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Government Surveillance Growing, According To Google
SternisheFan writes with news that Google has updated is Transparency Report for the sixth time, and the big takeaway this time around is a significant increase in government surveillance. From the article:
"In a blog post, Google senior policy analyst Dorothy Chou says, ' [G]overnment demands for user data have increased steadily since we first launched the Transparency Report.' In the first half of 2012, the period covered in the report, Chou says there were 20,938 inquiries from government organizations for information about 34,614 Google-related accounts. Google has a long history of pushing back against governmental demands for data, going back at least to its refusal to turn over search data to the Department of Justice in 2005. Many other companies have chosen to cooperate with government requests rather than question or oppose them, but Chou notes that in the past year, companies like Dropbox, LinkedIn, Sonic.net and Twitter have begun making government information requests public, to inform the discussion about Internet freedom and its limits. According to the report, the U.S. continues to make the most requests for user data, 7,969 in the first six months of the year. Google complied with 90% of these requests. Google's average compliance rate for the 31 countries listed in the report is about 47%."
They don't like competition.
Pot calling the kettle
More and more of people's lives take place on the internet.
Things that used to be ephemeral (telephone calls, letters, etc.) are becoming long-lived (emails, social networking posts, instant messages, etc.) and are useful investigative toosl.
Previously the police needed to get telephone records and then analyze the calling records to form connections. With social networks like Facebook, people do it for them.
Can the authorities abuse their position of power for various nefarious deeds? Absolutely. Are some of their requests legally or ethically dubious? No doubt. Nevertheless, there's plenty of legitimate reasons for governments to request user information and it should come as no surprise that the number of such requests is increasing.
That said, it's nice to see that major players like Google are quantifying the requests and the reasons behind them, as well as pushing back against such demands.
What did Google expect? That government wouldn't see that social networking sites and Google's press for personal information would be an attractive target?
After all, what once required actually boots hitting the ground, gathering of data, and correllating it together can be fulfilled with a simple, easy and no-fuss request to Google and the like, why wouldn't the government do that? It's cheaper, easier, and faster. And Google keeps demanding more information from you, making it even MORE tempting for government.
Of course, it's not like Google can do anything about it - they depend on knowing lots about you to begin with in order to pay the bills.
Whatever happened to "Don't be evil"? And how many tens of thousands of enquiries from "government agencies" does one have to receive before one is not acting as a subject but rather as an arm of that same government. And, at what point do people have to say "enough"?
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
/* MAGIC THEATRE
ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY
MADMEN ONLY */
I know most people don't care because they don't feel they're doing anything wrong, but for people like me, this is just another show of how over-reaching the government is becoming.
Is there anywhere that I can see exactly whose records were requested? Or is it all done in bulk?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Street view, drones(they are starting this in Texas), TSA, mobile devices, GPS, facial recognition and most everyone is on that database now.
*checks tinfoil hat placement*
"That's right...I said it."
For government information requests, Google should also send a copy of the request and the response to the user.
I'm certain that the old saying, they attack because they envy our freedoms still apply. I'm certain the middle eastern people's wouldn't feel at home in the "freedom loving" country USA.
I'm only pissed off because these stupid ideas and police state tactics, laws and such are being exported from USA to Europe so that they can comply with USG requests and of course to fill their envy quota of power grabbing from the people. USA is today, is a black hole, sucking away the light.
who the fu& is paying for it?
While I agree with you on most of this, I must say, Israel has never been shy about deploying soldiers, I bet they'll be on the battlefield.
Without that information, we only have part of the picture.
n/t
The surveillance of them is going to get really hot and heavy when the FTC sues them for anti-trust violations over their FRAND patent licensing practices.
Wow, that's quite a spike in user content take down requests in the six months leading up to a major election! I wonder if this will repeat in 2016? My bet is that they will start auto-generating background noise requests in order to render Google's reports useless to the public. Some of those randomly selected users are going to be seriously baffled!
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
And they gotta make sure us little pissant subjects don't revolt, or drink a Big Gulp.
When you consider that they recently patented finding people likely to be evildoers based on their social connections, well... http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/11/09/1452243/google-patents-guilt-by-association
I just skimmed through the pages but didn't see which agencies were making the requests. Is it listed somewhere?
Google has clearly failed to deliver sufficient backdoors to the government specifications.
They're watching everybody.
Oh please there is no way u can eat that.
Government Surveillance Growing
Rain falls.
Sun comes up, sun goes down.
As long as they are taking down the likes of Petraeus and now maybe General Allen, I'm fine with it.
Not that I'm being judgmental about a bit of hanky-panky. But them that lives by the sword, dies by the sword.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yeah, it used to be correctly named the Department of War, or as seen in the movies "The War Department". But I believe after WWII, they changed it to "Department of Defense" since there was no longer a current war; now considering the large number of never-ending not-declared-by-congress Wars that we are fighting on multiple fronts, the Department of War would again be the apropos moniker. It's just that it doesn't have the right political flavor for the pretense of moral superiority that "DoD" has.
Google has become the USA Government's great 'Latch-Key' and righty so for all the cash, $$$$$, that the White House, i.e. Barak Obama personally receives, and DoD Executives too ... OH SHIT --- GEN. PETRAEUS -- The Fucker's a funking Greek Descendant! Greek as in Grease and BAZILLIONS of SHIT -- Holy SHIT BATMAN -- The US IS funneling GAY BUTT LOADS of $$$$ into the bank accounts (checking and savings) of Google Executives, via UBS secret accounts in Switzerland. This FUCKS everybody! Fuck THIS!
Oh Jolly! Even the super 'genius' accountants who have 'man things' at IRS don't even have a clue to this shit. Ta Ta.
Jolly Good. I am out'a here for a new country and identity. Maybe even a race-change operation.
XD
Perhaps a merger is on the cards?
"Medicare accounts for half of all healthcare spending in this country, and only covers a small portion of us"
Soooo, obamacare will fix this?
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All you pouty boys shut up, let someone with some sense explain this.
It really is (past) time for an explanation of how this is going to work.
No brain, no pain.
I would be willing to bet you a very significant amount of money that we do not go to war with Iran in the next 4 years.
That's because Big Gulps make you piss too much and make you fat.
Hope!
Continued Gitmo!
And coming soon: War: Iran! With israel as a special guest (not on the battlefield, you silly. But they'll be there when everybody is dead for the spoils and land)
I know. Would have been so much better if the budget could have been balanced by killing Big Bird, women's body parts became subject to the Christian equivalent of Sharia, defense spending could have been raised way above what the Pentagon wants or the country needs, and relations with the outside world could have been restored to their Bush-era levels.
Don't worry, I hear Jeb Bush has decided to run for president in 2016.