Here is an interesting, recent update with new allegations

The Internet and its associated mean of communication (mail, IM) has created a different context for this gathering, but the need of these services remain the same. They have just outsourced the task to a private company. Economists tell us it’s much more efficient, less hindered by citizens’ control and probably cheaper

Maybe there were good reasons for Google to hire so many PhD level students, after all…

It will be easy for CEOs to deny that they are are working with CIA – because they really don’t. They work with NSA.

http://www.gcn.com/blogs/tech/40864.html
http://googlewatch.eweek.com/blogs/google_watch/archive/2006/05/18/10078.aspx

Moral? If it’s limited to stopping crime, then yes.

Right? If it stops attacks, then yes.

The problem I see is the potential for abuse by our gov’t is probably high, considering our current administration’s view on how to fight this was on terror.

I’ve actually read (held in my hands) an original copy of one of the Cranfield experiments from the mid 1960s, a body of work that pretty much established the modern information retrieval age. And if you look at the queries they were using for their experiments, they weren’t pop culture and current news queries, such as “the beatles”, “the patty duke show”, etc. No, the queries were “find documents related to materials used in producing missiles and rockets” and “find documents related to nuclear weapons and radioactive emissions”.

In other words, the systems that lie at the heart of modern search systems like Google were originally developed to support intelligence agencies.

Should there be any surprise, then, over any sort of intelligence back door in modern IR systems? Let’s not forget where this stuff comes from.

Why would the Govt just limit themselves to Google ?! –

They are probably working with Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft also.

If the basis for the relationship is data mining – it would make sense to exploit the collective databases of GYM (people dont JUST use Google)

Perhaps, certain KEYWORDS of Repeated Search Terms are alble to be ‘red-flagged’ by Google’s technology – then information on the IP Addresses, locations and users profiles can be isolated and spit-out for further analysis.

Google could also be assisting in the development of next-gen datebase technology – as could Oracle

1) It’s a no brainer that Google should work with the Government to help stop potentially catastrophic terror attacks. For this reason I’m guessing they are doing so.

2) It’s essential to the “do no evil” policy that Google states they do this because the community of support that Google profits from has a right to know they are working in this fashion with the Government.

I fear that transparency for Google is starting to be “transparency when we see fit to divulge info”.

That, of course, is bullshit. What’s good for the Google is not necessarily good for the gander.

Now, if they are NOT working with the feds then the above critique by me is bull, and I apologize.

so, time for a new moniker – “how evil can one company possibly be?”.