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[NOTE: This video was produced for BoilingFrogsPost.com on June 19, 2012. It is being made available in its entirety here for the first time.]
by James Corbett
BoilingFrogsPost.com
June 19, 2012
Google Inc. is back in the news this week, with a fresh round of headlines about the search giant and government censorship. Ironically–though perhaps not surprisingly for the corporate media–the stories are not about Google’s admitted but classified relationship with government agencies like the NSA, though. Instead, they portray the internet company as a protagonist sticking up for users’ privacy rights against governments that are increasingly interested in blocking, scrubbing or banning links, search results, and online videos that those governments want to suppress.
Under headlines like “Google reports ‘alarming’ rise in government censorship requests” and “Google Sees Surge in Censorship Demands,” writers for mainstream publications are dutifully outlining the results of a new Google Inc. transparency report detailing precisely how many times they have been petitioned by governments around the world to censor, block, or scrub material that they find unlawful or objectionable.
The report outlines, for instance, that the US government made 6,192 separate requests for Google to remove information from its services in the latter half of 2011, up from 757 requests in the first half of that year.
Other reports highlight government requests for Google to remove videos from YouTube, including the Thai governments’ request to remove access to hundreds of videos insulting the king (which Google complied with) and Canada’s request to remove a video of a Canadian flushing his passport down the toilet, which Google did not comply with.
The report makes clear that governments are increasingly turning to Google to expunge information that they don’t like–or at least access to that information–from the internet.
As a PR exercise, Google’s latest report is brilliantly executed and timed, deflecting some of the negative press that the company has received in recent weeks over the ongoing Street View debacle, even as it allows news outlets to portray the company as a valiant defender of users’ privacy against increasingly invasive governments. Conveniently left out of the equation is the company’s past, its own repeated violations and abuses of users’ privacy, and the unsettling statements that its executives have made about the very concept of privacy time and again over the years.
Google has always attempted to project itself as the white hat in the wild west of the modern internet. Cloaked in its cutesy “Don’t Be Evil” corporate slogan and its user-friendly design, the company has grown from a simple search engine into one of the largest assemblies of information in the history of the world without the type of scrutiny that one would expect during such a transformation.
The company sprang from PageRank, the end result of a 1996 research project by Stanford University graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin that helped users find relevant websites from search queries by counting incoming links to a site. From this simple idea, the pair created the first incarnation of their website on the Stanford University servers, then registered the google domain name in 1997 and incorporated in 1998.
The company had as its explicit goal, the quest to catalogue, organize, and make accessible the sum total of human knowledge, and was aided in this ambitious quest by successive rounds of venture capital funding. Within a decade, it had already made significant inroads on its quest for total information awareness, having branched out into 3D satellite mapping services, launched highly popular webmail and cloud storage services, created its own web browser, acquired YouTube, and branched into mobile technologies with the Android smartphone.
It is not precisely clear when the company caught the attention of America’s intelligence agencies, but high-level whistleblowers suggest it was early on in the company’s history. In a 2006 interview, ex-CIA agent Robert David Steele suggested that it was from the very outset.
“I think Google took money from the CIA when it was poor and it was starting up,” Steele said in the interview. “They’ve been together for quite a while.”
Steele also fingered the company’s point man in the CIA: Dr. Rick Steinheiser in the Office of Research and Development. No further information has been revealed about the precise nature of that relationship, but tidbits continue to emerge from time to time.
It was widely reported in 2010, for example, that Google was in a working relationship with the US National Security Agency. The donation-funded Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a lawsuit requesting details of that relationship, but that suit was thrown out earlier this year. Details of the NSA/Google relationship are effectively classified.
There are also examples of the government-corporate revolving door that make observers of companies like Monsanto and Halliburton uneasy. It was reported earlier this year, for instance, that Regina Dugan of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency would be leaving her post at the Pentagon to take up a senior executive position at Google.
Still, despite the growing amount of information that Google has over every aspect of the daily lives of its billion-plus unique monthly users, it has long avoided any serious scrutiny in the press. Initially sheltered by its “underdog” status in the fight against the tech giants like Apple and Microsoft, even the corporate press has been forced to cover the serious abuses that Google has inflicted on its users in recent years, as those abuses become more flagrant and less easily dismissible.
To the extent that mainstream news stories about Google even address these issues, it is inevitably in a throwaway quote toward the end of the article from someone who is dismissed as a “privacy advocate.” With information on the habits, thoughts, contacts, conversations, physical location, and even financial transactions of a sizable percentage of the population of the planet, however, it is not merely “privacy advocates” who are concerned about the information that the company handles and how it shares that data with governments. Indeed, for anyone who is familiar with the company, its background, its shareholders, or its executives’ personal philosophies, the questions of power that are inevitably raised by the staggering sums of data it holds on a growing percentage of the population are deeply troubling.
Like in so many other matters, however, what can never be mentioned is that the population does have a choice over how their information is used and collected. That information comes from choosing to use Google in the first place. There are plenty of alternative search engines that offer similar (if not identical) results to those offered by Google while simultaneously respecting users’ privacy and refusing to log IP addresses or other recognizable details of its users. There are alternative video sites, alternative email providers, and alternative browsers. By concentrating so much on Google, the press often makes it seem like there is no choice, and that we are all subject to the whims of this monolithic corporation and the whims of its executives as they roll out privacy changes by decree and conspire with government officials in secret.
Once again, it is up to the public to begin detaching themselves from this system and to stop feeding the Google behemoth with their data. By refusing to participate with the monopolization of the web, netizens can make it that much more difficult for their personal information to be bought, sold, or passed to greedy businessman or prying governments, and that much more difficult for videos like this one to be censored from the web.
Google’s new search protocol is restricting access to 13 leading socialist, progressive and anti-war web sites
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/02/pers-a02.html
2 August 2017
New data compiled by the World Socialist Web Site, with the assistance of other Internet-based news outlets and search technology experts, proves that a massive loss of readership observed by socialist, anti-war and progressive web sites over the past three months has been caused by a cumulative 45 percent decrease in traffic from Google searches.
The drop followed the implementation of changes in Google’s search evaluation protocols. In a statement issued on April 25, Ben Gomes, the company’s vice president for engineering, stated that Google’s update of its search engine would block access to “offensive” sites, while working to surface more “authoritative content.”
The World Socialist Web Site has obtained statistical data from SEMrush estimating the decline of traffic generated by Google searches for 13 sites with substantial readerships. The results are as follows:
* wsws.org fell by 67 percent
* alternet.org fell by 63 percent
* globalresearch.ca fell by 62 percent
* consortiumnews.com fell by 47 percent
* socialistworker.org fell by 47 percent
* mediamatters.org fell by 42 percent
* commondreams.org fell by 37 percent
* internationalviewpoint.org fell by 36 percent
* democracynow.org fell by 36 percent
* wikileaks.org fell by 30 percent
* truth-out.org fell by 25 percent
* counterpunch.org fell by 21 percent
* theintercept.com fell by 19 percent
You can read more at the website above.
Thanks weilunion,
Wow! “restricting anti-war web sites”
* globalresearch.ca fell by 62 percent
James is on there a lot!
Example Information is a Weapon in the War of Terror
(16 minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oun0iLvjQck
In this article is a key resource most people never realize; we give these companies their power over us when we buy, use, or submit to them. While we cannot control what others desire to inflict upon us, we can control our own reactions to them. Mine is to use DuckDuckGo. Just as I don’t use PayPal, drink Coke, use Amazon; these are the weapons I deploy most often. Instead, I choose to use companies which appear to promote what I believe is a healthier economic reality. What we spend our money on makes a lot of difference in how we can affect change. Jim, who eats superfoods because they give him the endurance to outrun the face-eating latex wearing zombies of Fluoride-a!
Pablito,
Ironically, just the other day I was reading about Fipronil, and details about the chemical.
It had to with my research on Fire Ant control…
“…Currently, nine insect control chemicals are used as active ingredients in fire ant baits: abamectin, fenoxycarb. fipronil, hydramethylnon, indoxacarb, metaflumizone, s-methoprene, pyriproxyfen, and spinosad.”
Fluorine (Fluoride)
We all know that Fluorine is the MOST reactive element (non-metal). It reacts easily with many other elements.
A slew of pesticides use Fluorine in spades. Fipronil (Crazy Ants) and hydramethylnon (Amdro Fire Ant killer) are two.
In chemical insect control, baits are often used. So an oil (like soybean oil) and something like cornmeal are mixed with the chemical. It is not surprising that chickens would eat this off the ground, or that it could end up in their feed stock from a grain harvest.
I am convinced that insecticides like “Fipronil” which affect GABA and other nervous system pathways, are one of the reasons why we see so many people on prescribed “mental health” drugs.
Yet another reason to be glad I don’t eat canned foods or drink from plastic bottles! Why do people even eat that junk? It tastes nothing like real food. Jim, still avoiding zombies in fluoride-a!
It just gets really wacky.
I hope I don’t ever see face-eating zombies wearing wooden cowboy boots.
Famous quote:
Winter is coming.
(Music and Visual)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc6bqvqC3bc
Trademark?!
TM ?!
The phrase Don’t be evil. has a trademark beside it.
Geez! What a whopper.
(5 seconds) https://youtu.be/uLF1cJ-qLU8?t=4m52s
Startpage uses Google search results and then allows the user to view them privately. So, does this mean with Google’s recent algorithms tweaks that promote groupthink and “well established” views, that Startpage is essentially no better if it is mirroring Google search results? Google seems to set the tone here, which is a problem.
It seems that way to me also.
Except I believe “who is searching” is not revealed to Google.
On the patreon issue, I would like to know of an alternative myself. I already boycott Paypal, so patreon is my only option at the moment. While I haven’t researched anything (other than looking at options on web pages), I haven’t figured out the next best solution either. Bummer. Jim, remaining ever-so-vigilant about those face eating zombies of fluoride-a.
Via Corbett Report’s Twitter feed…
Mozilla Joins George Soros’s Efforts In Launching A Strike Against “Fake News”
https://twitter.com/corbettreport/status/895914503526678529
Where is incognito post? We can post incognito?
IMPORTANT anecdote above!
By the way, I think you did an excellent job in this language of normal speak. I didn’t realize that we were so sucked in at that time period. I had just assumed (always a dangerous word) that such abilities grew out of the early days of websites. I had no idea they were there from the beginning. For me personally, it makes little difference. All they can do is track the progression of my non-conformity. At least for now. I’ll worry about later when later gets here. It is sad we live in such times that our “leaders” are so terrified of what any one individual is thinking or saying that they feel the need to try and track down each and every one of us. It can’t really be done. At least not yet. But when it is done, I think they will find that the over-whelming majority of us are malcontents to some degree. And by the time they decide to take some action, I think it will be too late for them. Or maybe us. Either way, we live in the most interesting times! Well, off to work out so that I can stay ahead of the face-eating latex wearing zombies in fluoride-a!
Pablo, Catherine Frompovich of The Activist Post always has an article on EMFs. She is very concerned about the 5G network they are laying out in California. I find her articles to be very enlightening. Jim
On the other hand – let’s not get cornered into paranoia. Life evolves, and so do we. …There is real hope then. …super-fast evolving science of epigenetics….
REUTERS – August 15, 2017
Neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer appeared to be offline on Tuesday, after its domain registration was revoked by GoDaddy and Google, which both said the site that helped organize the violent weekend rally in Virginia had violated their terms of service.
Users could not access the site from cities across North America and Asia. Several error messages came up including one that said its DNS address could not be found.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/neo-nazi-down-google-godaddy-cut-registration-134128484.html
I’m personally not privy to any additional hazards 5G introduces, maybe we’re more susceptible to certain frequencies, but generally this is how this thing works:
the closer you place a device which is emitting electromagnetic waves (like the mobile phone) to your body, most notably the brain, stronger its effect on the tissue will be. The good news is that spatial power density of emitted EMW goes down with the cube of distance. I.e. double the distance, power density goes down 8 times.
The bad news is that EMW will induce currents in conductive tissue, such as the brain. These currents will introduce more heat in the brain tissue and are bound to disrupt the functioning of neurons. To what extent? Who knows.
The really bad news is, nobody has conducted any proper research into this matter, or at least not in a public fashion. The technology and its effects, pretty much the same as with GMO or Thiomersal, is untested or at least not tested in an objective fashion where results are searched for instead of framed into an existing narrative.
Again, I don’t know why would 5G be worse than older Gs, but the situation is getting possibly very problematic. The reaction to turn off associated devices and to keep them as far as away from your body at all times is correct. For example, avoid the use of various on body pouches, like ones worn on belts or bra straps. Heavy users should use bluetooth headphones. Of course, those will produce EMW of their own, but of much lesser power.
Generally, we should consider the fact we’re surrounded by a shitstorm of radiation from all sides and those background waves have been there for a long, long while. So, if we pay homage to the theory of evolution, dare we assume we have evolved and adapted to those waves? What’s certain, we haven’t had time to adapt to all of the extra stuff we keep dumping in our ecosystem. Be it radio waves or whatever else.
Radio waves are actually easy to get rid off, at least in your living space. Equip your apartment/house/room with a Faraday cage and you’re set. Tin foil hats actually do draw from the physical world.
Well that went over my head! 🙂 I have an old cube that I use to make prototypes. While I don’t recommend a cube to anyone, it is still miraculous to me. I can do things now that were simply not possible a few years ago. Funny, I live in a very small town in norther fluoride-a and whenever someone sees the 3d printer, they as “What’s that?” A normal question, but when I tell them it is a 3d printer, they say it again. Never fails. Take care Pablo, Jim who thinks he may have just spotted a zombie in latex just now!
mkey says:
…The good news is that spatial power density of emitted EMW (emitting electromagnetic waves )(like the mobile phone) goes down with the cube of distance. I.e. double the distance, power density goes down 8 times.
…Radio waves are actually easy to get rid off, at least in your living space. Equip your apartment/house/room with a Faraday cage and you’re set. Tin foil hats actually do draw from the physical world.
smart meters and the 5G roll-out plans in California negate the Faraday cages. It’s a huge amount of emf flowing through the smart meters and the 5G transmitters are to be set up at very short intervals (I think it’s something like every 100 feet). And to think all I have is a little Q-Pendant (puts out the Schuman frequency) necklace. Works for Fluoride-a, but not in a 5G zone or if I had a smart meter.
To reiterate: there is a specific physical reason as to why an EMW can’t pass through conducting matter. Farady cage approximates a solid sheat of metal by adapting the hole size to the wavelength. Higher the frequency, smaller the holes have to be.
Lets take 2.4GHz wireless technology as an example. If we divide the speed of light with 2.4GHz we get a wavelenght of about 13cm. Rule of the thumb is, you can allow a hole of about 10 times smaller than the wavelenght to have the wave none the wiser.
So, for 2.4GHz you could allow perforationa of about 1cm in size, i.e. less than half an inch. For 5G they are talking about ranges around 40GHz which means you may use only finely perforated sheets of conductive material or a very fine web made out of it.
What’s really worrying about this is the occurence of these antennas. More of then there is, less inclined they will be to invest anything into required support structure so we’ll end up with a bunch of sources too close for comfort.
I bet they’ll be ready to push through legislation to support lousy installatiin pollicies, barring people from refusing to comply.
Recommended viewing
Wireless Warfare Exposed – Declassified Military Doc Proves Smart Phones Are Killing Mankind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLDdS4_Qneg
(it may be a bit clickbaitish, but still worth a watch)
I’ve heard of these technologies, smart materials have been talked about for a while now. I’m sure we’ll manage to find most stupid uses for smart materials as we managed to find for various other “smart” equipment.
For the consumer, it will probably boil down to a marketing gimmick. Like a self opening tomato chips bag. Or a thermos bottle which actually KNOWS when it cold outside.
Hola Pablo! This just in from the Activist Post today. Thought you might enjoy it. Be glad you don’t live in Texas or NJ! Sorry HRS; you’re out of luck :(. Anyway, here it is:
http://www.activistpost.com/2017/08/really-time-wearing-real-tin-foil-hats.html?utm_source=Activist+Post+Subscribers&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=862f2cbb1d-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_term=0_b0c7fb76bd-862f2cbb1d-388180989
NEWS – Sept 1, 2017
“Yes, Google Uses Its Power to Quash Ideas It Doesn’t Like – I Know Because It Happened To Me”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-01/yes-google-uses-its-power-quash-ideas-it-doesnt-i-know-because-it-happened-me
EXCERPTS
…Given that I’d gone to the Google PR team before publishing, and it was already out in the world, I felt it made more sense to keep the story up. Ultimately, though, after continued pressure from my bosses, I took the piece down—a decision I will always regret. Forbes declined comment about this.
But the most disturbing part of the experience was what came next: Somehow, very quickly, search results stopped showing the original story at all. As I recall it—and although it has been six years, this episode was seared into my memory—a cached version remained shortly after the post was unpublished, but it was soon scrubbed from Google search results. That was unusual; websites captured by Google’s crawler did not tend to vanish that quickly. And unpublished stories still tend to show up in search results as a headline. Scraped versions could still be found, but the traces of my original story vanished….
Thanks Roman.
Interesting.
For me, it really highlights how many people (in both parties) try desperately hard to control and mandate what people can or should do.