Secret deals with the NSA? First of all, bullshit. Second, that link claims nothing of the kind. Do you even read?
The link claims that a group called Consumer Watchdog made those claims, and then goes on to describe a pattern of partisan attack by that group, preferentially against Google, including wild and implausible allegations. Again, the majority of the column-space at PC World is casting doubt on these allegations.
Maybe you're an NSA agent, mrschwabe, raking muck on innocents to cover up your tracks. Can you prove that you aren't? How much money have they paid you? Way to undermine the free market, you commie nazi! Best case, there's no money changing hands, and you're a liar because you think it's funny. Worst case, you're a traitor. (Note: in case you got hit by Poe's Law, this paragraph is satire of your laughable reasoning, not an actual accusation.)
If Google were in bed with the NSA, they wouldn't be leading the charge against NSL gag orders, by successfully campaigning the feds to let them publish approximate numbers. (Credit where it's due, Calyx Internet is the bravest corporate foe of NSLs that I know of. But after Calyx, I know of no company as active as Google in resisting over-surveillance and fighting for privacy.) (Also, note that NSLs, despite the name, are more-associated with the FBI than the NSA, but my point still holds, because it's fedgov surveillance.)
And Google's just-this-week petition to increase transparency over FISA surveillance is also not consistent with favouring the NSA. More broadly, Google has been trying to draw attention to this for years, but obviously cautiously, because it's too easy for irrational crackpots to make the claims you made.
We don't know for sure that Google isn't doing horrible things. But all of the public evidence is 100% consistent with Google being active protectors of the public against the government, and it is... less consistent, with the opposite.
Your language and name calling stands out, it looks like an authorian in damage control mode trying to influence the more dumb demography into distrusting critique against FISA and the US government.
I suggest you better try that in a different place where that dumber demography reads.
I strongly recommend that everyone be highly critical of FISA. The US government at large is a more complicated subject, but criticism there is also a great idea.
I think it's obvious in my comment that I admire resistance against FISA and NSLs. I believe that Google has conducted such resistence (though I may have been deceived), and insofar as that is true, I admire Google for doing so (and I admire Calyx for doing so). This should be plainly obvious from my comment.
Given that, the fact that you claim I'm trying to trick people into not critiquing FISA and the US govt, I can only conclude that you didn't actually read my comment. With allies like you, who needs a malicious government.
Regarding name-calling, perhaps that's a fair point. But I think not. I asked if Mr Schwabe actually read the article he keeps citing (since it's inconsistent with his claim about it), and I think that's legitimate. And I called his reasoning laughable, but his reasoning IS laughable; he thinks the best case is the null case, which is crazy, because there are lots of better possibilities imaginable, like the possibility that Google is championing user rights and winning (maybe that's wishful thinking, but it IS a possibility).
Regardless of jholman's allegiance - you elude to an important point that should be understood by anyone reading HN. There are people on the payroll of military contractors actively engaged in discussions online via fake accounts on all the major social networks. "Operation Earnest Voice" is has reportedly a budget of $200m.
Yaa101's sentiment is that I sound pro-NSA. That's a joke. Why would you agree with that?
I strongly agree with you about astroturfing though, and I think it's depressing and reprehensible.
And, in case I haven't made this disclosure in a place where you've read it, I am at this time gainfully employed by Google, and I'm sure this distorts my thinking. I really really want to believe that Google is not evil, because if Google is evil than I have to decide if I quit this awesome job, etc etc, and that desire probably has some effect on my judgement. I encourage everyone to be cautious about everything everyone says, including me.
I don't think there's a lot of astroturfing on HN, though, if any. (For one thing, HN is pretty fringe). But also, the comments never say "don't worry it's all okay". Most of the comments raise crazy conspiracy theories, and other ones point out actual holes in crazy conspiracy theories. Hmn, though there are also people jumping on every most-recent theory that makes things look okay, actually... and that would be good astroturfing, so maybe I take it back. Actually, upon consideration, if I was the NSA, I'd post more theories like yours. Not that I'm accusing you personally. (Again, to protect against Poe's Law: this paragraph was sincere, not parody.)
What I'd like to see more of, in these discussions about surveillance, is theories putting the facts together in ways that make sense, and theories that are actually consistent with the facts we have. When you said that that PCWorld link backed up claims of Google-NSA backroom deals, that made no sense. Just read it. When you said (in a more-recent comment) that the CIA is invested in many SiVa companies... well, I don't agree with your conclusions, but your pattern of reasoning is a lot more plausible. Partly because you didn't go too far, like saying "this proves that Google is just a CIA front company". Because it doesn't prove much of anything... but it IS part of the set of facts that are interesting.
I am perpetually disappointed at how everyone seems to read one or two articles, and feel they have enough facts to stop reading and form an opinion.
"A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the National Security Agency’s decision to withhold from the public documents confirming or denying any relationship it has with Google concerning encryption and cybersecurity."
If there was nothing to hide, why do they try to hide it?
And let's not forget Google's relationship with In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm, which provided investment to Keyhole, Inc - later acquired by Google (Google Maps). That right there tells you Google has a direct relationship with the intelligence community - at the very least CIA investors. Interestingly, that same 'wing' of Google is driving vans around our neighborhoods with panoramic cameras on top; snooping our WiFi networks.
If Google is in bed with the NSA, as is so blatantly obvious to many, they would be leading the charge on an aggressive PR campaign to discredit and distract people from this issue. Eric Schmidt's denial, Google's call for transparency, Project Loon, etc - rather predictable pattern here.
Well, these are much more interesting links than your last round.
So, if your car has been stolen, and also you have evidence that 100 other cars have been stolen by the same crook, and then you report it to the police, and I go ask the police for comment about your car, and they say "we can't discuss that with you, jholman", does that mean that you have a secret relationship with police? I say no. I think the Google/NSA thing that Wired is refering to is very probably the same type of thing. The NSA are the cops you would go to, if the crook was another entire country. The secrecy the court upheld, reported in your link, was not whether or not Google went to the cops, but whether or not the cops investigated the thing Google asked them to.
"If there was nothing to hide, why do they try to hide it?" I agree, and it looks like Google agrees, but the NSA is crazy. The reason we should think that Google agrees is because Google campaigns to increase transparency, arguing that although national security is important, hiding the numbers of NSLs or FISA orders does not improve security, it just makes abuses possible.
Almost everybody in the valley is related to In-Q-Tel, emphatically including YCombinator. So, yeah, you're right about the facts on that one. I dunno what to make of it. DARPA funded the internet, too. TOR was designed originally by the Navy. Maybe it's all okay? Maybe we should be worried? It's really not clear. If you want more facts for your conspiracy-theory fire, there was an HN link a day or two ago to a Paul Carr article at Pandodaily, responding to a rant by Arrington. (I think Arrington's piece is fucking retarded, personally, but I bet you'll love it. And I think Carr takes at face value too many of the rumours.) But Carr DOES have some juicy facts about relationships between the intel community and Silicon Valley. I don't draw the same conclusions that you draw, but it's good to have the same facts on the table.
I don't think there's anything new to be said about the Wifi/Maps thing. If it was a mistake, as Google alleges, it was obviously an embarrassing one. No one can prove whether it was a mistake or deliberate, though. There's lots of evidence that if Google didn't lie-a-lot then Google was basically not being super-naughty... but if Google was in bed with the NSA then they would have lied really really a lot, and so all that evidence is probably worth nothing.
I think that if you look at the history of NSA collaborators, like the telcos, you will NOT find calls for transparency. The denials, yeah, I mean... no denial would convince you, and I guess that's fair. But why don't you apply the same standard of doubt to everyone else, too? Remember that there is basically no evidence that Google has participated in any illegal surveillance, nor any widespread surveillance (legal or otherwise), except for some really vague allegation in five powerpoint slides, where those powerpoint slides ALSO make claims that are obviously false (like claiming you accomplish this amazing panopticon for $20M, which is hilarous).
Btw, on a completely irrelevant side-note, I don't think "dissemination" means what you think it means.
The link claims that a group called Consumer Watchdog made those claims, and then goes on to describe a pattern of partisan attack by that group, preferentially against Google, including wild and implausible allegations. Again, the majority of the column-space at PC World is casting doubt on these allegations.
Maybe you're an NSA agent, mrschwabe, raking muck on innocents to cover up your tracks. Can you prove that you aren't? How much money have they paid you? Way to undermine the free market, you commie nazi! Best case, there's no money changing hands, and you're a liar because you think it's funny. Worst case, you're a traitor. (Note: in case you got hit by Poe's Law, this paragraph is satire of your laughable reasoning, not an actual accusation.)
If Google were in bed with the NSA, they wouldn't be leading the charge against NSL gag orders, by successfully campaigning the feds to let them publish approximate numbers. (Credit where it's due, Calyx Internet is the bravest corporate foe of NSLs that I know of. But after Calyx, I know of no company as active as Google in resisting over-surveillance and fighting for privacy.) (Also, note that NSLs, despite the name, are more-associated with the FBI than the NSA, but my point still holds, because it's fedgov surveillance.)
And Google's just-this-week petition to increase transparency over FISA surveillance is also not consistent with favouring the NSA. More broadly, Google has been trying to draw attention to this for years, but obviously cautiously, because it's too easy for irrational crackpots to make the claims you made.
We don't know for sure that Google isn't doing horrible things. But all of the public evidence is 100% consistent with Google being active protectors of the public against the government, and it is... less consistent, with the opposite.