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Court Rules NSA Doesn't Have To Confirm Or Deny Secret Relationship With Google
Sparrowvsrevolution writes "A DC appeals court has ruled that the National Security Agency doesn't need to either confirm or deny its secret relationship with Google in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and follow-up lawsuit filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. The NSA cited a FOIA exemption that covers any documents whose exposure might hinder the NSA's national security mission, and responded to EPIC with a 'no comment.' Beyond merely rejecting the FOIA request, the court has agreed with the NSA that it has the right to simply not respond to the request, as even a rejection of the request might reveal details of a suspected relationship with Google that it has sought to keep secret. Google was reported to have partnered with the NSA to bolster its defenses against hackers after its breach by Chinese cyberspies in early 2010. But to the dismay of privacy advocates who fear the NSA's surveillance measures coupled with Google's trove of data, the company has never explained the details of that partnership."
It's been known for a long time that Google has been secretly working with NSA. You may ask why they do it?
1) It is beneficial to NSA.
NSA gets immersive amount of data from Google that they would not otherwise have. Remember that Google logs every and all search requests made, has Google Analytics scripts on basically every site on the internet, owns YouTube (good place to check what videos interest people), and is now trying to compete with Facebook by building the worlds largest social network (with a strict real names only -policy), Google+.
2) It is beneficial to Google.
In turn, Google has strong government backing for all their privacy violations, snooping and ignorance of other countries laws. They have and are building a strong relationship with the highest people on US government so that they get free pass on everything and no liability.
3) Google has got lots of shit lately.
It aligns with the previous point, but Google has been major target of (valid) lawsuits around the world and U.S. lately. FTC is watching them, KFTC is watching them, European Union is watching them. By strongering their position with someone like NSA they are trying to weasel out of these suits.
4) Google is a marketing company
Imagine if you could build yourself as "the marketing company of the internet". You need to gather lots of data for that. By making some favors towards NSA, their upper personal will of course make some back. After all, they are in the same business - snooping people's data. NSA for their purposes, Google for marketing purposes.
What, did EFF ask about cats in boxes or something?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
If NSA is not partnering with Google, then probably somebody needs to be fired. If I were them, I probably would have responded with a "well Duh!" comment.
Very interesting, so you've taken a post someone wrote about you, Bonch, and then you've changed all the names to make it look like it is pro-google shilling going on while in actuality it is you doing anti-google shilling.
You are a funny funny person, go kill yourself.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
It's been known for a long time that Google has been secretly working with NSA.
Citation needed.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Hey cool, bonch is now claiming I'm a sockpuppet shilling for Google despite having been downmodded in the past for negative Google posts. I've also made positive Apple posts, too. I'm not a very good pro-Google shill, apparently.
As I said on the Wired article, what should Google, a US company, have done when what are likely state or state-backed Chinese hackers thoroughly compromise one of their services?
*Not* turn to "U.S. authorities”? Do nothing? It's certainly bizarre when a US company under attack by another nation-state would be expected to *not* involve our own government.
Guess what: our intelligence activities and capabilities are secret, not because we want to "hide them from the public", but because they necessarily remain secret for the precise reasons the courts ruled the way they did in this case: so that our ADVERSARIES don't understand our sources, methods, capabilities, and responses.
I know most people here believe the NSA is evil, instead of looking across the Pacific to a country that can scarcely wait to displace the US as a global power, while keeping a firm stranglehold on its citizens. I imagine there will be many tired references to the Utah Data Center in the comments section here, too, from people who completely misunderstand the law, and NSA's purpose and missions.
Oh no, bonch has another sockpuppet that will be permanently -1 in about 5 minutes!
There was a post a few days ago that I did intend to have AC that I posted under my name, other than that I have never accidentally not posted as AC when I meant to.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
It starts to bug me. Why are there two types of investigation? 1) "The hacker could not be traced as probably several servers were used". 2) "The IP was from China/Russia, so the hacker too". So since it is politically useful to the Americans to point at China, I suggest all hackers to get one of the computer in China. Best is Russia last with all logs at max, then China, then the usual.
I'm going to try that when my wife asks me if the transexual hooker named Serene who called the house at 4am looking for her "little man, Ratsie" is someone that I know.
"I can neither confirm nor deny..."
We'll see how that works out.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Revealing a person's real name and contact information on a public forum that will likely be archived forever seems supremely uncool.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Why are we arguing? We all know that everybody that posts on /. these days is paid to post on slashdot by someone with lots of money. Why else would you post on /.?
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
to cynically assume the worst. You'll come up just a little short of reality but you won't be very surprised.
Considering the NSA is currently building the world's largest data warehouse / encryption system http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1 ... and that google saves everything, and knows who asked the questions.. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/20/AR2006012001799.html, you are well on your way to the NSA knowing what you were looking for, and devising ways to illegalize precrime and do away with the annoying unconstitutionality of prior restraint.
"No good deed goes unpunished"
As long as they would be open and honest about their shilling there would not be an issue.
Hell, even if he just did his shilling under one account it wouldn't be so bad.
As it is, he has created half a dozen accounts today alone and floods topics such as this posting his bullshit.
It turns this place into less a place you can honestly discuss topics and more into the bathroom wall in a truck stop.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
now the NSA is completely exempt from FOIA?
they can just ignore ALL requests, and there is no vetting of their reasons. Brilliant.
Next the CIA and FBI will do the same, so the law becomes meaningless.
side-note: How does this post fail the lameness filter and look like ASCII art?
Confirmed.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
This answers the question. Of course, everyone knew this already.
This is the same answer the NSA would give if they were asked about a working relationship with any Company in the world.
They give a blanket, we aren't going to answer that question about everyone. Makes it harder to tell who they are really working with if the response is always the same.
Christ, will you two just get a room already...
Why is the NSA watching me? I've done nothing wrong!
If you are doing nothing wrong you have nothign to hide!
Can I see what information you arecollecting then?
We don't need to respond to FOIA requests.
But... the future refused to change.
Darn. Where do I get my cheque? I'm missing out!
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
When I had a security clearance "neither confirm nor deny" was what we were instructed to say when asked what we did. If the affiliation with Google is classified then that's the right answer here too.
Sure we are bonch.
I love how he talks about himself in the third person. It would be funny, it if weren't so sad.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
http://www.yacy.net/en/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SheevaPlug
Assume Control Of Your Own Data. Encrypt everything. Fuck the Snooping Pork-Barellers !
Seriously people, settle down.
We all know there is No Such Agency and that they have a mandate to secretly try to catch villains involved in our national security. That means, they don't care about your torrent of that cam of some shitty movie you downloaded. Nor do they care how much music you pirate, or even what porn you watch. We have entrusted them with a shroud of secrecy in order to operate under the radar and find bad guys.
Now when they start breaking that trust for bullshit domestic reasons, if they ever do, then we hold their noses to the grindstone. But until then, we have to remember why we gave them such a mandate to begin with. We also need to remember that ignorance is bliss.
Before I sound like a complete lackey, let me say this; shaking the mechanism that houses the safety on No Such Agency and making sure it still works is a wise idea. Somewhere in the machine there are safeties should they stray out of their mandate to correct themselves. They would have to, in order to remain off the radar and not make domestic enemies. You step on toes, people notice and start looking.
Are they working with Google? Who cares? If they did in light of recent events, then why would that be a bad thing? We should be happy about it. Again, stop being paranoid about your own shit and letting it paint your image of them. Yes, it's a monster, but it's our monster. Stop poking it with a damn stick to see if it will bite your goofy ass.
Look on the bright side, if they are overtly working with Google, (at least to Google) then there is a level of accountability even if it's from exposure. Bluntly put, if they do something fucked up and leave Google holding the bag, Google has enough money to at least punch someone from No Such Agency in the dick. Getting punched in said region isn't good for business and puts No Such Agency on the radar where it becomes vulnerable. Assured mutual destruction can be a wonderful diplomacy tool. Honesty is the best policy, if you start messing around, you shake loose "things" that turn up at the worse possible moment.
It's probably a nervous date between the two. They want to catch bad guys, Google wants to make money and not be sued shitless over privacy rights violations. There is probably an annoying amount of "cover your own ass" protocols that have to be followed that people are getting carpel tunnel signing forms. Anyway, that is how I see it. I don't envision dark evil plots being carried out by minions, that's a DC thing.
Take the Red Pill.
MS seems to have been more a rapid roll out of CPU friendly, rushed beta code to ensure a digital brand and land grab before cashed up start ups got traction.
Security was to come after as the end users got better cpu's, gpu's, bandwidth and only ***if*** US law ever dictated better digital privacy.
The NSA would have loved all that clear text, spyware friendly tech been exported, copied, cloned, installed, pushed around the world.
MS and its rush to build networking gave the USA the gift of a few decades of low cost/easy crypto.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act then fixed aspects of wiretapping networkings in place, making new OS security a pure marketing term due to easy tracking of any messages/usage.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
you don't use google, or facebook, or other similar things.
The problem is your friend with a job offer or your boss or your family is. Your name, interests, friends are floating around. Add in your cell calls, emails, texts to your cell phone.
Contractors buying bulk commercial data, the US gov and govs around the world, your data been looped around the world - its all fair game to the NSA.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Have gnu, will travel.
Why are we arguing? We all know that everybody that posts on /. these days is paid to post on slashdot by someone with lots of money.
I'm arguing because I want to know who took my money.
It's something I've been saying for at least five years (somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but there you go).
Coming up with a credible plan to coax people to hand them over their data willingly is Just The Right Thing To Do for the NSA. One might even argue that they ain't worth their salt if they didn't. For an added bonus, this scheme is financially self-supporting by a comfortable margin.
So it would have made a hell of a lot of sense for them to "invent" Google.
Taking into account that NSA employs many of the brightest mind around, this {hypothesis|conspiracy theory} is just... plausible.
When one voluntarily participates in activities via the Internet, does he have a right to believe that he may do so anonymously or in any sort of private forum? I think not. The Internet is the world's largest "public forum". I believe the World Wide Web was designed to be just that--- a public forum for the exchange of ideas and information. I don't believe that Google ever made any representations to the contrary. They have always admitted that they maintain records of the searching activities of all who use their search engine. The question now, is whether they freely exchange this information with the National Security Agency, and what other items are part pf this agreement between Google and the government. I think the public has a right to know. When one conducts a search on Google, they record his IP address along with the searches, search results, and the specific links the user clicks. Unless of course the user is logged-in at the time of the search. If so, his name will be added to the rest of the information Google maintains. When a use goes from his open Gmail account, to the Google browser, he is automatically logged-in to the search engine. However, the user may log-out of Google before browsing. Google makes it easy for the user to be logged-in, because they want the search information for their marketing efforts. It's all about money. Clearly, this agreement between Google and the NSA, may affect Constitutional safeguards and protections to U.S. citizens. Because of this, the public does have a right to know. Seems to me that this case will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court. The NSA will defend itself by saying that the war on terror and homeland security override any Constitutional protections Google users have. They will demonstrate countless cases where convicted terrorists used Google to search for means and methods to conduct their criminal activity. Google will defend by saying that a user may simply use their browser anonymously. The Supreme Court will balance the interests of Google, the NSA, and the rights of the public to know about the "secret agreement". Stay tuned to Part II-- "Google and the Government Do the Supremes".
Gershon Ben-Peretz Attorney and President of LegalWritingServices.com
It used to be that the magic words were "abracadbra" or "presto chango", but now the new magic words are "national security". Those words hypnotize judges into giving the government anything it wants. It seems to even work on corporations: Google, ATT etc.The NSA is the Fight Club. The first rule of the NSA is you don't talk about the NSA
It leaves me wondering exactly what kind of security system we really have. It seems to be some unholy tangle of secret government combined with corporate indifference to laws and civic responsibility. Ike warned about the military-industrial complex. Today he would probably be warning us about the national security-corporate alliance that has taken root in the US. We pay for the NSA, but we don't get to ask about what they do. Our representatives oversee them in secret, give them money in secret (we can't see the "black budget"), and don't talk about what they oversee. Is the money worth it? Who knows? You and I will never find out. Is the NSA spying on US citizens? You and I won't get a straight answer. Does the government issue death warrants for US citizens without due process? You bet, but we are not privy to those decisions until CNN announces it. Is Google assisting the NSA? My guess is yes. And I'll bet everyone else, ATT, Microsoft, etc., at the top of the food chain is also. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain for both sides. Customers and stockholders don't care and you can't prove it because the government will invoke the magic words.
LOL I'm Rui Maciel now? And I live in Portugal?
+1 Go kill yourself. Or at least go fuck yourself.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Eat shit and die, bonch, and then suck satan's cock in hell. Maybe he'll pay you, it'll be an improvement.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I have a hunch bonch's real name is Matt Deatheridge:
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2616908&cid=38670604
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I'm also a pro-Google shill although I've long been critical of Android's tivoization and have a journal post on how to reduce your Google data footprint.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel