Critics Call For Probe Into Google Government Ties

bonch writes "The National Legal and Policy Center has written to the House Oversight Committee to investigate alleged ties between Google and the Obama administration, specifically with regards to the closure of an FTC probe into Google's Wi-Fi privacy breach, when the company admitted to having collected users' unencrypted information over the course of three years. The NLPC compares Google's relationship with the administration to that of Halliburton and cites the timing of a $30,000-a-head Democratic fundraiser at Google CEO Marissa Meyer's home less than a week before the FTC ended its inquiry, where Obama made a personal appearance, as well as the fact that US deputy chief technology officer Andrew McLaughlin is a former Google employee. The NLPC further alleges that the FTC is tougher on other companies, issuing fines to Twitter and Sears for their privacy violations while letting Google off the hook after the company promised to improve its privacy practices."

Comments

Same Obama administration

[Enderandrew]

Is this the same Obama administration that threatened Google with an anti-trust trial and breaking Google up if they landed a search deal with Yahoo, but said they'd allow Microsoft to buy-out Yahoo?

I wouldn't say the administration has been particularly pro-Google.

what

[Anonymous Coward]

The NLPC compares Google's relationship with the administration to that of Halliburton

Exactly how many unnecessary and costly (both in terms of money and lives) wars has Google profited off thus far?

The Underground Twinkie Syndicate at Work Again

[eldavojohn]

As clear as the rigged elections keeping the Mennonites out of representation in Congress, this Google/Government link is one very deep rabbit hole. In the 80s and 90s, a series of books and movies gave the Twinkie empire a bad wrap. Hostess, Lil' Debbie and a number of other producers put together a syndicate that now only has meetings behind closed doors once a year in a hotel in Germany. The top people all attend.

Sure, some less powerful people like Barack Obama and various world leaders attend but they're really just an audience for what is decided. Back when "Google" was getting its start, Larry and Sergey were actually installed by the Twinkie Syndicate to archive and modify all movies and books online to reflect Twinkies as a healthy, natural alternative to apples and other competing products. In doing so they restored order and the Twinkies once again began to flow.

This action, of course, was backed by the Corn Growers Association and the European based "Society for a Stupider, Fatter America" -- the same people responsible for the advent of Christianity in the Americas as well as cream.

Sure there were some unexpected side effects like GMail and Android ... but these were just a means to an end. Nothing bad can be said of Twinkies in e-mail nor could you text something bad about Twinkies.

Don't be surprised if you hear news reports of my body found floating in the Potomac ... with a Twinkie obstructing my throat.

More Info on the NLPC, they are DIRTY

[spun]

They are a front: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Legal_and_Policy_Center

Re:This is the real result of the election

[sarhjinian]

You know what bothers me about the Democratic party?

They could have spent the last two years dragging everyone and anyone who was involved with the Bush administration's more questionable policies (wiretapping, suspending habeus corpus, extraordinary rendition, Halliburton, bogus intelligence and so forth) and probably had a PR field day tearing the ethics of their predecessors apart. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld alone would have been pure gold, and we'd all have been better for having the spotlights turned on the dark, dusty corners of that era.

But oh no. Either they were idiots and thought that, after eight years of dirty pool, the Republican party's powerbrokers would respond well to bipartisanship (you'd think they'd notice how that was going after six months?), or they were hoping to pull some of the same stuff, in which case they pissed away the moral high ground which would have served them pretty well a few days ago.

I swear, the Democrats have, certainly since Clinton and possibly since Kennedy, been completely spineless and cripplingly un-unified in the face of a much more disciplined Republican machine. How they managed to piss away the single biggest political advantage of all time in two years is astounding. How they've silenced their conscience (and anyone else on the Left who has one) is even more shameful

They really are past their sell-by date, and the few who have principles (Kucinich comes to mind) need to put some respectful distance between the rest of the chumps, endorse Nader (or someone like him) and start work on a progressive, thinking version of the Tea Party.

LIAR

[Doc Ruby]

No, you lie.

Media Matters received its first ever donation from Soros last month, after years of you Republicans lying, say he was financing it all along. Meanwhile, you Republicans have your fraud network financed by billionaires like the Koch brothers who also finance Republican campaigns, lately secretly through the Citizens United rules that dominated the election that just passed.

Of course it sounds "fair and balanced" to you, because it's an endless pile of Republican lies, just like the Fox "News" that uses that fraudulent slogan.