Slashdot Mirror
Google Gives the US Government Access To Gmail
schliz writes "Google condemns the Chinese Government for censoring its results, and Australia for planning to do the same. Meanwhile, its lawyers and security experts have told employees to 'be intentionally vague about whether or not we've given access to end-user accounts,' according to engineer James Tarquin, hinting that Google may be sharing its data with the US government. Perhaps Australia's most hated communications minister, Steven Conroy, could be right in his criticism of Google's privacy record after all."
If China government cant get access to Gmail, what it makes it ok for USA? Especially to those accounts not owned by US citizens.
If China tried to get access to gmail accounts of those who tried to start revolts in China and that wasn't ok, what makes it ok for US government to get access to those who try to start revolts in US (aka terrorists)? After all, USA also has a long track record of killing those it considers its enemies and even civilians and journalists, in addition to detaining people and ignoring their human rights along with sexual abuse and torture. US does exactly the same to it's enemies than China. Like most of Chinese people, US people also deny this or say it's not as bad or try to justify it by saying they're enemies or "terrorists". In the end it's all the same.
I'm migrating from GMail pretty soon, and logging out any time I do a search.
inb4 "You're overreacting" warblgharbl.
So in other words this is the opinion of someone who read an article which quotes someone as saying that he was told to do something suspicious. Good stuff.
Why does the summary say "May Be Sharing" while the Title indicates this has already happened?
Look, it doesn't matter who or where you are. The government has guns, you do not. If they want something, they will get it. What separates, or is supposed to separate, this process in places like the USA, from places like China, is that there is supposed to be accountability for the government that gets that information. This is at the ballot box and also due to separation of branches.
That Bush argued that the executive was allowed to unilaterally search due to a commander in chief doctrine was what really got him in trouble with the left, and, I think on that score the lefties were correct. What's interesting, though, is that the present administration seems to be adopting the same doctrine, but is making the "personality" argument, and really, once you start using personality arguments, rather than supportive of a legal process, you've shredded civil rights. To wit, just because Obama might be a nicer dictator for some people doesn't mean that he is still not a dictator. If it is bad for a President to do something when you voted against him, it is bad for a President to do it when you vote against, and vice versa.
This is my sig.
The big brother government uses twitter to track what you are doing, uses facebook to investigate you and your friends, uses google to try and figure out what you think.
The FBI exists specifically as an intelligence agency to spy on American citizens. So when random people add you as a friend on facebook it could be the beginning of an FBI investigation.
And ignorance of the law wont hold up in court, so if you don't know whats in the 1000+ page healthcare reform bill, or the tens of thousands of pages of new laws which pass each year, you could already be breaking some esoteric law and committing a felony.
And thats all you need to do to get the FBI to investigate you. So you better not talk about anything criminal.
"No facts to see here. Move along" -Obiwan Kenobi
Isn't it a shame that Google, once regarded as a leader in privacy, seems to have gone and sold its soul? "Don't Be Evil" seems to be more and more fluid in its meaning, and suddenly Google is looking like another Microsoft. What happened to "The Good Guys"? I'll be sure to cancel my gmail account very soon, such a shame.
Google has never been leader of privacy. "Don't Be Evil" is PR. Google is a marketing company - to begin with your privacy is gone. Microsoft is at least selling you software and has no reason to violate your privacy. The Good Guys? They developed Google and started making money. And you know, Google is a publicly traded company with shareholders who can tell the company to do anything they like.
I don't know how many times I've been criticized for pointing out that gmail TOS do not include anonymity - the government can just ask and google will roll over on you - it's nice to see others finally "getting it."
If a person is sending email to those suspected of contributing to terror groups then our government needs to be able to study those emails. That does not imply that the government has either the intention or the man power to be studying every trivial bit of email that we send or receive.
Being intentionally vague about whether they share data is not the same thing as "Giving the US Government Access to Gmail"
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The article fails on numerous levels.
1. It cross-compares two different rights issues: censorship and privacy (specifically contrasting Google's rhetoric against government censorship with their compliance to discovery requests under US law). It isn't necessarily inconsistent to argue against censorship but not worry about privacy.
2. Google's compliance with US legal discovery requests (under PATRIOT and other laws) is used to imply that Google advocates breaching privacy. The fact that Google complies with the law isn't evidence that they agree with the law. Indeed they specifically say (and have demonstrated, as far as I can tell) that they fight discovery requests and only deliver private data when the request is necessary/legitimate.
3. The article is also contrasting governmental policies (censorship, etc.) with policies of a private company (Google). The article states "We have far less power over Google." which is true in some sense (Google is not beholden to democracy directly... though it is controlled through laws and through consumer pressure/choice). But this "we have less power over Google" has to be counter-balanced with "Google has far less power over us". If the government mandates censorship, then every citizen and company is affected. If Google mandates censorship on its own, consumers will flock to other services. The difference is huge, and actions taken by government are far more scary because they are far further reaching.
4. Also, no evidence of Google breaching privacy is actually provided. Certainly no evidence that there is a systemic problem; merely that Google is acknowledging that they will comply with US law.
Really the article is just a weak attempt to set-up some a non-existent conflict between Google's open stance against censorship, and their grudging compliance with US discovery laws that could infringe on privacy. But the argument is laughably weak. I'm not trying to give Google a free pass here... but let's focus on the real issues and not trumped-up hypocrisy charges.
Last year Google gave a presentation to the government I work for (which is not in the US). They made a big pitch as a sizable part of that presentation to try to convince us to move off Exchange and to the commercial Gmail offering. There's some pretty good reasons why that's a good idea.
Unfortunately, stuff like this kills the idea entirely. There is absolutely no sales pitch that will convince people here that we really want to turn over our government email to the US government. (Hell, with the way things are going now we don't even allow people to take laptops with anything on them across the border, even if they're encrypted.)
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Almost sounds like the guy who submitted the "story" works for Microsoft. "Google *may* be sharing data with govt. Time to get super mad at Google!"
Sensationalist stuff like this really pisses me off. CmdrTaco posted the story and sure got some ad impressions as a result. But man, do you really have to sink this low?
I don't think even google can process hundreds of petabytes *DAILY*. NSA might want to, but they don't have anywhere near the processing power (nobody does) to even piece together the individual data packets together in their original form much less identify the individual end-points accurately (people behind NAT,proxies,etc) or decrypt voice/email communication packets.
So in other words this is the opinion of someone who read an article which quotes someone as saying that he was told to do something suspicious. Good stuff.
Seriously.
This sounds like what you would expect from Glenn "Did X do Y? Why hasn't X denied doing Y?" Beck, not Slashdot. It sound like fun, let me try.
Your Rights Online: Slashdot Sells User Data to the Chinese Government.
An Anonymous Coward writes: Certain American corporations are potentially working with the Chinese Government to sell user data. Slashdot is a Corporation. Slashdot is an American Corporation. This Anonymous Coward takes it on good presumption that, therefore, Slashdot is colluding with the Chinese. Given the evidence that Slashdot has not denied selling user data to the Chinese, these suspicions can be nothing but true.
Journalists: Meet integrity. Integrity, meet journalists.
Use PGP or some other encryption method of the content itself. ONLY connect to your mail servers via SSL--no exceptions, ever. Store NOTHING on the local machine, be it your iPhone, your laptop, your desktop. Build your own OS that connects to your mail server and build your own mail client software so that you know there are no possible backdoors. Build your own mail server the same. Routinely re-encrypt your entire remote mail store with the highest end encryption available. Don't store keys with the mail store. Don't save ANY mail logs. If you do, encrypt them just as tightly.
Next, only mail with people that use comparable basic levels of security.
Finally, don't mail anyone.
Dude, where's my packet?