicky-quicky-lightening-fast-search technology operations on the planet might be asked to provide some expertise or operational help to one of the agencies that needs exactly that kind of horsepower to help keep people from being killed?
Of course Google has contact with the CIA. And NRO, and NSA, and DIA, and the FBI, and probably most state-level agencies, as well. It would be shocking, really, if they did not.
And how does Google taking a stand on privacy in any way contradict the vested interest they have in the CIA more effectively sorting through unthinkable amounts of data and drawing better, more useful conclusions? Google is based in the US. When the economy takes a hard hit (as it did following 9/11), Google is hit hard, too. It's perfectly reasonable for them to be both "no evil(tm)" corporate citizens and also help a vital government agency better do what they're supposed to do. You know, the agency that so many people have complained about being unable to effectively sort through lots of information, communicate across agencies, and draw more workable conclusions? How can input from, and influence by Google-type people possibly be a bad thing, in the grand scheme of things?
The people at the CIA are just people. Google can afford very, very smart people that the agency can only get as consultants, or as hires that aren't worried about what they make. Farming out some high-end IT expertise to an entity that has an enormous profit incentive - in other venues - to be very good at it and competitively innovative is simply good policy.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Darnit! I submitted this a few minutes ago, but with this addendum. See what you can make of it. I'm not sure.
___________
That's old news. But this image, discovered by a Something Awful forum user in a time of election uncertainty, is new.
From the post:
"I was browsing google maps today and came across something a little creepy. I moused over something on the map, and a preview page came up. (This is with a firefox extension that loads a URL you mouseover in a preview box.) It had people's legal names, familiar names, precinct, and political affilations. It seems to have had a lot more information than that, but I didn't scroll.
Thankfully I took a screenshot when it first happened, becuase I couldn't make it happen again. It's weird how codey the whole thing looks, isn't it? It obviously wasn't meant to be seen by people like me--it looks like it was meant to be parsed by a computer. What kind of database is Google hiding behind its maps? (I don't mean to sound tinfoil here, as this probably isn't some joint Google/NSA operation. I just wonder how they got this information and what they're using it for.)"
What is Google doing?
"Threats to the USA"
Upon which, a bunch of links will show up of the websites of countries and or people who are threats to the USA.
Another functionality is that the CIA can Google people's names. The CIA Google will only turn up the "bad" things they've done - this maybe needed for blackmail purposes.
Of course, they can always Google a country to see what they'r up to. For example:
"North Korea"
Will return all of their clandestine operations, thereats to the US and any Nuclear activities.
it's a great system and it'll keep the American People safe from terrorists.
Sincerely,
CIA Informant.
TFA didn't specify whether any actual search data has been shared with CIA. This could be just sharing of data mining and analysis algorithms, which Google seems to excel at. On the other hand... whom am I kidding?
Either you posted the link wrong or the government just took it down.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
the link is correct and working, it just doesn't except it from slashdot.
Open a new window and past the link into that, it should work fine.
The data is extremely interesting.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Google used to listen to your phone calls, but I believe that is long gone from Google Labs.
Why else would they actually archive personally-identifiable information about searches?
Where were you when the voynix came?
This is great. I would love to see my country's intelligence agency use some great technology to filter through intelligence streams and all the data they need to mine. What's the problem here?
--- witty signature
Please don't feed the trolls.
Everything they listed is public information. Sorry, tin foil hats aren't required this time.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
This might work, then.
The thread notes that this may just be a list from the County's website. That said...I am beginning to understand what Mason was talking about in terms of the dangers of consolidated databases.
Just partner with it. Somehow the "need to know search" seems to be a classic oxymoron...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
The website that this information comes from was featured on Ars the other day. As many people pointed out in that discussion. The person making this claim, Alex Jones, also claims 9/11 was a conspiracy and a missile hit the pentagon. Is this really a credible source? sounds about as valid as a random AC troll on slashdot.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I just want to say "thanks" to whoever added the "fud" tag.
THANKS DUDE!
I love it when people remember to put this tag on appropriate articles.
I have often been hard at work in the office some afternoon, or at home on a sunny Saturday morning, thinking to myself, "I'd really like to read some Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. And where better to do so than on Slashdot? If only there were a convient way to browse this FUD all on one easy screen. After all, there is not enough FUD on the Slashdot front page, you really have to look for it."
But thanks to the "fud" tag in the super-useful Slashdot InfoTagging SystemTM, I don't have to struggle any more to find this FUD!
What I like even better than the FUD tag is when someone tags an article notfud or "!fud". Because sometimes I want to read stuff that's just not FUD. (Thankfully, I've never seen an article with both the FUD and notfud tags at once.)
The only thing I like better than the notfud tag are the "yes" and "no" tags. Very useful, for when I need to come up with questions the answer to which is very clearly "yes" or "no."
The CIA certainly knows how important the search engines are for
internet data mining. Back in 1998, Zapata Petroleum (the company
started by George H. Bush in 1953 which has been thought by some to be
a CIA front) tried to purchase the 'Excite' search engine website but
was turned
down.
I'm a big Google fanboy. I think their services are great, and I trust them with my personal email. But the summary for this item is really a load of horseshit. If this had been about Microsoft or any other company that draws the Slashdot hivemind's ire the story would have been immediately accepted as gospel.
But since it's Google the claims are dismissed immediately as a publicity stunt.
Fuck you, editors.
Game... blouses.
Government spooks collaborating with industry titan to subterfuge... sounds like a plot from the X-Files... conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen.
Human psychology likes gossip, which is why this site even exists...
Our government is largely incompetent when it comes to tech savviness. Furthermore, I don't buy that any US agency involved with national (in)security is covertly leveraging a US tech company like Google. Overtly is another matter. If it was an old DoD contractor that's another story, but Google, doubt it.
Spare me the X-File,
-M
It would be pretty strange if the CIA used Alta Vista when they wanted to search the web.
... and then they built the supercollider.
there will be free Ben & Jerry for CIA analysts and that overseas operatives will carry lava lamps?
This allegation had been raised by the anti-Google camp before.
Maybe I got the wrong agency.
See Subject line. I was going to post identical, but I'd be set redundant.
LOL!
That explains why Google took down an infrared video I posted
from space shuttle mission STS-75 that shows
hundreds of UFOs swarming the broken tether.
Someone forgot to explain, why such a partnership is a bad thing... Or is that simply on of the Slashdot's of axioms?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The DOJ request was very broad, and as we've seen from another company-not-to-be-named, such data does allow the identification of search habits for many regular citizens.
However, a CIA request could have been for searches by specific suspects (read: known terrorists) or maybe a run of a datamining program that could catch relations between terrorist sites in Google's database, thus having nothing to do with actual searches by people.
I have a problem with any search engine complying with the former, but not necessarily the latter.
Google certainly has a track record of working with Governments. (China, US, etc.)
IF any US or other governments agencys had the ability to data mine emails, calendars, spread sheets, word processing documents, credit card data and of course web sites, blogs and community networks (e.g., Orkut), and other net based data for 1000's or millions of people, it would certainly be an AID to that government.
Even if the data was not comprehensive to the given population, if it provided enough so that they could create "target profiles" that would be of value assuming they had access to other non public data. By profiles, I mean an enough data to prime an expert system or AI system or other system with who or what to "look for" and/or "who to ignore".
They're streamlining the CIA's organiziation and searching? It's a far cry from RELEASING private search results to the CIA - I fail to see the hypocrisy...
how long it will take the agents to show up at my door, after I google "two part liquid explosive" ?
Stunning allegations today have surfaced linking Baidu.com, a Beijing-based company which currently runs China's most popular search engine, with elements of the Chinese government and military.
If there was more information in the article. All I see is some ex-CIA agent claiming the world's largest search engine is giving information to the world's most powerful country's intelligence service. For all we know, this ex CIA guy could be an ex CIA guy and not a current CIA guy for a reason, and could just be trying to get back at his boss. Who knows.
The voter information shown in that screenshot is public information. Anyone can request it from their county clerk.
2 0List-tabdelimited.txt
Perhaps ironically, googling the names reveals that they are already online: http://clerk.co.marion.or.us/election/2006%20PCP%
"
By ZmaxDP on 10/31/2006 10:53:19 PM , Rating: 5
I love the rampant speculation on this particular topic. Just so everyone knows, Alex Jones is the conspiracy theorist to put all others to shame. If a gnat farted in India he would assume that the New World Order had orchestrated it to cause global climate changes and re-shape the power structures of the entire universe. Pretty much anyone he asks on his show is of a similar ilk. So, unless you are also of a similar ilk, you can pretty much disregard everything that was said. Seriously. Everything.
That being said, even if it was true (that google had some involvement with the CIA) we have no clue from the "report" what that involvement is. The CIA might be asking Google to develop a search engine to help them hunt down terrorists, or track child pornographers, etc.. Or, they might be letting the CIA filter all their data searching for terrorists and child pornographers. The former would be perfectly fine with me. Who better to do it. The latter would be highly illegal and disturbing. Do we know? No. So what's with the jumping to conclusions and Google bashing? At least admit that the article is highly inconclusive and amazingly vague.
"
I wonder...
The CIA venture capital company is called In-Q-Tel. In-Q-Tel invested in Keyhole, who developed the forerunner to Google Earth. Keyhole ownership converted to Google ownership. I had heard from a reputable source that In-Q-Tel also invested in Google during their early days, though it appears that In-Q-Tel no longer holds any ownership in Google. In-Q-Tel invested in other search companies over the years, though they seem to have divested ownership in most of those companies.
There needn't be anything nefarious about In-Q-Tel funding Google. Remember the explosive growth of the web a decade ago. Before google, you knew there was a ton of stuff out there, but there was no way to find it. Web searches were very hit or miss. Google improved search technology tremendously, and a decent search engine is itself a boon to the intelligence community. People in this discussion have joked about keyword searches for terrorists, but seriously, it's an invaluable tool, even if a Google Maps search for Osama bin Laden doesn't put a little pushpin on the appropriate cave. Hate groups and terrorist networks recruit using the internet. Search technologies make it easer to keep track of what's out there.
And heck, I get some benefit from decent search technology too.
Google is ideal as an extension of Echelon. Hasn't this application been obvious for years now?
I don't understand what makes people think all these issues like turning over info to the government, offering censored content in china or giving IP addresses to the government have simple ideological answers.
Handing over search information to the government to help them go fishing for people looking at porn so they can gain votes by brandishing puritanical moral principles is a whole lot different than engaging in a narrowly tailored program to catch terrorists.
Anyone who believes it is always wrong for IT companies to hand info over to the government or to openly engage in partial censorship is an idiot. Like anything else in life these are questions that involve complex trade offs. Does the harm to privacy/free expression exceeded the benefit that will be created by complying with the program?
This is a tough question that requires real analysis of that particular situation. You just can't decide this sort of thing in the abstract.
Whether or not it is good for google to censor in china depends on what you think would happen if they didn't. It benefits no one for google to stick their nose up in the air and refuse to censor if this just means they will be blocked and an even more censor happy, privacy violating Chinese competitor will take their place, perhaps even exporting their censor laden product to other places.
Similarly whether it is good or bad for google to turn over information to the government depends on the relative harm to privacy versus the prevention of harm. In the COPA case their was no benefit to turning the records over, in fact doing so posed a potential danger to free speech if it aided the government case. Additionally there were a great many records demanded meaning many people's privacy might be compromised (see the recent AOL search result release). In contrast if this is a narrowly tailored program few people's records might be revealed and much potential harm prevented.
Obviously we need to know more about the alleged program before one can give a verdict but it's just dumb to call google hypocritical or evil at this stage.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
The reason why Google is in cahoots with the CIA is simply that George W. likes to use the Google, so he thought hey, why don't the CIA use it too to find Osama. Maybe we can't find him because he's hiding in the Internets.
No matter how much money it would cost, controlling (knowing insides) Google would be worth it to any intelligence agency in the world. You can virtually tap people's mind: what are they considering, hoping, working or inspecting. Add some other google stuff, especially gmail (and it's IDed browser), add a bit of hacking and you got em. Everything is yours, including their bank accounts, emails and their brains.
Even knowing only what are the searches from different parts of the World would be invaluable (commercial too) intelligence data.
What's wrong with this? Well, it's not my government whos tapping the data from me... And if it were, I wouldn't trust it.
Does the CIA even need to work with Google? Can't the NSA ("signals intelligence") just sniff every packet in/out near Google on the backbones connected to Google, and store copies of all Google's unencrypted traffic, analyzing it with the CIA? Why even bother to get Google's permission?
--
make install -not war
Google's refusal to comply with the DOJ over privacy issues was 'a little hypocritical [...] because they were heavily in bed with the Central Intelligence Agency
:-)
It is not hypocritical, it is a cover.
Parent's opinion is both informative and reasonable. I've wondered myself whether In-Q-Tel had their hands in Google from the beginning. If I were Larry or Sergey, I'd have certainly approached them for venture capital back in the early days, to get started.
...put a notfud tag on this article? This is FUD, no doubt about it. I guess what this guy was trying to say was that he believed it, but the possibility of it being true does not prevent it from spreading Fear for your privacy, Uncertainty over the search engine most people use, and Doubt.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I agree, the writeup shows a shameful lack of critical thinking. As someone with, shall we say, less romantic notions of the US govt. and the CIA in particular, I'm becoming increasingly wary of google.
For those who think that Google wouldn't do that, wake up. Google could do anything. Seriously, it's called branding. It is certainly possible that Google serves as the friendlier face of the CIA's data mining operations. Google is nice and cuddly, friendly, passive, succeeding through failure to get past our defences. The question is, how are they (ab)using that position?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
does it really take speculation and rocket science to add 1 and 1? a nice fasade of 100% goodwill, openmindedness, concern about privacy and freedom and the users of the net while at the same time offering superb services for "free" gets you far, but, it doesn't get you any money. ofcourse, it's not all thin air. after all, google really DO offer great services to the users, but they are not "free"... today, google sits on the worlds largest - and quickest growing - intelligence gathering about the common man (and others) using the internet. through all of their "free" web services; the search engine, the email, the calendar, the spreadsheets, the office etc., they know basically anything there could be to know about any given identity using these services; what they look for on the internet, what they read on the internet, what they talk about via their gmail, WHO they talk to, what their calendar looks like and who they have met and who they are planning to meet, how their economy looks and so forth - and the imperium of webbased services keep growing. while it to the user offers versatility, each piece also offers new insight into the users private life and doings. all of this info is available to google at any time. they can pick out that much info about any chosen identity at the snap of a finger. why on earth WOULDN'T the CIA want access to this immense treasure? remember, the base of _all industry_ is _profit_, and google didn't build a trillion dollar establishment on sponsored searches and advertisement alone; they have something far more valuable to sell :)
A lot of people view systems as 'people", talking about the government as "THE GOVERNMENT" instead of "OUR GOVERNMENT", a government is a group of people.
The main reason people are afraid of the CIA is because they don't like secrecy. At the same time, it's obvious why secrecy is essential for national security. Some of our technologies NEED to be secret. If there are nano technology companies wouldnt you rather the CIA keep the most dangerous aspects of it secret? Or do you want terrorists, criminals and people such as that to get a hold of it?
In the case with Google, I don't think Google and the CIA would be working on something "evil", as Google is a search engine. Basically, just about all the major corporations work with some of the federal agencies, Google, Microsoft, most of the Linux companies, maybe Yahoo also.
The CIA, basically from Googles point of view is business, you can only make a lot of money by working with the feds, if you work against the feds you won't last very long. If Google were in China they'd be forced to work with the Chinese government. If Google were in Europe they'd be forced to work with the EU, and it would likely be in their best interest to work with whoever they can, within reason.
This really isnt news, this is to be expected, and if the CIA is doing it's job, well then you'd expect EXACTLY this.
Steele is known to be a Conspiracy nut, and is a few letters short of a full acronym if you know what I mean....
Pretty much anything that this man claims, I can guarantee that the opposite is true. Google may very well have partnered with the CIA in the past, but nothing to the extent to which Mr. Steele is alluding.
The people in that data set are candidates for public office, not just voters. As another poster pointed out, this is public information by law. As for how it wound up on Google Maps I don't know, but it's no secret that Google has been importing election data into Google Earth for awhile, so perhaps they're trying to do the same with Google Maps.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Google and the CIA?
How many milliseconds did it take you to come up with that gem?
My hand touched her hand. Her hand touched her boob. By the transitive property, I got some boob! Algebra is awesome!
does anyone have an account to log on that forum and ask the guy to trace down the "link" he says he moused over from his history (or some other method)? Seems like an easy way to get some more information about the whole thing.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
Posting anonymously from an open WAP:
As of 2004, the head of Google's "Hardware Operations" (aka HWOps, one of the primary engineering divisions) is ex-USMC and ex-CIA, with approximately two decades of service in the latter organization. HWOps installs, configures and maintains all equipment in Google's datacenters. This includes cluster control servers and core routers. HWOps members have root on pretty much everything, in addition to almost exclusive physical access. Only SecOps and a few people in NetOps would have more login privileges than HWOps (Netscreens, loggers/sniffers, etc.).
Google's slogan, ~2020.
...on Google's satellite data?
We know the USA can already (and yes, that is a form of censorship).
But Russia, China, India, Iran, NATO countries...? Google is ultimately chartered by the US government, and can be commanded to do the government's bidding in times of war. One would almost have to assume that a preferential relationship exists between companies like Google and the CIA.
I don't mean to dash your hopes but the following line from the forum you linked to seems more like what is going on
I mean come on, if google were to do something like this why would they use a public accessible app? Someone is bound to crack it one day, and google would know this. It is more likely that if they were going to provide a app like this to the CIA it would be on a private VPN/even hosted in CIA/NSA data center just for the CIA. Putting it out in public where any doffus with a firefox extension can find the information is just plan stupid.
It said "windows 98 or better" so I installed Linux
They want information they can track back to IP addresses, google mail and other free email services I wouldn't be surprised if everything you've told your friends about your private and personal life is now recorded in many governments and certain private corporate databases around the world.
Geotargetting using IP addresses is not difficult.
Who wants to bet that a decade from now, the new New Zealand Prime Minister (to give an example) receives a visit from the local American ambassador who politely asks whether New Zealand would reconsider its policy regarding visits of nuclear-powered ships. Oh, and by the way, is he still into "barely legal teens", seeing he used to spend so much of his time searching the net for them.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The idea that everyone's Internet traffic is private information is absurd. Remember, the Internet (formally arpanet) is a GOVERNMENT network developed by DARPA (a defense agency). It's their network design and still uses some of their backbone. Let 'em see how you use it. They're looking whether you like it or not.
You know, the CIA isn't always the bad guy. They provide funding, research, useful information, good spy movie plots, LSD, magic mushrooms, etc. What other government agency funds the distribution and research of hallucinogens? I'm not bagging on them. I consider that kind of curiosity progressive.
I sincerely hope that the CIA is getting all of the help they can from Google and many other large companies. 9/11 was as much a failure in data mining as anything. Since 9/11, the number of data sources has grown dramatically and made the data mining operation even more hopeless. Solving the data mining problem with Petabyte databases is definitely a Google type of problem.
...sometimes... just sometimes... I wish everyone had just taken the blue pill. Sometimes.
Yes, the USA and the UK are peculiarly obsessed with the sex lives of their politicians. But other countries, including New Zealand, aren't immune. And my example was deliberately chosen as something a lot of people do find distasteful (the "barely legal" thing), but isn't illegal. There are lots of other possibilities for blackmail that widespread internet surveillance would reveal.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Which has led some domestic abuse counselors, reluctantly, to advise stalking victims not to register to vote.
Some jurisdictions have a program to let voters mask their addresses if a social worker or other such person refers them.
Google is as hated as Microsoft, "do no evil" as a slogan already works better to get laughs than as a description of anything having to do with current corporate policies.
The problem with a slogan like that is that if a company won't live up to it, it's of negative value.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Because I'm sure no one would go on the air and try to drum up a scandal aimed at the biggest target they can find.
OK... so we know ScuttleMonkey is an idiot.
Of course Google and the CIA work together! Just about major telecomm company is in bed to some extent with NSA and friends. For God's sake, the "holy grail" wet dream of the SIGINT community circa 1985 has been realized and probably exceeded many times over by what GOOG has built. Google and CIA share a huge amount of market segment these days, and guess what? they ain't competitors. American telecomm companies are deeply involved with American SIGINT collection activities. I'm sure Google gets a bit of CIA assistance entering new markets and perhaps gets little CIA love notes about their competitor's business strategy.
Please, if you think this is some kind of conspiracy theory, go read The Puzzle Palace by Bamford. It's a bit dated now, but it reports in detail how the cable services started working for NSA way back after WWII. Many of the details since then are in public record as well.
The general public is now doing the foot work for the CIA by marking out useful intel in foreign countries.
You can be sure that the NSA and CIA are scanning through the search statistics as well.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
For those wondering where the map is:
keizer?
From the highlighting in the overlayed document, it looks like the person's search contained "dr", "n", and "keizer" all of which are perfectly logical things to search for on a map!
tin foil meet logic.
Someone on the article site claims that since nothing you do on the net is private, it doesn't matter that the CIA may be looking over everybody's shoulder. That statement is wrong on two accounts:
1) CIA is a US intelligence organisation. The net is international where the US has zero juristriction. Therefore it is very wrong if the CIA snoops on Europeans for instance.
2) You can be private on the net. Takes some effort but can be done. Today where most people are out in the open, using these hiding methods will call attention to you, which is why more people must be educated to the thought of hiding their activities even though they have nothing to hide. This way everybody regains their privacy.
Now, I'm sure a horde of people will rush in and say that need the CIA to snoop in order to protect us from [foe-of-today:terrorists]. Wrong. The terrorists are detectable through many other means. They go to terrorist meetings, they consort with other known terrorists, they receive training, they receive and distribute propaganda and so on. Stop them there and you don't need to snoop on the net. Face it, almost all the 9-11 terrorists were known in advance and they all behaved in ways that had attracted attention from all the right people. That coordination failed miserably is another story, but that has also been addressed afterwards. But they could be identified long before they were ready to become a threat and therefore they could be stopped back then as well. But nobody saw the big picture and nobody had the balls to act with partial information.
Lone lunatics (think: The Unabomber) are a different story but most of these don't have anybody to talk to (usually they don't trust anybody else) so net-snooping won't help there either.
In other words, CIA waste their time snooping on the net. There will simply be too many false positives. I mean, just the other day I got curious and looked up several types of explosives using google and wikipedia. That would probably trigger a red flag somewhere and all for nothing. I have no intention of ever getting near such things, but if the CIA waste resources on something that innocent, something else might slip through the cracks and that's dumb.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
If by "in bed with" they mean licensing technology from, then yes. Why is it controversial that a government agency purchase/license technology from big business. Oh, wait, because everything that the government and big business does is controversial to some people...especially conspiracy theorists. For craps sake! [shakes head]
it took me about half that long to figure out what RTFA
You'd know if you had RTFF.
Isn't this just obvious to anyone? James Bamford, in his excellent book Body of Secrets makes the explicit claim that senior NSA officials sit in key positions within Cisco, so why should anyone be surprised that Google provide special, specific portals for the US intelligence services. If I were running the CIA that's the first and most obvious thing I'd do too. This is a no-brainer. But I'm still happy to use Google Earth, GMail, Google Search, AdSense, etc etc ect. Why not? Like the DK's said, give me convenience or give me death. Dave
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
There is no such thing as individual privacy. That's the main reason why the national security system works, it's because no privacy exists, it's an illusion.
All records are stored in databases, and they aren't private. Anything you ever tell anyone else can be shared so thats not private. Anything you write, anything you read, anything you do, can be tracked, so in reality, there is limited privacy, and it's always been like this.
Individuals have no real need for privacy, corporations need privacy, governments should protect the privacy of corporations as state secrets, because corporations stay in a country that protects it's privacy.
A citizen on the other hand, well, if you mean by privacy, privacy from other citizens, sure, but if you mean by privacy, secrecy, it doesnt exist. It's a good thing that it doesnt exist because if it did exist, how exactly would the government fight terrorism? How would the police fight crime?
And you are correct, it's only a good thing if you support the US government all the time, but if you are a US citizen, you sorta have to support your government because a government is made up of citizens. What exactly are you supposed to do? Not support your government? Your taxes pay for it, and you work for it in some cases, or you get services from it, it's a situation where yeah the government if it's too big can do some bad things, but on the other hand, when it comes to security, there is really no better entity to handle it.
The local police cannot handle organized crime. You might not agree with the war on drugs, or which crimes are being focused on, thats politics, but we all agree that we need the tools to fight crime, I don't see anyone really standing up for organized crime except maybe organized crime. You have to remeber that the NSA, CIA, FBI, and a lot of other agencies, yeah they spy on everyone, but they also fight organized crime, and in a very efficient way.
If there were no secrets for these agencies, then they would not be able to do their job fighting organized crime. If there were privacy, how exactly would they go after say, Al Capone? Privacy should exist, you should have privacy, but if you are commiting crimes of course you can expect these agencies to track you down. Surveillance is also good for communities. CCTV works well, and I think local police, and community policing groups should take advantage of technology to do their own surveillance. If you want privacy, stay inside your house.