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October 31, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Google accused of CIA ties
Robert David Steele, a former clandestine services case officer for the CIA, has accused search behemoth Google of being in bed with the intelligence agency and government departments. Steele aired these views on Alex Jones's nationally syndicated radio show, according to reports.
"I think that Google has made a very important strategic mistake in dealing with the secret elements of the U.S. government -- that is a huge mistake and I'm hoping they'll work their way out of it and basically cut that relationship off," Steele said, claiming to have confirmed his allegation with his ties in the CIA.
He also said that "Google was a little hypocritical when they were refusing to honor a Department of Justice request for information because they were heavily in bed with the Central Intelligence Agency, the office of research and development."
An MP3 recording of the Steele interview is available to Prison Planet.tv subscribers.
In addition to working for the CIA, Steele is a former Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer for twenty years and was the second-ranking civilian in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence from 1988 to 1992. He's also the founder and CEO of OSS.Net, an organization committed to furthering international understanding of the importance of open source intelligence.
This isn't the first time Steele, or anyone else for that matter, has suggested ties between Google and the government. A Web site called HSToday.us reported in January:
"Google's alleged secret relationship with the U.S. intelligence community (IC) was divulged by an IT contractor and confirmed by U.S. intelligence authorities familiar with the matter during the OSS.Net IOP conference near Washington, DC. The contractor, who spoke on a not-for-attribution basis, said that at least one U.S. intelligence agency he declined to identify is working to 'leverage Google's [user] data monitoring' capability as part of an effort by the IC to glean from this data information of 'national security intelligence interest' in the war on terror."
Of course, none of these allegations have yet to be proven, and the fact that the aforementioned report came from an unnamed source at a conference sponsored by Steele's own company adds a few grains of salt to the story.
Still, given the power Google wields with its data-mining abilities, it's interesting -- and perhaps unsettling -- to contemplate the implications of ties with intelligence organizations.
What do you think? Is this simply baseless fodder for conspiracy theorists, or something that warrants deeper investigation?
Posted by Ted Samson on October 31, 2006 02:29 PM
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Suddenly Microsoft doesn't seem so bad. Let them bundle Windows Live Search with Vista.
Posted by: Unsettled at October 31, 2006 03:00 PMDuring World War II, American companies were proud to apply their technical and management capabilities in support our national security. Why do we view the war on terror any differently?
The CIA, NSA and other agencies of our national security and intelligence aparatus by their very nature must generate huge volumes of raw data. And in the 9/11 post mortem, it was clear they had trouble connecting the dots within this vast field of data in order to cull actionable information from it.
Those agencies would be criminally negligent in their responsibility NOT to turn to the most obvious experts in the field for help.
Mr. Steele's quote specifically says they're working with CIA's research and development arm. He does not say they are actively spying on American citizens.
Is it possible Google is licensing it's technological prowess to the U.S. Government so the Government can use that capability to better mine information it already has, but at the same time refusing to actively participate in gathering more such information by sharing it's search records?
I'm not personally familiar with any of this, so I can only speculate. But I would enthusiastically support both positions by Google.
Posted by: Mike at November 1, 2006 11:20 AMI love it when you right wing nuts compare Iraq and this war on a word "terror" with wars in which we were attacked and had the appropriate millitary response. This is not World War II. Bush got us in this war of choice and given this admistrations record on civil liberty's I think this should raise a few eyebrows.
Posted by: Thomas at November 4, 2006 07:26 AMTOP STORIES
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