Google and the CIA? 234
snottgoblin writes "DailyTech has an article suggesting that Google might be involved in a partnership with the CIA. The article also quotes a former CIA officer that Google's refusal to comply with the DOJ over privacy issues was 'a little hypocritical [...] because they were heavily in bed with the Central Intelligence Agency.'" Because I'm sure no one would go on the air and try to drum up a scandal aimed at the biggest target they can find.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
as a Google employee (Score:2, Interesting)
Note that this applies to national security level stuff, not regular ol' crime and random cases that are actually relatively unimportant despite attracting publicity, but for which it's good PR to make an ostensible public refusal.
Or, to put it in a Google-favorable light, you guys all know what this government is like - you think we could get away with refusing to give them something they really wanted?
In-con-CEIVE-able! (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course Google has contact with the CIA. And NRO, and NSA, and DIA, and the FBI, and probably most state-level agencies, as well. It would be shocking, really, if they did not.
And how does Google taking a stand on privacy in any way contradict the vested interest they have in the CIA more effectively sorting through unthinkable amounts of data and drawing better, more useful conclusions? Google is based in the US. When the economy takes a hard hit (as it did following 9/11), Google is hit hard, too. It's perfectly reasonable for them to be both "no evil(tm)" corporate citizens and also help a vital government agency better do what they're supposed to do. You know, the agency that so many people have complained about being unable to effectively sort through lots of information, communicate across agencies, and draw more workable conclusions? How can input from, and influence by Google-type people possibly be a bad thing, in the grand scheme of things?
The people at the CIA are just people. Google can afford very, very smart people that the agency can only get as consultants, or as hires that aren't worried about what they make. Farming out some high-end IT expertise to an entity that has an enormous profit incentive - in other venues - to be very good at it and competitively innovative is simply good policy.
Don't forget their records of voter affiliations (Score:3, Interesting)
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That's old news. But this image [waffleimages.com], discovered by a Something Awful forum user [somethingawful.com] in a time of election uncertainty, is new.
From the post: [somethingawful.com]
"I was browsing google maps today and came across something a little creepy. I moused over something on the map, and a preview page came up. (This is with a firefox extension that loads a URL you mouseover in a preview box.) It had people's legal names, familiar names, precinct, and political affilations. It seems to have had a lot more information than that, but I didn't scroll.
Thankfully I took a screenshot when it first happened, becuase I couldn't make it happen again. It's weird how codey the whole thing looks, isn't it? It obviously wasn't meant to be seen by people like me--it looks like it was meant to be parsed by a computer. What kind of database is Google hiding behind its maps? (I don't mean to sound tinfoil here, as this probably isn't some joint Google/NSA operation. I just wonder how they got this information and what they're using it for.)"
What is Google doing?