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You are hereGoogle’s Faux Outrage over NSA Spying – Part 17 Google Spying Series
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2013-11-01 18:16
Big Brother Inc. Google is outraged at Big Brother NSA? Is there no honor among spies? Google’s faux outrage at the Washington Post’s Snowden story that the NSA directly tapped into Google’s internal network of data centers to surveil whatever it wanted, is akin to the classic line in Casablanca, where Captain Renault feigned public outrage in telling his casino partner: “I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!” The substantial evidence below indicates that Google is not an unsophisticated, unwitting victim of hacking by the NSA, or that it is opposed to spying. Google Inc. clearly does not have the coercive sovereign power that the NSA has. However, the evidence shows that it has a similar spying habits, legal positions, and attitudes; and that it also has had a decade-long record of cooperation with U.S. intelligence services. Similar spying habits. Consider the number of times Google has gotten caught doing basically the same thing the NSA allegedly did -- secretly tapping into others’ information without permission, which most would call “spying.”
Similar legal positions. Consider the similarity of Google’s and the NSA’s stances that what they are doing is legal – i.e. not specifically illegal. Google’s standard line in court: our services are legal because “a person has no expectation of privacy” if they use Google’s services. That sounds similar to the NSA’s blanket claims that everything they collect is legal and has been authorized by law and a court.
Similar spying attitudes. Consider these telling quotes from Google’s leadership.
A decade of spy cooperation. Consider how Google has cooperated with America’s intelligence collecting services over the last decade.
Conclusion In sum, we have to ignore a lot of evidence to believe that Google is shocked that the NSA tapped into their well-known “open” system. Simply, Google has more capabilities, to spy on more people, in more ways, more intimately, than any other private entity ever. This makes Google, Big Brother Inc., and a uniquely valuable, one-stop, spy partner, wittingly or unwittingly, for any sovereign Big Brother wannabe to leverage. Google Spying Series Part 1: All the Blackmail-able Info that 'J. Edgar Google' Collects on You [7-17-08] Part 2: Google's Interventional Targeting: Get into People's Heads? [5-19-09] Part 3: Big Brother NSA: Google-NSA Through a Foreigners Eyes [3-9-10] Part 4: What Else Does Google Secretly Track? [6-2-10] Part 5: Google's Total Information Awareness - One-Page Graphic of Info Google Has [6-4-10] Part 6: Google China License: What's the Rest of the Story? [7-9-10] Part 7: Big Brother Inc. Implications of Google Getting No-Bid Spying Contract [8-25-10] Part 8: Google's Deep Tracking Inspection [8-31-10] Part 9: Google's Mandatory Location Profiling/Tracking [11-1-10] Part 10: Google's Deep Aversion to Permission [3-10-11] Part 11: Google's No Privacy by Design Business Model [3-17-11] Part 12: Google's Rogue WiSpy Invasive Behavior Proliferates [6-17-11] Part 13: Why Google is Big Brother Inc. - One-Page Graphic [6-10-13] Part 14: Google Spy [7-8-13] Part 15: Google Spy-Glass - Google's Big Rest of World Trust Problem [9-8-13] Part 16: Top Questions for Google at Cato's NSA Surveillance Conference [10-8-13]
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