Reported Google-NSA alliance sets off privacy alarms.
The Washington Post, quoting unnamed sources, today said that the NSA and Google are in the process of finalizing an agreement under which the NSA will help Google better defend itself against future attacks. Under the deal, the NSA would not get access to users' search information or e-mail accounts and Google would not share any proprietary data, the source claimed...Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, said any relationship between the two would be "very problematic."
"We would like to see Google develop stronger security standards and safeguards for protecting themselves," he said. "But everyone knows the NSA has two missions: One is to ensure security, and the other is to enable surveillance."
Whenever the NSA has entered the private security realm, there have been problems, Rotenberg said. In the 1990s, for instance, the NSA's role in network security resulted in weakened encryption standards all around. "We have had a long-running debate about the impact of NSA's role in the security realm," he said. A partnership with Google raises those questions all over again.
