How the CIA made Google

[ND-Dem]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by one_voice (a host of the General Discussion forum).

INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a new crowd-funded investigative journalism project, breaks the exclusive story of how the United States intelligence community funded, nurtured and incubated Google ...Seed-funded by the NSA and CIA, Google was merely the first among a plethora of private sector start-ups co-opted by US intelligence to retain ‘information superiority.’

The origins of this ingenious strategy trace back to a secret Pentagon-sponsored group, that for the last two decades has functioned as a bridge between the US government and elites across the business, industry, finance, corporate, and media sectors. The group has allowed some of the most powerful special interests in corporate America to systematically circumvent democratic accountability and the rule of law to influence government policies, as well as public opinion in the US and around the world. The results have been catastrophic: NSA mass surveillance, a permanent state of global war, and a new initiative to transform the US military into Skynet.

In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, western governments are moving fast to legitimize expanded powers of mass surveillance and controls on the internet, all in the name of fighting terrorism.

US and European politicians have called to protect NSA-style snooping, and to advance the capacity to intrude on internet privacy by outlawing encryption. One idea is to establish a telecoms partnership that would unilaterally delete content deemed to “fuel hatred and violence” in situations considered “appropriate.” Heated discussions are going on at government and parliamentary level to explore cracking down on lawyer-client confidentiality.

What any of this would have done to prevent the Charlie Hebdo attacks remains a mystery, especially given that we already know the terrorists were on the radar of French intelligence for up to a decade.

There is little new in this story. The 9/11 atrocity was the first of many terrorist attacks, each succeeded by the dramatic extension of draconian state powers at the expense of civil liberties, backed up with the projection of military force in regions identified as hotspots harbouring terrorists. Yet there is little indication that this tried and tested formula has done anything to reduce the danger. If anything, we appear to be locked into a deepening cycle of violence with no clear end in sight.

As our governments push to increase their powers, INSURGE INTELLIGENCE can now reveal the vast extent to which the US intelligence community is implicated in nurturing the web platforms we know today, for the precise purpose of utilizing the technology as a mechanism to fight global ‘information war’ — a war to legitimize the power of the few over the rest of us. The lynchpin of this story is the corporation that in many ways defines the 21st century with its unobtrusive omnipresence: Google.


https://medium.com/@NafeezAhmed/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. I doubt it matters much, but I routinely block my browser from connecting to

various google code library and analytics sites.

If a company wants to provide me with 'free code' to use, then they can simply hand me the open source code, not make me connect to their site all the time to add functionality to my own sites.

[ND-Dem]

2. +100

[msanthrope]

5. It should ring a Bell. nt

[NaturalHigh]

3. Seems like a bit of a conspiracy theory to me.

It might be true, but I haven't seen a lot of evidence to back it up.

[msanthrope]

4. Yeah...but how does this connect to the Gates Foundation and the Illuminati? nt

[Aerows]

7. Usually I would disagree

but I guess I've been short-circuited in my brain synapses by all the fluoridated water I've been drinking.

[msanthrope]

9. We need some pictures of smiling North Koreans drinking fluoridated

water.....nn

[Aerows]

22. There are some things

that just make you go

This is one of them for me.

We agree, and while that should scare me, if you *did* think google was part of a global conspiracy, I'd be much more concerned about both of our states of mind.

[SidDithers]

6. Oh, Hannah...

Sid

[Aerows]

8. I do believe I tripped

and hit my head in surprise after reading this article.

[elias49]

10. Well that's pretty disturbing..

While we're here, let me conjecture that Apple might be helping out as well.
I often wondered why - back maybe 10 years ago - when Apple was being lambasted by the govt for..I don't farging remember what! Anti-trust something something - it seemed to me at the time that they made out all right. Quid pro quo?

Let's face it folks...stick a fork in our right to privacy, to protest, to record the police in action, to know the truth about what our government does in our name. Just think how quickly the thousand-page Patriot Act was drafted and passed after 9/11. It was sitting on a shelf waiting for the right circumstances to foist it on an ignorant public.

I'm getting a little too old to worry too much about it. But more than once I've recommended that my grown children and their children consider their options. Emigration isn't easy, but...neither is living under fascism.

[ND-Dem]

11. where is there to emigrate to these days?

[SidDithers]

12. North Korea? Baltimore?...nt

Sid

[ND-Dem]

13. ...

[elias49]

15. Oh Sid! Always so helpful!

I hate Baltimore!

[elias49]

14. Canada?

I don't know if there's work to be had, nor whether its a difficult thing to do. My son should have his PhD in communications in another year+. My daughter is in education in Massachusetts. Anything marketable? I really don't know. Hey you Canadians! What's going on up there? Any room for a few good, hard working people?

[Trillo]

16. Emigrate to where?

Technology is spread worldwide, perhaps a little less in third-world countries, but great efforts are being made to modernize even those places.

[elias49]

19. True enough, but there seems a distinct difference in national identity

in some other 'western' nations. Certainly there are places less militaristic than the US. Less the hegemon.
There are countries with socialized medicine. With labor laws that seem more friendly to the worker. There are countries with better education systems (Scandinavia).
Yes we are more connected all the time in a lot of ways, but I honestly fear for where this country seems to be headed.

[sabrina 1]

17. And Google will censor their 'information' when Monsanto tells them to, or whoever

else has power over the information we receive.

Thanks for the article, soon we probably won't be able to find information like this because clearly we are all too stupid to be able to decide for ourselves what is most likely fact, and what is fiction.

[PeaceNikki]

18. infowars much?

[OilemFirchen]

20. Regurgitated by Julian Assange.

It's a snake-and-tail thing.

[ND-Dem]

21. Please show me the link to infowars and show me the author's association with infowars.

What a dumb and easily disproved comment.

http://www.theguardian.com/profile/nafeez-ahmed

[PeaceNikki]

23. Google it.

D'OH!!!!!

[one_voice]

24. Locking. Doesn't meet GD SOP.

Better suited for CS group. Thanks.