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%."

Comments

Re:sure glad google never surveils me!

[mcgrew]

- Phones

When has government been in the telephone business?

- Electricity

You're ignorant. My power company, CWLP, is run by the city. We have the lowest rates, the best uptime, and the best customer service in the state. Why? Because if the poor suckers a town away get shitty customer service or a lot of outages or high rates, there's not a god damned thing they can do about it. On the other hand, if our service suffers, we get a new Mayor next election.

- Television/Radio Decency Standards

A whole lot of people LIKE those standards.

- Drug enforcement

There should be no such thing, except that the FDA should continue regulating purity of drugs and dosages.

- Energy planning

What energy planning?

- Political News Reporting

Are you on crack, son? The government has nothing to do with political news reporting; FOX and CNN do. And they're NOT government entities!

- Overall News Reporting

Again, lay down the fucking pipe. It's eating your brain.

- Responding to Crises (Katrina, Gulf Oil Spill, Sandy)

Yeah, Bush was the worst President in my six decades, but if you think they did a bad job on the Gulf spill or Sandy, well, again, put the fucking pipe away!

- Respect for Personal Property

I haven't had government not respect my personal propery, but Sony vandalized my computer and it wasn't even a Sony computer.

- Crime Investigation

My house was burglarized last year, the culprit was in jail that night. Have you ever been a crime victim? I thought not.

Who modded this idiot "insightful"? Another drug-addled moron?