Google Recruited By CIA For Spy Work

London Times:

Google has been recruited by US intelligence agencies to help them better process and share information they gather about suspects.

Agencies such as the National Security Agency have bought servers on which Google-supplied search technology is used to process information gathered by networks of spies around the world.

Google is also providing the search features for a Wikipedia-style site, called Intellipedia, on which agents post information about their targets that can be accessed and appended by colleagues, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The contracts are just a number that have been entered into by Google's 'federal government sales team', that aims to expand the company's reach beyond its core consumer and enterprise operations.

Read the whole story: London Times

Comments

[owiseone]

Not only will this make it make it easier for these agencies to share information, it will be easier for W/Cheney to control THEIR OWN information. In other words, those agents who find and document information contrary to administration policy will find their information rewritten, just as we posters have ours rewritten, removed or otherwise altered.
Agents who keep files which are "controversial" will get warnings and be tracked as well.
This is more of the same Dictatorship at work; W's administration has finally caught on to the power of the internet and is trying to get control its own agencies, as there are...drum roll...rogue agents who tell the truth about WMDs and nuclear research in other countries W wants to bomb.

[LITU]

Whenever I hear those clicks and beeps on my cell phone, I don't think for a second it's a whacked out satellite.

[willo]

Is there any news or media service that the CIA doesn't already control? Yes some real news does escape onto the internet, but I think they [secret agencies] have more control over it than you think.
Things are even censored and removed here on Huffington post.

[rlmcintosh]

This is is true willo. My post from last night which tipped everyone off to a search engine that uses google technology but would protect your identity (your IP address) during searches and subsequent browsing has yet to be posted. The thrust of my message was not to fear the technology (guns, software, etc) but fear our government that does not respect our Constitution and our rights to privacy. I think the CIA made a great purchase and I think that every organization that deals with large numbers of distant employess would benifit from a similar set up. But I guess my comment is still pending...

[willo]

Agreed, and what has happened to this very article. It has diasapeared, only to be accessed through my profile. What a mess were in.
Thanks for the response.

[speakingtruth2power]

Populism is the cure for the cancer of corporatism

and fascism is the goal of the Bush crime family.

[patcoghm]

So wake up out their in the never never land of computers. Seems almost unreal how Google has expanded during the Bush presidency and their attack on the rights of Americans. Funny how they give us all the free services. Gmail that saves all your email forever. I always had some doubt if Google and Microsoft were on our side with all these free information services, but are really on the dark side. Remember that this government, UNDER GOD, I mean, UNDER BUSH, has been known to twist the fact to suite their issues and agenda. Any company can be bought, when the spooks in the government wave the flag, and then call anyone who questions their wisdom as unpatriotic. Remember the telecoms helped with the domestic spying on AMERICA by the people that we hire to protect us. So why not Google, or Microsoft, or maybe your neighbor watching you, so they will not be called unpatriotic.

[bushmocker]

Google huffington post and it shows it's for sale,200M,3hrs ago.

[TN]

Try getting a job, they'll have access to this stuff and we'll never be hired. Thats OK, a big Co. doesn't deserve us. We'll have to use our right brain and be creative. For Google, I'll just cancel the internet. I really don't need it, it's just for fun, when it's not fun anymore I'm done.

[goodsnservices]

Bush sure did damage our faith in the interests of the intelligence agencies, didn't he? Ironic. They thought they were breaking all those laws so that they could protect us all from another attack, and instead what they've succeeded in doing is convincing everyone that they want to spy on our every move so they can control us better.

It's a sad, twisted world we live in. Incidently, ask yourself what legitimate need or desire the intelligence community would have in *you*. I know, what we're all afraid of is that we'll either be mistakenly targeted as an enemy, or we'll be blackballed by a real enemy in government. Google's participation will go a long way toward eliminating the first fear, but we've got to elect government officials we can trust to eliminate the second, don't we.

[bayviking]

some people will do anything for money.

its a brave new world, with the lines between Government of, by and for the Corporation completely blurred by profits or a few.

[goodsnservices]

I think folks here are getting the wrong idea about this. The intelligence community isn't co-opting Google to help them spy on people. They are going to Google to ask how they designed their AI computer system to pull relevant information out of the sea of noise. They're going to them for design ideas, not to take over Google or put some spy trap on internet search strings.

The biggest problem the intelligence community has today is it has too much data -- and not enough information. The difference is that data, alone, is meaningless. So they are going to Google to pick their brains on how they do their magic, because Google's search engine is the most sophisticated AI system on the planet. But that AI system only does one thing, which is figure out what you are really looking for when you enter a search string. Any system designed for intelligence, on the other hand, would have a different set of criteria and would pull information from their databases to help them identify patterns of activity.

Y'all seem to think the only thing on the Intelligence community's mind is picking through your garbage. Fact is, they'd much rather not have to deal with your garbage at all. A sophisticated AI system would let them get to the real information they need from the mounds of garbage they collect from all over the world every day. Right now, they are drowning in the noise.

[NtFourSale]

Or maybe you don't know what you don't know.

[scoobynooby]

LOL Do you believe all that? They want tech so they can better figure out who is more likely to resist when martial comes and just meet them at thier door before the hammer drops and escort them to the fema death camps. Wake UP!

[KarenZipdrive]

We should all Google "Bush is an asshole" a few dozen times a day.

[nanotubz]

Sorry but the blogs so far are farcical. Makes my neighbor with his black helicopters sign almost seem rational. All Google is doing is suppling the data mining and organizational software to run within secure networks. Apparently the existing software has junked up the system, or is too precise to be used. Google and Yahoo both do this for their advertisers, and most of the large commercial websites have been using data mining applications for at least five years. We haven't had any privacy for a number of years. Getting upset about Google suppling software to the CIA is inane.

[markkraft]

And for those who haven't read it, you really *should* read Cory Doctorow's short story, Scroogled, to understand just how evil Google could actually get if it worked closely with the government.

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-17-n72.html

[markkraft]

We've been Scroogled!

[bigdaddyvike]

mmmm... guess I need a new search engine.