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Feb 5th, 2010 Google Bookmarks Technorati StumbleUpon Digg! Reddit Delicious Facebook
Posted by Ateqah Khaki, National Security Project at 5:57pm

Tell Google Not to Enter Into an Agreement With the NSA

Yesterday, The Washington Post reported that Google — the world’s largest Internet search company — is negotiating an information-sharing agreement with the National Security Agency (NSA) — the world’s largest network for routine, mass communications surveillance.

The partnership is supposed to help protect Google’s networks, but the ramifications of companies like Google working with the NSA are frightening.

The NSA — a component of the Department of Defense — is an intelligence collection agency with few effective checks against abuse, and no public oversight of its activities. The NSA sucks up the equivalent of the contents of the Library of Congress every six to eight hours, every single day. In the last decade, the NSA’s dragnet, suspicionless surveillance has targeted everyday Americans, in violation of the law and the Constitution. (To lean more about NSA spying, download our fact sheet on “America’s Surveillance Society”).

If companies like Google think they need the government’s help to secure their networks, then a civilian agency needs to step up to the task. Cybersecurity for the American people should not be handed over to a military spy agency, one that is insulated from public oversight and has a history of secretly exploiting vulnerabilities, rather than fixing them.

Concerned? You can take action today by sending a letter to Google, letting them know that you object to such a deal and value your privacy online.

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13 Responses to "Tell Google Not to Enter Into an Agreement With the NSA"

  1. Bob Walsh Says:

    Instead of using Google, I use IXQUICK, which promises not to save information for more than 24 hr. Google says stuff forever and uses it for data mining.

  2. Anonymous Says:

    Protect the liberties of free speech and law abiding citizens. No more invasion of privacy.

  3. Robert F. Says:

    Read the Constitution.

  4. Anonymous Says:

    it's on the 1 Dollar bill

  5. Ben Wilsons Says:

    i think that the NSA should be abolished.

  6. L Says:

    There is also Startpage, which now has a free proxy service.

  7. Anonymous Says:

    Oh my god, you idiots... People are hacking in to Google, they want the NSA to protect your information.

  8. Rotimi Says:

    I am absolutely disappointed at Google, what is happening to free world, my question is how much of our privacy would be taken away from us to make us safer.

  9. Elliott Says:

    In regards to these comments,
    #8 - It's a free world and a free market economy, google can do what it wants.
    #7 - Fun start with the insult, but as a computer programmer myself,
    -cont.

  10. Elliott Says:

    if you can 'hack' google, i want to shake your hand.
    #6 - Legit name
    #5 - Really?
    #4 - ?
    #3 - K.
    #2 - Then don't post stuff about yourself online you don't . . .
    -cont.

  11. Elliott Says:

    want people to see. Even if google lets the NSA have access to all the data they've saved and compiled, it's public access anyway.
    -cont.

  12. Elliott Says:

    This would just give the NSA the ability to skim the internet faster. I would seriously doubt that google would give up all of the emails in your gmail account.
    #1 - Good to know.

  13. Well, Elliot.. Says:

    Obviously your answer to #7 is a strawman or sheer ignorance because the whole story is about Google entering an information sharing agreement under the auspices of a precedent of someone hacking their system. While some programmers are also hackers your skill as one or lack of is irrelevant.

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