According to a recent article in Wired the investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time — and says it uses that information to predict the future. http://www.newslook.com/...
as Wired wrote: Twitterati and other netizens should already know that their Internet musings are public and could potentially become fodder for intelligence analysts. But now U.S. spy agencies have officially invested in a software firm that monitors social media and half a million web 2.0 sites daily. http://www.wired.com/...
Does this sound ominously familiar? Go back to 2003 and experiment initially called the Total information awareness program which was quickly changed to Terrorism information awareness so as not to give the American public the impression that the program would be indulging in domestic spying or "data mining". the Pentagon also initiated the Policy analysis Market. According to the NY Times
The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has a new experiment. It is an online futures trading market, disclosed today by critics, in which anonymous speculators would bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups.
Traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The program fell under the control of Adm. John M. Poindexter, President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser. This aspect of the initiative was called the Policy Analysis Market.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
The CIA company mentioned in the present deal involving Google is known as Q-Tel. According to the Washington Post from a 2005 article
Born from the CIA's recognition that it wasn't able to acquire all the technology it needed from its own labs and think tanks, In-Q-Tel was engineered with a bundle of contradictions built in. It is independent of the CIA, yet answers wholly to it. It is a nonprofit, yet its employees can profit, sometimes handsomely, from its work. It functions in public, but its products are strictly secret.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Here is the background on Q-Tel as found on the CIA’s own website where it all sounds so technologically neutral. Software doesn’t spy on people, People spy on people. https://www.cia.gov/...
So personal privacy is once again being tested just as net neutrality appears to be going to the highest bidder. In both Cases, Google seems to be losing its shine as it increasingly sides with big brother and big money. Someone please tell me I’m being alarmist.