Judge Says You Can't Know If Google Spies For NSA 197
witherstaff writes "A federal judge has ordered that whether Google is spying for the National Security Agency or not, you have no right to know. EPIC, which brought the lawsuit, says the NSA can neither confirm nor deny any relationship with Google. EPIC is worried the 'NSA is developing technical standards that would enable greater surveillance of Internet users.'"
But don't worry (Score:5, Funny)
After all, we're the good guys. We're just doing it to keep you safe from the red threat. Erh, the terrorists.
Could someone FINALLY update my teleprompter, please?
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and your sigfile talks about russia, too.
are we at the 'race to the bottom'?
seems kind of depressing.
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seems kind of depressing.
That's OK. Our government-subsidized pharmaceutical industry can produce the perfect antidepressant for you simply based on your Google search terms. It will all be better soon. If you don't believe us, just Google it. I'm sure we'll be able to provide the search results you want ;-)
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Re:But don't worry (Score:5, Insightful)
The race is over. We won!
When I was a teenager, after the wall fell down, a Russian scientist looking to hawk his invention moved in with my family. He was great, and taught me a lot, especially how to drink vodka. But one thing he said will always stick with me - "America and Russia always competed to see who was first. America built first nuclear submarine. Russia build first space rocket. America built first moon rocket. Eventually we had nothing to compete for, so we raced to see who spend money fastest. Russia won!"
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What did we win? I have been standing by my mail box waiting for my prize.
Bad Postal Service. Sorry.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Wow. Way to shift the blame from the greedy investors who think that perpetual growth is not only possible but mandatory. I have to bow to that much chutzpah.
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It is quite impressive isn't it? BTW, I'm glad to see you do not think greedy investors who think perpetual growth is not only NOT possible, but is a good idea to short, are to blame. Thanks for not holding me to account. No excuse me while I go fill my pool full of dollar bills.
Confirmed (Score:5, Informative)
This is Legal Speak for Confirmed.
Thread Over.
Why is it confirmed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't it legal speak for "hmmm... but... if we deny this, won't you just keep asking the same thing about all companies until we say that we can't comment?"
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Yes indeed. "We wont tell you" is no different than a big fat "yes". I am sure that lots of people are dumb enough to be fooled by this though. :(
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fact 1: people found nsa registry entries in windows xp.
fact 2: google is the new microsoft.
it is but natural that nsa will have deals with google.
Misleading (Score:5, Informative)
The National Security Agency does not have to disclose its relationship with Google amid press reports that the two partnered up after hackers in China launched a cyber attack on the U.S. government, a federal judge in Washington ruled.
It's not that you don't have a right to know. Its that the NSA is under no obligation to tell you. There's a big difference.
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The National Security Agency does not have to disclose its relationship with Google amid press reports that the two partnered up after hackers in China launched a cyber attack on the U.S. government, a federal judge in Washington ruled.
It's not that you don't have a right to know. Its that the NSA is under no obligation to tell you. There's a big difference.
I'll admit that I just woke up, but the distinction seems academic... I don't see any practical difference at all.
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The difference comes into play when obtaining this information from a different source (a leak, Google, own investigations...) and then redistributing it.
With one definition, this would get you into trouble (depending on your person, things like espionage, treason might get thrown at you), with the other one, you are fine.
This seems to be a case of the latter one.
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Erh... I somehow think it's NOT a good idea to go investigate whether Google is spying for the NSA. I'm kinda sure there's some kind of law for that, or that they don't need one to make you stop.
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Bet you Wikileaks has some documentation on Google spying for the NSA.
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It's not that you don't have a right to live. It's that some TLA is under no obligation to let you.
Soon to come to a theater near you.
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But since their activities are secret who knows, maybe some people have been offed for exercising their "right to know" that.
Re:Misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't find out if they won't tell you. There is no difference.
You're buying right into what they're doing. They're skirting around the issue of right to public knowledge by simply not saying anything. "Oh, it's not that you don't have a right to know. We just don't have to tell you when you ask. Therefore, we're not violating your right to know."
That's complete bullshit.
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Re:Misleading (Score:4, Interesting)
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a "right" is. That goes into huge and lengthy discussion, but to say that rights come from government is not it, especially not the US government. (Yes, we know the government people are ignoring the constitution and their limits of power.) The government comes from the people and exists to preserve people and to protect the rights of the same people it comes from.
The freedom of information act formalizes the right to know. Often, FOIA requests are ignored or handled in bad faith... once again, people in government ignoring the law.
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Re:Misleading (Score:4, Informative)
Jeebus, go read up on the philosophies produced during The Enlightment, especially Rousseau's concept of "Dignity of Man", and how those philosophies influenced the Founding Fathers as they set out to write the Constitution. Also look up the phrase "inalienable rights"
Idiots like you are the reason we're losing more of our rights with each successive national election.
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What? So where exactly is the evidence for these "inalienable rights"? People seem to like to spout their existence as fact, but from what I see, they're just something given to you by society that can be taken away quite easily.
Idiots like you are the reason we're losing more of our rights with each successive national election.
How do you lose an "inalienable right"? Furthermore, why does it matter whether or not someone believes in inalienable rights?
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You risk your portion of "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor" and ACT on them.
Rights are sort of peculiar. They exist, but they don't have any effective power except when people choose to exercise them. And there's no guarantee that there won't be heavy penalties in such exercise. There isn't supposed to be, not under our constitution. But that presumes that the government pays any attention to the constitution, or doesn't blatantly misinterpret it.
Mind you, I think parts of the constitution
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What is his "fundamental misunderstanding"? It seems to me that you failed to articulate any error at all. If he has a right to know, NSA is obligated to tell him when asked; simply because the NSA has the option of acting illegally by ignoring a legitimate FOIA request does not change the underlying concept of rights. By declaring that NSA has no obligation to disclose, the right to know is formally denied, correct? I don't see where you made any point to the contrary.
Re:Misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
I interpreted the grandparent post as meaning that there is a distinction to be drawn between what information we, in principle, should have access to, versus the actual state of what we do have access to. In other words, we do have an intrinsic right to know--it is simply that this right is not recognized by the government.
Not all "rights" are those that are defined and granted by law. The US Constitution attempts to be as broad as possible in codifying certain basic rights, but as we have seen throughout history, that doesn't mean every right we do have is actually allowed to be exercised in practice. That comes down to the subjective interpretations of nine fallible old people, many of whom are beholden to personal biases and political interests. And quite often, the way they rule does in fact deny people of their actual rights on a very fundamental level.
As nice as it may sound to have a state that is of the people, by the people, for the people...that is not what the US actually is, nor has it ever been. The government has always been of itself, by itself, and for itself, and the people are merely a source of money and labor for the powerful to exploit. It's a lie on the same level of communist propaganda. All government exists to rob power from the individual to concentrate it for the few.
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actually, human beings do not have any intrinsic rights. each and every right is granted by the government. so, if the nsa is not under obligation to tell you, you do NOT have the right to know.
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Maybe it's "Google is a third party and what we decide to do or not do with them is none of your business".
Google's own privacy might well be an issue, and the judge might just be saying "Ask Google about it".
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No it isn't. The ruling about subpoenaing your mistress does not extend to prohibiting your wife from hiring someone to follow you around with a binoculars and a camera. She can still find out, and she is not prohibited from retaining this knowledge if she has it.
She has a right to know.
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Does anyone here know how to read government intelligence agency speak? I do, I watch several relevant TV shows. This case is closed, it quite clearly says the following: "Google and the NSA work very closely together, in fact Google was funded from the beginning with intelligence money and VC with this very idea in mind. None of this ever happened. Nothing to see here, please move along."
Sooooo (Score:2)
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Google doesn't spy. Google is tapped into lots of information. Making information available to the government is not spying. Spying is about going places you shouldn't or wouldn't normally go to collect information which you are not entitled to have. Google doesn't hack and crack to get its information. It reads what's out there and uses program logic to sort and categorize the information of millions of sources to try to make useful sense of it... and then sells it.
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so, google is a traitor of the people because it rats on the people.
call a spade a spade.
its a whore to the advertising guys and the spooks as well.
both *really* well respected folks, lemme tell you.
not that it really matters, but my going to start my migration away from google, and while I realize that they already know what they know, I see no need to keep filling their till with my emails, etc.
otoh, half - or more - of everyone I email seems to *also* be on gmail. so even if I migrate away, all my comms
Re:Sooooo (Score:5, Interesting)
I've said it before and I will say it again. Google is an advertising/marketing company and because of that, I only trust them to be what they are and act accordingly. They offer great candy to the people, but I am careful about which candy I will eat. No Chrome for me, thanks. I only run customized Android OS loads with a lot of crap removed. I use Google for searching. That's just about it. The social network? Yeah, not gonna play there.
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I know, honeypots, you have to thrust someone etc but startpage.com sounds good.
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The NSA doesn't need google to watch all of your internet traffic. They are already on the backbones. Google can certainly add value to the spooks with their search-related technologies but do you really think any US corporation isn't going to role over when the guys-in-black come calling? We allowed the Patriot Act, among other forfeitures of our civil rights, what did you expect?
So, google got big because they did it best. Isn't that what the market is supposed to do? They did it before there were high b
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I doubt Google has any choice in the matter. Your intelligence agencies can install fibre splitters wherever they please and intercept any traffic they like, as such the NSA will have complete access to Googles networks. If they're going further than that and Google is providing services to the NSA on a commercial basis then it's likely they were made an offer they couldn't refuse.
Here in the UK network admins have to comply with all requests by the intelligence services. It's a criminal offence to tell any
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That is an arbitrary definition of spying. There is no requirement for breaking and entering or hacking; merely secretly gathering information for potentially hostile use is spying, regardless of how the information is gathered.
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It most certainly does, which is why it's under investigation by several governments in the world. Oh, sure, they claim they "accidentally" archived the data, but that suggests an absurd level of incompetence. Also, Google would never have told anyone about it if the German government hadn't probed for the information.
Also, I'd like to note that if any other company had done this, such as Microsoft, Slashdot would have torn their head off. Because it's Google, however, they got a lot of f
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There was no shortage of outrage on slashdot over Google's collection of wifi data. I too expressed negatively over that. But I see Google within its own context. I've been in the advertising game selling free weekly newspapers. I know their hearts and how they think. No, Google's collection of data was not accidental, but it's also not like they parked outside and collected everything an individual had said either.
I don't defend Google here or anywhere. It's like being afraid of fire. You trust fire
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google is on the backbones. google can get at traffic. that's one thing. the other is that much of 'the internet' lands on google's servers via direct net.requests from users! no need to sniff when your traffic goes there on purpose!
they have you sliced, diced and ready for the oven.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's a two party system.
I had to vote for one of them.
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It's a one-party system. You voted for the candidate with a slightly different label than the other candidate from this party.
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I'm pretty sure I voted for a candidate who promised the exact opposite of what he's done for 2+ years.
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I'm pretty sure I voted for a candidate who promised the exact opposite of what he's done for 2+ years.
So has about 95% of the voting population for the last 20 years. For whatever reason nobody ever figures this out...
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It's a two party system.
I had to vote for one of them.
It's people like you that reinforce the two party bs by playing along.
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It's a two party system.
Yet the fact that there are typically more than two parties on a ballot, which the majority of voters believe will never win and don't want to "waste" their vote, is exactly why politics continues to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can't have change, because you're not shuffling the deck.
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At least someone got the reference.
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Next time vote for the candidate that supports electoral reform.
You mean a third-party candidate?
Go ahead, throw your vote away!
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are you serious or are you trolling ?
third party candidates are your only redemption.However, due to the pervasive tribe factor, people belong to a tribe and they stick to it. If more people were aware of theirs sub-symbolic behaviour activation, things would be a lot better. To everyone go reads some papers from the ACT-R community, you wont regret it.
Re:They do not need to confirm it (Score:4, Interesting)
Please. Don't even try to convince anyone here that "oh, it's not a two party dictatorship, anyone can run and become a candidate". Please. The US were a two party system from its very start. 200 years of two party system and you really want to tell me nobody bothered to try to crack that duopoly? Aside of a few desperate or dumb enough, only to find out that they couldn't even get close to winning a single state, let alone a national election? It's now almost 100 years since a "third" candidate in a president election came out in front of either party (1912 Roosevelt actually came out second in front of Taft), ever since the "third" candidates were mostly cute side effects with some entertaining value.
Please stop perpetuating the myth that the US aren't a firmly entrenched two party system that ensures with its very system that nobody else can muscle in.
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Shut up and vote 3rd party if you don't like it. That's what I'm doing after voting mostly Dem the past 8+ years. I suggest everyone else do it as well. If we lose, fuck it, nothing new, but maybe we gain numbers and maybe gain traction.
As much as I rooted for Obama and his change it honestly feels like Bush v2.0. That seems to be the common sentiment here on Slashdot as well. So why both with Dem or Rep anymore? They don't represent my interests anymore.
Re:They do not need to confirm it (Score:4, Insightful)
Your third-party vote is a wasted vote.
Also, that you ever believed Obama in the first place is funny. The man broke his promises right from the beginning when he didn't use public campaign funds like he said he would, so it was obvious that he was nothing but an empty celebrity politician riding a wave of hype. I'll never understand how former Obama supporters can be surprised about the current state of affairs when it was obvious from the beginning. His policies have damaged the economy so greatly and raised the debt so astronomically that it will take decades to recuperate.
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"Your third-party vote is a wasted vote."
No, that kind of mentality multiplied by millions of others is why we're in this situation. I don't care if we "lose" this vote in 2012, we as citizens needs to stick to our guns and vote how we feel instead of "choosing the lesser of two evils". I refused to be corralled into that anymore.
As for you Obama comments - sure, it's our fault. I'll take that responsibility. But I'm changing my voting behaviors as a result. What are you doing? We've still got a Dem/Rep con
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You have to admit, Obama said "yes we can". Nobody said anything about doing something actually. You have to read the fine print, ya know...
And vote however you like. Until you manage to somehow wake up at least another 100 Million people or so, and all of them from the US, it's useless. And if you manage to somehow pull of that feat, I know a guy who could use your aid in his attempt to roll a stone uphill. He's been trying for a while now, too, but if you can turn the US into a multi-party system, aiding
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Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, a man named Lincoln ran for President. He was the very first guy from his political Party to run for President. He won.
Needless to say, we didn't have just one political Party before 1860.
In the USA, a third Party has a lot of hurdles to overcome. The biggest, of course, is that, contrary to popular rumour, most everyone is in the middle, not in the lunatic fringes to both left and
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Actually, Democrats are so unpopular right now that a generic Republican candidate beats Obama in the polls. This isn't surprising since the Democrats have been running the country without a budget for the last two years, in violation of the law.
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You have to admit, though, that 1860 was a VERY special case with the nation on the verge of the civil war. You will also notice that there are actually a few more moments in the history of the US with more than 2 candidates that actually had a nonzero chance of winning. But these aren't new parties that emerge when there are actually more than 2 serious contenders for the boss seat, usually it's happening when a party is about to break apart.
Yes, 1860 was a special year, and we should celebrate that a cand
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In times where people get grabbed at airports, wiretaps are done at almost random, why would the NSA NOT use and abuse google?
Someone gets it. And even if they did confirm it... what then? If I was an American citizen I wouldn't sleep any better with confirmation of the obvious. The next ruling by the judge would be "and you can't do anything about it".
And what does "spying for NSA" mean anyway? It could be "tell me google... how many searches today for 'how to use anthrax as a biological weapon'" or it could be "what has IP address 1.2.3.4 been searching for?". The former is probably a bit of a stretch for "spying", but you'd ne
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Clearly, both situations are not convenient for either national security or Google.
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And where is this any different? European intelligence services have at least as much power to access private data of European citizens, and they have had it pretty much forever.
Re:They do not need to confirm it (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's odd that people are surprised by this at all. Eric Schmidt flat out stated that only people with something to hide care about privacy. That is your beloved Google, folks.
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I think it's odd that people are surprised by this at all. Eric Schmidt flat out stated that only people with something to hide care about privacy. That is your beloved Google, folks.
That's Schmidt's opinion. It's not the opinion of most (or even very many) of the people at Google, or of the people making the decisions at Google, nor is it the opinion of the current CEO. Google takes privacy very seriously. Yes, there have been a few mistakes, but everyone makes mistakes, and Google has come clean about its mistakes and tried to fix them.
However, when faced with court orders or -- perhaps, I don't know this true, but I'm supposing -- arm-twisting by the NSA or other powerful branch
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In times where people get grabbed at airports, wiretaps are done at almost random, why would the NSA NOT use and abuse google?
More to the point, from the OP:
EPIC is worried the 'NSA is developing technical standards that would enable greater surveillance of Internet users.
Worried? I would think that was precisely something that is in the NSA's job description. Imagine if wiretapping was technically impossible. They would have to come up with an alternative.
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Vote however you want. If elections could change anything, they'd have been outlawed ages ago.
Me says (Score:2)
I do: they do.
Sky=Falling (Score:3, Interesting)
Short version = I think I speak for most individuals when I say, Duh.
Long Version =
The illusion of anonymity that is the Internet. Does anyone honestly believe you have any real expectation or right of anonymity online?
When you hit a webserver... Logs are generated/stored
When traffic you generate is either passed through or blocked at a firewall... Logs are generated/stored
When you use a search engine from a company in the advertising industry (ex: google)... logs are generated/stored
Rinse and repeat for just about anything you do online... and add in a dash of other miscellaneous things like tracking cookies, flash cookies, etc...
In some cases logs are obfuscated, but not usually. I mean c'mon - legitimate advertising companies have gotten pretty good at targeting ads for users by datamining and trending data, do you honestly believe the NSA isn't doing this to a creepy scope and scale?
Correlating data mined from multiple sources (logs, cookies, etc...). is an expensive process from a resource standpoint. Anonymity through obfuscation, apathy, and prohibitive costs may be seemingly effective, but it is not absolute.
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The illusion of anonymity that is the Internet. Does anyone honestly believe you have any real expectation or right of anonymity online?
is it worth having? do you think its completely gone? is it preservable? recapturable?
(I know, I ask a lot of questions for someone from new jersey)
I don't think the horse has completely left the barn, yet. maybe we should try to not lose what we DO still have, hmm?
or, shall we just say fuck-it and throw in the towel like smitty over at big-G wants?
So they are then. (Score:2)
After all, if Google wasn't spying for the NSA, they'd have nothing to hide... :-3
The general public might not have the right, (Score:2)
but shareholders absolutely have the right to know what Google is spending money on, and from where it is deriving its income. Shareholders are entitled to details about Google's assets, liabilities, income sources, and other financial details. If The Google is getting involved in shady backroom deals with the federal government, especially those that might later be found to be illegal, unconstitutional, crimes of War, or crimes against humanity, it puts shareholders at a substantial risk they deserve to kn
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orly?
I am an Apple shareholder. According to your logic, I can phone Steve Jobs now and demand he shows me the design of the iPhone 5, amirite? As a shareholder I am entitled to details about Apple's assets, liabilities, income sources, and other financial details, amirite?
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if your share is above 50% you cannot only phone and ask him, you can grab his char!
Always depends on the numbers....
You definitely have the right to be informed before the general public about important changes and business decisions for the year.
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Umm... as a US citizen, ain't you kinda the "owner" of your country according to that old parchment starting with "We, the people"? Bark up the right tree and go to the source.
No Such Agency (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a bumper sticker for you; "It's a modern world; Surveillance Happens!"
Our government has been eavesdropping on us since the telegraph. Accept it, get over it. I don't worry because I am a "good ole boy". If they watch the likes of me with an iota of interest, the world must indeed be safe and boring. 99.99999999% of us are boring as hell. Hence is why you have to automate this crap and search for key words, then individual vocal and speech patterns. I bet they have some sweet gear for listening in on us these days. If they don't, I am so seriously disappointed it makes me want to cry. If they don't, lets pitch in and get them something for Christmas, ok?
On a slightly more somber note, I can't imagine what kind of monster computer these guys have. Seriously, what would YOU do with their computers if you were contracting for them and had access to them for a few hours. I would find a list of women who like middle aged fat guys. Make some serious raytraced animated porn? Or would you submit your "mind simulator" into it and see if you create a singularity? I think therefor I am? Or just get everyone in the building to get on a terminal and see what game everyone could play at once? Everyone log into WoW, make gnomes and storm Ironforge to be epically annoying?
Eww! I know, one could steal back all the money and give it to the poor. They would just blow it and the rich would get it again, but it would make a grand holiday.
Come on, people. It's the NSA, they are the weird uncle of the intelligence agencies as it is. They aren't worried about your mp3s, torrents, or your pron. 99.9999% of us are incapable of being weird enough to make their radar. Right? Besides, I am a Google fan, they stood up to China, and probably still are standing up to them. If the NSA is working with Google, that is cool. I bet they have some awesome apps for agents. "Google Agent"; I can see it now.
Can't lick 'em, join 'em?
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"He who is willing to sacrifice essential liberty for a little bit of temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin
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On a slightly more somber note, I can't imagine what kind of monster computer these guys have. Seriously, what would YOU do with their computers if you were contracting for them and had access to them for a few hours. I would find a list of women who like middle aged fat guys. Make some serious raytraced animated porn? Or would you submit your "mind simulator" into it and see if you create a singularity? I think therefor I am? Or just get everyone in the building to get on a terminal and see what game everyone could play at once? Everyone log into WoW, make gnomes and storm Ironforge to be epically annoying?
Dont worry, you will never find out. They take their job seriously.
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99.99999999% of us are boring as hell
So only one person in 10 billion is not "boring as hell"? That means there are only 0.7 people in the world the NSA finds interesting? I think you have a few too many nines there.
99.9999% of us are incapable of being weird enough to make their radar.
This is a bit better, but still... this means that only 300 people in the US are "weird enough to make their radar".
The mathematical equivalent of using five exclamation points aside, the real problem is that you don't know, and you can't know if you'll ever be "interesting" to the NSA, FBI, etc. Given the vast numbers of laws
Of course! (Score:2)
Let's try it the other way. (Score:2)
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If Google were to deny it, would you believe them? If the NSA were to deny it, would you believe them? If the NSA were to demand information from Google and Google were to refuse, do you think the NSA would simply give up and go away, or would they find some way to obtain the information?
IMO, it's a pretty safe assumption that if the NSA wants information from Google, they can get it, by hook or by crook, no matter what either of them say about it.
To assume they are not helping "them" is silly... (Score:2)
Trailblazer and like programs crawl data to look for behavioral patterns. It's quite logical, if a wee bit over reaching.
To assume that anything you do, say, click, view online is not subject to search, record, and data mining is to have a basic misunderstanding of reality.
Well, this is an EPIC fail... (Score:2)
I'm so surprised... (Score:2)
I wonder if further concentrating all those information into the hands of a single company will make things worse? Naah, they're "not evil", what could possibly go wrong.
Microsoft and NSA have been cooperating since XP.. (Score:2)
A NSA official admits [tp].
Here is a clue (Score:2)
nothing new (Score:2)
Intelligence agencies all over the world can look at lots of things and you won't find out. They get Internet connection data, packet contents, data stored in the cloud. Both in the US and Europe (as well as elsewhere), they can install key loggers and viruses on your computer to track what you type, get your passwords, access your data, etc. This didn't start with 9/11, it's been there since the cold war (although it has been more restricted in the US than elsewhere). It's questionable, but it hasn't b
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Imagine the conspiracy theorists orgasms if they thought that Google was fronted by the U.S. government to basically get the world population hooked on an information service which happened to know just about everything about you online...
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So the Winkelvoss twins should have been suing the US government, and not Mark Zuckerberg after all, right?
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StartPage uses Google.
It appears that DuckDuck.com is for sale.
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its duckduckgo.com
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duckduckgo uses bing.
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"...Unless you have something to hide you really shouldn't care."
And who decides if that "something" is suspect or not, and who gives them the right to make that decision, or even do the search? The conundrum is exactly why the Founding Fathers wrote the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
When I put my private information into a safe, or hide it under the mattress, or paste it behind a picture, it is obvious that, for what ever reasons, I do not want others to view that inf