Google Teams With NSA - How Secure Will Your Privacy Be Now?

Google and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) have teamed up to allow the NSA to poke around their records of the "Chinese" attacks on google. While sources close to the arrangments say that google is "insisting" on severe restrictions on the NSA's access to user data and searches, I'm not quite so confident... The NSA illegally wiretapped U.S. citizens and went through their electronic communications records since at least 2001...

"The U.S. government, with assistance from major telecommunications carriers including AT&T, has engaged in a massive program of illegal dragnet surveillance of domestic communications and communications records of millions of ordinary Americans since at least 2001" - Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF [sort of an online ACLU])

"Google and the NSA declined to comment on the partnership. But sources with knowledge of the arrangement, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information without violating Google's policies or laws that protect the privacy of Americans' online communications. The sources said the deal does not mean the NSA will be viewing users' searches or e-mail accounts or that Google will be sharing proprietary data." - Washington Post - Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyberattacks


NPR - Warrantless Wiretaps: A Guide to the Debate

"Lawmakers, legal scholars and civil libertarians have raised fundamental questions about the legality of the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping within the United States." - NPR - NSA Wiretapping: The Legal Debate