Google says FBI watching the web

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Google says FBI watching the web
Date March 7, 2013 - 8:06AM

Washington: Google says the FBI is monitoring the web for potential terrorist activity, but it can't confirm the extent of the surveillance.

As part of the Google Transparency Report, the internet giant released data this week on so-called National Security Letters – official requests for data under the US Patriot Act passed after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

But Google said it was only allowed to provide broad ranges of numbers: in the years from 2009 to 2012, for example, it received between zero and 999 requests.

The requests affected between 1000 and 1999 accounts, except in 2010, when the range was 2000 to 2999 accounts.

Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/technology/technology-news/google-says-fbi-watching-the-web-20130307-2fmpe.html#ixzz2Mpg2iSux

[MotherPetrie]

1. Please, like everything stored on every server in the U.S. isn't stored at NSA HQ

[lexw]

2. Shocking. :)

[msongs]

3. easier than watching wall street nt

[awoke_in_2003]

12. Yep...

also easier to jail pot smokers than it is to jail Wall Street criminals. They always go after easy targets.

[RKP5637]

32. Yep, that's because pot smokers are the most dangerous threat the US faces!

Exactly, they go after east targets ... and see aren't we great, your tax dollars at work, getting those dangerous pot smokers, especially those growing it in their backyard. And don't forget those horribly ill that get relief from pot, can't have that going on, pain and suffering is great for them, but let's jail them just to show we're working hard to protect you.

[bluedigger]

4. Well, duh.

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. Anyone who doesn't know that ALL web traffic is tracked is a fucking moron

Privacy as we have understood it is a print concept. It simply doesn't exist anymore. The sooner we stop being babies about that, the better off we'll be. Every time you click, it is tracked. Deal with it.

[cliffordu]

7. What you said.

[Lordquinton]

15. And they still need reasonable cause to access it

doesn't matter the format, the Constitution still applies.

[tavalon]

17. I'm fairly sure that the concept of "it's easier to ask forgiveness, than to ask permission.",

has been firmly in place longer than you or I would care to contemplate. I suspect you might have noticed that the constitution has been taking a bloody beating in the last few decades.

[Lordquinton]

19. Just because you ask for forgiveness, doesn't mean it will be granted

Trials have been lost because they didn't go through proper channels, they have a lot of room to run roughshod, but we still have a lot of laws on our side, not gonna throw in the towel yet.

[panzerfaust]

24. American with law on side showing forgiveness

Your ideas are so Twentieth Century: Get with this wonderful New American Century, where government is king.

In that old world, the man with blood on is pants would have been considered a criminal, now he is a Hero (TM).

First it was brown people in other countries who were the target, now it is anyone in America who is not part of the power structure.



More Heros(TM) waging war on Terra: We will get what we deserve.

[L0oniX]

36. "government is king" tisk tisk ...corporations/banks are the government. n/t

[RobinA]

22. What Is This

"Constitution" of which you speak?

[geek tragedy]

28. Oh look , Tea Party art offered by a supposed liberal. Take your shit back to Free Republic

where it and you belong.

The title of that piece of shit is "One nation under socialism"

Link for hypersensitive alerters:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2012/04/controversial-obama-painting-offered-for-sale.html

The original of this painting was sold to Sean Hannity, btw.

[panzerfaust]

23. No, "they" do not.

Please do try to keep up: President Bush asserted, and president Obama has extended, the concept that the power of anti-terrorism actions is outside the scope of judicial review.

[cliffordu]

6. Well.... FUCK THE FBI,

and the black fishnets J.Edgar rode in on.

Fucking weaksauce twerps.

(Just kidding, Officer Mike!!)

[Hekate]

8. Oh, hey, it's Agent Mike!

Long time, no see!

[cliffordu]

9. Naw, he's been here.

Posting Kitteh pics in the lounge.

[Hekate]

10. Just hangin' out...

Blending in...

We always knew it.

[blkmusclmachine]

11. If you've ever been on the Internet, you've been profiled. Every search and every click is recorded.

It's easier to compile enemies lists.

[Amonester]

13. Well, not every search if you use startpage.com

since your IP is not passed to giggle inc for them to suck it up

[cliffordu]

14. that's why I ONLY do searches for "Mature Amateur"

on the google.

One mistaken link and you could wind up on a registry.

Shit.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

16. Gee, I wonder if they monitor muli-player game servers....

All of those guys out there playing Halo are gonna have to explain emails talking about RPGs.

[onehandle]

30. What about World of Warcraft?

Orcs are basically Klingons, who are basically Soviets, who are gone — therefore Orcs are basically Muslim Extremists!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

34. If this were the Bush Years they would be doing searches for witchcraft....

That Ashcroft was a hoot.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/01/29/statues.htm

[Dan de Lyons]

18. Perhaps the FBI is using Google Alerts

If you google (tm) "Google Alerts," you will learn how you, too, can have google send you info on a topic or a person of interest. I get "Bradley Manning" alerts daily.

This email will now go into my little file. Or my dozen little files, more likely.

If you set up an alert for "Bush indicted" you may be able to watch history happen on the big screen. "torture trials begin" "FBI Google Alerts"

When governments do it, it's called "data flow harvesting". When people do it, it's called stalking.

[onehandle]

20. Can Google confirm its more than willing participation? nt

[Earth_First]

21. Exactly. n/t

[panzerfaust]

27. We participate, why shouldn't Google?

[Hayabusa]

29. Reminds me of a Knights of the Dinner Table comic

Where while playing a game like Call of Cthulhu as themselves, in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, the member with a laptop looks up how to make explosives to get the materials in game, location of gun stores and layouts of large buildings in their city to find a place to hole up.

Cut to Homeland Security where a new member on the team begins to think that a big attack is incoming while his supervisor recognizes that it's Muncie, Indiana, and dismisses the whole thing because it's large gaming population and the fact they've been burned there before.

[Dustlawyer]

31. Their only limit is budget and manpower restraints, but we are paying multiple, overlapping

agencies to watch us!

[RKP5637]

33. Eventually most of the US will be under surveillance and eventually in jail. It's good

business for corporate prisons. Maybe most of us are already in a virtual jail and just don't get it ... AKA The Matrix.

[L0oniX]

35. Giving up freedom for security ...we deserve neither. n/t

[hughee99]

37. What, and Google doesn't like the competition collecting info on people?

[Snarkoleptic]

38. Google is bad news.

I like this search engine.
https://startpage.com/

Startpage Protects Your Privacy!

Startpage, and its sister search engine Ixquick, are the only third-party certified search engines in the world that do not record your IP address or track your searches.
Your privacy is under attack!

Every time you use a regular search engine, your search data is recorded. Major search engines capture your IP address and use tracking cookies to make a record of your search terms, the time of your visit, and the links you choose - then they store that information in a giant database.

Those searches reveal a shocking amount of personal information about you, such as your interests, family circumstances, political leanings, medical conditions, and more. This information is modern-day gold for marketers, government officials, black-hat hackers and criminals - all of whom would love to get their hands on your private search data.

Why should you worry?

Major search engines have quietly amassed the largest database of personal information on individuals ever collected. Unfortunately, this data can all too easily fall into the wrong hands. Consider the following story:

In August 2006, the online world was jarred when AOL accidentally released three months' worth of aggregated search data from 650,000 of its users, publishing all the details in an online database.
That database is still searchable. It is an absolute eye-opener to see the potential for privacy nightmares.

[Tabasco_Dave]

39. Imagine the internet is a jar of cookies

and the government is a 5 year old kid. No matter how many times you say no he will still try to get those cookies.

[didact]

40. "Google Transparency Report" ...... what a joke.

eom

[Octafish]

41. Frank Church warned us.

“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

"I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

Frank Church and the Abyss of Warrantless Wiretapping