Google Says F B I Watching The Web

[webfact]

Google says FBI watching the Web

WASHINGTON (AFP) — 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 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 1,000 and 1,999 accounts, except in 2010, when the range was 2,000 to 2,999 accounts.

"You'll notice that we're reporting numerical ranges rather than exact numbers," said a blog post from Google law enforcement and information security director Richard Salgado.

"This is to address concerns raised by the FBI, Justice Department and other agencies that releasing exact numbers might reveal information about investigations."

He thanked government officials for collaborating with Google in providing "greater insight" into the use of National Security Letters.

The numbers, while inexact, were believed to be the first data from a private company about the requests, criticized by civil liberties groups for giving the government too much power to conduct surveillance without a warrant.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation calls the letters "dangerous" and has challenged the authority, along with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Google's actions are "an unprecedented win for transparency," EFF's Dan Auerbach and Eva Galperin said Wednesday.

Despite a lack of exact data, "Google has helped to at least shed some limited light on the ways in which the US government uses these secretive demands for data about users," they added in a blog post.

"While we continue to be in the dark about the full extent of how the law is being applied, this new data allays fears that NSLs are being used for sweeping access to large numbers of user accounts -- at Google, at least."

One inspector general review found "serious deficiencies" in the FBI's handling of the process and noted that the letters concerned tens of thousands of US citizens and non-Americans.

EFF said public records have documented the FBI's "systemic abuse" of the power.


-- (c) Copyright AFP 2013-03-07

[endure]

Google says FBI watching the Web

Also says the Pope is a Catholic....

[Mosha]

Shock horror, I'd be gob smacked if they weren't monitoring the web. Careful what you post, you might get a knock on the door.

[Payboy]

Google says the FBI is monitoring the Web for potential terrorist activity.

I heard they Googled "terrorist" and got about 90,600,000 results in 0.21 seconds.

[caykay]

I read news to find out about something I don't already know

[Scott]

Google says the FBI is monitoring the Web for potential terrorist activity.

I heard they Googled "terrorist" and got about 90,600,000 results in 0.21 seconds.

Checking out all those search results should keep them busy for a while.

[jamhar]

If the FBI weren't watching the web,

they should be disbanded.

[how241]

Google says the FBI is monitoring the Web for potential terrorist activity.

I heard they Googled "terrorist" and got about 90,600,000 results in 0.21 seconds.

Checking out all those search results should keep them busy for a while.

ha ha ha ...

[Chopperboy]

Google says the FBI is monitoring the Web for potential terrorist activity.

I heard they Googled "terrorist" and got about 90,600,000 results in 0.21 seconds.

Checking out all those search results should keep them busy for a while.

I think its all "Conspiracy Theory" nonsense myself...

[belg]

yes, that is why the help investing in FACEBOOK

[frankiebaby]

I'm selling my AK47 on ebay. Do you think the FBI know about it?

[Chopperboy]

I'm selling my AK47 on ebay. Do you think the FBI know about it?

Promotional material for Shadowhawk drone shows a UAV spying on a private gun sale.

[midas]

Google says the FBI is monitoring the Web for potential terrorist activity.

I heard they Googled "terrorist" and got about 90,600,000 results in 0.21 seconds.

90 million is chicken feed..........

" the NSA has intercepted and stored between 15 and 20 trillion messages, according to the estimate of ex-NSA scientist Bill Binney. "

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/03/16/nsas-new-data-center-and-ultra-fast-supercomputer-aim-to-crack-worlds-strongest-crypto/

[ilyushin]

FBI has been watching people for as long as I can remember.

[Trouble]

Before you know it terrorists will be using snail mail again to communicate as it might be safer and if I ever buy an illegal gun then I will do it in a parking garage. This is the world of the 21st century. Glad I won't be around when governments around the world control every aspect of our lives.

[GaryNelsonHarper]

I wish they would spend less time watching the web and develop the RFID chip accompanied by the personal scanner.
Linked to all social media, medical and law enforcement records with access for all. It would get me through the airport

quicker and eliminate any guesswork as to the ethics of the people I do business with. The ability to scan a

person and know how many men have sent them money in the past 12 months, would be a very valuable tool.

[Bluespunk]

I hope they are monitoring it. It's their job <deleted>.

[jamhar]

I'm selling my AK47 on ebay. Do you think the FBI know about it?

Wrong agency.

Thats the ATF charter. (Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms)

If you took a shot at someone with the AK, then its the local police.

if you got chased by the cops after shooting at someone, AND you crossed a state line

THEN its the FBI that would hunt you down.

just say'n

[Hedghog]

Who you gonna call Ghost busters.

[NeverSure]

Google Suits Up for FBI Privacy Battle.

By Shibani Joshi / Joshi on Tech / Published April 05, 2013 / FOXBusiness

"If there’s anyone that’s got the might, dollars and energy to take on the FBI, it’s Google. The Internet search giant, which is constantly battling concerns about privacy with regard to its own use of data, is challenging the FBI’s request for data from it.

The company has tried to take a more open stance on national security letters over the years through the issuance of its Transparency Report, which shows that government data requests are on the rise. But are such requests constitutional? That’s what the Silicon Valley giant is trying to argue.

The company filed a petition under seal in a U.S. District Court in California on March 29 just days after a federal judge struck down a set of laws allowing the FBI to issue so-called national security letters to banks, phone companies and other businesses demanding customer information. And now Google is challenging the application of the same rule to Internet data, which can include sensitive data including names, addresses and search activity."

Link

[Bwanatickey]

With Billions of users world wide,useing multipal languages,on the world wide internet,how can the FBI find the manpower to monitor posts,e mails,mobile phones ,land lines,carrier pigeons,smoke signals,navy ships flags,postal mail. Like all covert services,there are spies inside who work for the other side.How can they watch their own agents?

This posting has gone straight to the FBI and anyone reading it will be flagged as "dissadent"

[Publicus]

I want to be protected so this kind of report is assuring to me, although no government can give absolute assurance of the safety of its citizens from terrorism, terrorists, assassins and other malcontents.

However, I would be more comforted constitutionally if the government were required to get a court to issue a warrant in this kind of surveillance. Anyone who has been involved at any stage or either end of a warrant requested by the poiice and issued by a court of law immediately notices two things, which are contradictory. First the warrant is surprising in its broad and sweeping authority. Conversely, a warrant is crammed with specifics itemizing the things, and/or the matters, the FBI are investigating or searching for.

In the instance of the FBI, terrorism and just and only Google, say the FBI wanted to surveil 999 suspects or persons of interest, to also include some persons who are the targets of specific investigations involving specific provisions of law. Then a practical burden presents itself. That is, the FBI would need to write and swear out 999 specific individual warrants. FBI legal counsel would need to commit time and resources to present each case to a judge. Not only would the FBI be tied up and buried by paperwork, a backlog would occur in the court(s) hearing the request to issue a warrant - all 999 of 'em or all 2000 of 'em, whatever.

So I'll hold my tongue and feel better that the FBI has agents who have time to do the job they need and are themselves sworn to do, i.e., preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. I myself have taken that sacred oath several times during my professional career, and I took - and take - the oath solemnly and seriously, once to put my life on the line.

I commend Google for instituting its Google Transparency Report as noted in the news report. Other civil libertarians such as myself should stay on the case of protecting the privacy of citizens but should also realize the government must have some leeway in these matters, even if it's simply from a practical perspective. The FBI and other government law enforcement and national security personnel know their oath, and they know the oath is to the Constitution which really is the basic reality that gives me my due comfort about the people who do the work that must be done.

[Boon Mee]

Got a Facebook account do ya?

[Fozfromoz]

With Billions of users world wide,useing multipal languages,on the world wide internet,how can the FBI find the manpower to monitor posts,e mails,mobile phones ,land lines,carrier pigeons,smoke signals,navy ships flags,postal mail. Like all covert services,there are spies inside who work for the other side.How can they watch their own agents?

This posting has gone straight to the FBI and anyone reading it will be flagged as "dissadent"

Subcontract it to a call centre in Bangalore.

[justathought]

yes the FBI is working hard to protect our freedoms

[Publicus]

Got a Facebook account do ya?

Of course I have a FB account despite the fact Zuckerberg is oblivious to personal privacy. It's the nature of the beast at FB - their whole existence is to endlessly coax or bamboozle you into revealing all about you they can get. I don't use the personal messages function at FB because they know what we've written before we're finished writing it. I use FB primarily to reconnect with pre-cyberspace friends I'd lost track of. My FB "About" page is as blank as my life was the day I was born.

Trying to connect the klutzes at FB to Google is an awkward endeavor, tho there are some unavoidable similarities. Google to its credit however got out of the PRC to operate out of Hong Kong, the real China. On the isolated mainland of the PRC one can install a Google software called Google Unblock and Uncensor Routing which reroutes your IP address to a democracy such as Australia, the U.S., Canada, Japan, the UK etc so the idiot CCP censors can't find you or which PROHIBITED foreign website you are visiting (that's the one word that appears on the big white monitor screen when we try to access an unauthorized site). 'Prohibited' is a common word in the CCP-PRC, sort of like the term free speech is where I come from.

Google thus keeps the 30,000 CCP full time censors chasing after the much superior technology of the Google Unblock and Uncensor system .

You make a good point. However, while Google got out of the PRC rather than compromise further with the CCP, Zuckerberg would sell his soul to access the mainland PRC market.

I'd say I have more to be concerned about from FB and the Zuckerberg types than from the FBI.

[Chicog]

Yep, only one post on the organisation that is doing all the snooping, the rest on the FBI.

[justathought]

no peace for the evil

[isawasnake]

I have got something they can monitor right here.