"Google demands probable-cause, court-issued warrants to divulge the contents of Gmail and other cloud-stored documents to authorities in the United States — a startling revelation Wednesday that runs counter to federal law that does not always demand warrants.

The development surfaced as Google publicly announced that more than two-thirds of the user data Google forwards to government agencies across the United States is handed over without a probable-cause warrant.

A Google spokesman told Wired that the media giant demands that government agencies — from the locals to the feds — get a probable-cause warrant for content on its e-mail, Google Drive cloud storage and other platforms — despite the Electronic Communications Privacy Act allowing the government to access such customer data without a warrant if it’s stored on Google’s servers for more than 180 days.

“Google requires an ECPA search warrant for contents of Gmail and other services based on the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which prevents unreasonable search and seizure,” Chris Gaither, a Google spokesman, said"

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/google-says-get-a-warrant/

"Google News Creator Watches Portal Quiet Critics With 'Best News' Webby"
Online Journalism Review, Staci D. Kramer, September 25, 2003
Cached version

I stumbled upon this article from September 2003. In it, Google News creator Krishna Bharat shares his memories of how his creation came into being. Apparently, it was created in response to the avalanche of news reports after 9/11, in an effort to classify and organize the information flow. He also feels that in a world of turmoil, Google News might be democracy's saving grace. The free flow of information is, indeed, one of many necessary safety valves in a democracy.

However well intended Bharat's ideals may be, his employer already has a checkered past in the realm of censorship, surveillance and reckless disregard for privacy, to put it diplomatically. At one time, Mr. Bharat claims that "this is code that is set down and is on the public record." I don't quite understand this claim, and I don't think Google ever released the code for Google News to the public, let alone by 2003.

I've excerpted a few passages, read the full article at the source link. Emphasis in excerpts mine.

link:  http://www.prisonplanet.com/%E2%80%9C911-cover-up%E2%80%9D-1-search-term-on-google.html

This isn't about 9/11 directly, but about the environment we operate in today.

Google is doing "evil."

Friends and acquaintances,

I may have to abandon The Crimes of the State Blog, hosted on blogger, a subsidiary of google. I can no longer get logged in without it kicking me off of TOR (The Onion Router), therefore it appears to be trying to compromise my anonymity.

Google has long been set to not search for certain types of IP ranges, such as anonymous browsers and those on TOR. The company actively denies service to those it can't track. This is a fascistic approach, and a fascistic mindset that is in direct violation of their supposed company policy to "not do evil."

This is indicative of a complete surveillance culture that affects us all, and will do so for the rest of our lives.

GOOGLE BOOKS AND THE END OF HISTORY

By Peter Duveen

PETER'S NEW YORK, December 15, 2008--I have often wondered why Google Inc. was interested in scanning all the world's books into its formidable Google Books database in short order. It was only a number of years ago that the company announced its ambitious project, and it has already made great, if uneven, progress in its implementation. It's a dramatic and democratic gesture, giving the proletariat access to the world's books at the touch of a keyboard. But in light of Google's cozy relationship with elitist organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the company having only a few years ago recruited its vice president for global communications from that organization, its move toward universal access to the wealth of human knowledge almost strikes one as anomalous.

See original for hyperlinks and referenced graphic. What do you think? Anyone getting different results from the NEWS search engine, not the WEB engine?

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=8500

Can you believe NONE of Glenn Greenwald's articles in SALON.com come up in the first 3 pages of a Google NEWS (not WEB) search for "anthrax"??? How can that possibly be, when numerous mainstream pundits have been commenting on and linking to his articles??? Anthrax salon pulls one (1)- along with many articles commenting on and linking to his articles. Anthrax Glenn Greenwald got NONE. I’m not using quotes on anything.

A couple of his articles are top hits in WEB searches:
Google WEB: Glenn Greenwald Anthrax

It’s the NEWS searches where they are strangely absent:
Google NEWS Glenn Greenwald Anthrax

See the graphic at the bottom of the page to get an idea of how this affects how many people will see his articles, when searching for NEWS on the Anthrax case.

Excerpt posted, visit link for the rest

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7488009.stm

Google must divulge YouTube log

Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched any video on YouTube, a US court has ruled.

The ruling comes as part of Google's legal battle with Viacom over allegations of copyright infringement.

Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called the ruling a "set-back to privacy rights".

The viewing log, which will be handed to Viacom, contains the log-in ID of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video clip details.

While the legal battle between the two firms is being contested in the US, it is thought the ruling will apply to YouTube users and their viewing habits everywhere.

Viacom, which owns MTV and Paramount Pictures, has alleged that YouTube is guilty of massive copyright infringement.

The UK's Premier League association is also seeking class action status with Viacom on the issue, alledging YouTube has been used to watch football highlights.

Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCIEJ/2008/00000002/00000...

In one of my Communications classes, today we gave 5 minute speeches on a “memorable experience”. I used the occasion to talk about last Friday, April 18, 2008 when the Fourteen Points paper was posted on 911Blogger.com. It went something like this:

“Do you still think that jet fuel brought down the World Trade Center?”

Last Friday, I was thinking that today I would be talking to ya’ll about the first time I saw Loose Change, the online DVD that quote is from, which a lot of you have probably heard of. However, last Friday night something happened, that, imho, is just as memorable and is more immediately significant.

If You’re on 9/11 Truth Listserves

Then you may have already gotten the posts I pasted below; posting them here for posterity.

Background; this morning I was checking my comprehensive Google Alerts and was really disturbed about the extraordinary lack of links to articles referencing “Fourteen Points”. To make sure this article was getting in front of people’s faces, I blasted off the below email to about 30 independent media and credible truth activists, then posted it to the following listserves directly from my Gmail account:

9/11 Questions Meetup Portland discussion list
911truthalliance

911 Visibility Project Action List
Blogger Brigade

Please visit opednews.com for the live html links in the pasted article- also, the Google Alerts referred to in the below article have been pasted in the comments over there.

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=7133
"Information wants to be free" vs. "Don't be evil". When you search online and use search "Alerts", do you want to get the info you want, or do you want the info you receive to be only what Google (and their partners in business and government) want you to know about? If you have concerns about Google's record on search quality/censorship, privacy, human rights, collaboration with people who may pose a serious threat to US sovereignty and security or anything else, read this article and please comment.

::::::::

This article is a continuation of the "Open Letter to the People & Google" article:

Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction

Fourteen Points: World Trade Center Destruction Media Visibility Week

Open Letter to the People & Google

Open Letter to the People & Google

50-90% of People around the world use Google to search, for email and to get “alerts”. If Google was “censoring” your searches or failing to index certain stories you’re interested in (9one1 Truth related stories for instance)- or your Gmail was not posting your emails to certain listserves- or if your search “alerts” omitted relevant results, would you continue to use them?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080324.wrgoogle24/BNStory/Technology/home

SIMON AVERY

From Monday's Globe and Mail

March 24, 2008 at 4:05 AM EDT

Google Inc. is a year into its ground-shifting strategy to change the way people communicate and work.

But the initiative to reinvent the way that people use software is running headlong into another new phenomenon of the information technology age: the unprecedented powers of security officials in the United States to conduct surveillance on communications.

Eighteen months ago, Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., had an outdated computer system that was crashing daily and in desperate need of an overhaul. A new installation would have cost more than $1-million and taken months to implement. Google's service, however, took just 30 days to set up, didn't cost the university a penny and gave nearly 8,000 students and faculty leading-edge software, said Michael Pawlowski, Lakehead's vice-president of administration and finance.

U.S.-based Google spotlighted the university as one of the first to adopt its software model of the future, and today Mr. Pawlowski boasts the move was the right thing for Lakehead, saving it hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual operating costs. But he notes one trade-off: The faculty was told not to transmit any private data over the system, including student marks.

I checked "ZEITGEIST, The Movie - Official Release - Full Film" this morning 9/2 and the views were 32,750.

I put in "zeitgeist" on Google and it came up in the main page results ranked 4th. But go to the video, and the views are reset.

This event is exactly what has happened to Alex Jones's videos time and time again.

Get active and tell people about Google censorship.

100% Proof Google is Keeping Conspiracy Sites Down
"Link Relevance" Suppressed on Alternative Media
LUCUS DRADOR 08/13/07
Source Article On TheUltimateConspiracy.com

Last night I stumbled upon the recently re-activated Google page for the film. The previous view count (2,475,901 last night) also shows on the page!! Hooray!!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6708190071483512003

Last night I emailed Sofia, the creator of the film, and she responded this morning--she's totally elated!! Spread the word about this excellent film: it's a door opener to the TRUTH.

Posted with approval from Sofia.*

911 MYSTERIES

Avatar, LLC
PO Box 698
Cardiff CA 92007

June 1, 2007

Google, Inc.
YouTube, LLC
[agents thereof]

Re: “911 Mysteries” - DMCA Counter Notification

On or about May 25, 2007, Google Video and YouTube removed links to the video (and to segments from the video) entitled “911 Mysteries,” produced by Avatar, LLC, as a result of a DMCA Takedown Demand filed by Richard A. Siegel, an individual associated with a work entitled “9/11 Eyewitness,” for reasons of copyright infringement.

Mr. Siegel’s claim of infringement is false. First, well before the release of “911 Mysteries,” Avatar obtained express permission from both Blue Star Media Group (co-owner of the copyright in the “Eyewitness” work) through its managing partner Jim Brewster, and from Mr. Siegel’s partner David Shaw, to incorporate limited segments of “Eyewitness” in “911 Mysteries.” Mr. Siegel’s two partners were fully cooperative with Avatar in licensing this material. Second, even if Avatar had not obtained express permission from the creators of “9/11 Eyewitness” to use their material in “911 Mysteries,” the 38 seconds of incorporated footage that Mr. Siegel has taken issue with is fully protected by the copyright Doctrine of Fair Use.

Hi 911 Truthers!

Here is a free method for spreading 911 Truth to a new audience. Search Google Video and Youtube for the most popular videos and post a comment relating them to 911. The better your comment relates the video to 911, the less likely it will be tagged as spam. The most popular videos get over 200 views/minute ! Problem is so many comments are posted that after an hour or so the comment will move off of the first (video) page, so we need everyone to post!

Example one: While searching protest music, I found this one, 'My Chemical Romance - Famous Last Words ' (28.6 million views since January):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bbTtPL1jRs

Did a little research about MCR on Wikipedia and posted this:

"Gerard Way was inspired to form 'My Chemical Romance' after witnessing the planes hit the WTC on 9/11/01. 9-11-01 WTC hero William Rodriguez and many others said the basement exploded and severe injuries occurred before any plane hit! With controlled demolition the basement is destroyed first to make room for the rubble, and in this case vaults filled with gold were in the basement. See Google videos '911 mysteries' and 'Loose Change'."

Early in the day I noticed that main 9/11 Mysteries video has disappeared from Google Video.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6708190071483512003

Also translated versions have disappeared: Danish, Finnish, Dutch, Slovak, German, Spanish

Swedish and French seems to work.

John MITCHELL
Herblay FRANCE
mouv4x8@club-internet.fr

Bonjour ,

Has anyone used the new annotating function of Google Map where you can put addresses on the map. I suggest that 911Blogger.com gives us this possibility on this blog so that the 911 truth seekers can see who lives near them. I am including an example at the bottom and I especially suggest it for the 11th of each month 911 truth event.

I would like to do a gathering on the 11th of July in the Tuileries Gardens the centre of Paris as is happening in the United States. This June 11th is too early as an official permission has to be obtained from the Prefecture. I can not do it by myself but if there are some Americans or others living in Paris and who are prepared to help organise it and the following months then contact me at the email above and with the subject like ==> Contact 911 truth event the 11th of each month Tuileries Gardens

For four years I and friends organised an unemployment gathering twice a month in "le jardin de Tuileries".
http://mouv4x8.club.fr/FrLstPho.htm
http://mouv4x8.club.fr/FrTuiInd.htm

It's a keeper. G. Edward Griffin, author of "Creature From Jeckyll Island: A second look at the Federal Reserve" weighs in on the BBC, CNN, Google, Youtube, Internet Archive, Federal government, Larry Silverstein, Ruddy Ghouliani, WTC 7 fiasco. For those unfamiliar with Griffin's book and are curious about money creation and debt, I highly recommend this video as a quick primer,

http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&q=money+as+debt

Money As Debt
Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created. It is an entertaining way to get the message out.

Click here to avoid the spoiler below:

http://freedom-force.org/freedomcontent.cfm?fuseaction=BBC_WTC7&refpage=...

After laying out his reasonable hypothesis and certain facts, Griffin comes to the following conclusion:

CONCLUSION

Considering these facts, for anyone to issue a report to the press that Building Seven was expected to collapse, is powerful evidence that some people actually did have prior knowledge – not necessarily of the 9/11 attacks, but prior knowledge that Building Seven was going to be brought down by controlled demolition. Since it takes many weeks of prior planning to bring down a building like that by controlled demolition, preparations would have started long before 9/11. That fact, alone, is all we need to unravel the whole shoddy fabric of lies.

--

BBC REPORTED COLLAPSE OF WTC BUILDING 7 BEFORE IT FELL!
But that may not mean what you think
G. Edward Griffin March 2, 2007
http://freedom-force.org/freedomcontent.cfm?fuseaction=BBC_WTC7&refpage=...

In the final week of February, 2007, the Internet was ablaze with a video tape that showed news commentators for the BBC on the morning of 9/11 stating categorically that Building 7 at the World Trade Center had collapsed, but the announcement was made at least twenty minutes prior to the event. In one scene, reporter Jane Standley is seen saying that Building 7 had collapsed, all the while it is clearly visible in the skyline behind her.

PrisonPlanet's got the goods:

A wave of 9/11 truth and other alternative documentaries have suddenly surged up the Google Video rankings, with three "conspiracy" videos in the top eleven alone, including Alex Jones' Terror Storm.

Loose Change is at number three and Aaron Russo's America From Freedom to Fascism at number four.

9/11 Mysteries sits at number fifteen.

Please send this link out to all your friends and e mail lists and help push Terror Storm even further up the charts.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7516705476148472744

Having so many activist documentaries in the higher echelons of the Google top 100 ensures that new people who have not previously encountered this kind of information will become exposed to the truth.

We can provide a fresh outreach to millions more around the world but only with your help. Please help circulate the Terror Storm link and the other great films via Google Video.

Five minute video comparing WTC 7 fire to other skyscraper fires, and also to controlled demolition. The video is set to The Blue Danube. A vivid example for just about anyone out of the blue who might be questioning 911. It's brief, easy to listen to, and for the coming holidays and the year ahead, it's a great way to send $20 bucks to everyone you know and love.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2364206678564389150&pr=goog-sl

911 Press for Truth
www.911pressfortruth.com

Imagine a knock on the door after you have been on the internet, blogging, and the next moment you are under arrest. Not the latest BBC drama - but a real life one. Amnesty International today (27th October 2006) launched a campaign in defence of internet bloggers in many countries - including China, Tunisia and Iran who have been arrested for expressing views which have upset their governments.

But how have they been tracked down? It turns out that they have been turned in by major internet providers such as Yahoo and Microsoft, who have supplied foreign governments with the information they need to pursue them. We'll be asking these companies whether they believe in free speech.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/6092826.stm

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: "Call to Bloggers" to stand up for freedom ahead of world meeting on future of Internet
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGPOL300552006

 9/11 Conspiracy    9/11 Truth    War on Terror   

[UPDATE] A few things are worth noting. "9/11 Conspiracy" and "9/11 Truth" do not show up in the news reference volume. Also, "9/11 Conspiracy" doesn't show up until almost 2004. Now, look at this old Slashdot post, Google Censors Abu Ghraib Images. It makes me think that at some point in time, the evidence wasn't available on Google, and that's why the trend didn't show up.

Link

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061030/chester

...But as the Goo-Tube model develops, behind each video will be a powerful connection to an ad, targeted to the user's online behavior, as well as the stealth collection of personal data. As Ross Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive, noted about his company's acquisition of MySpace, "the digital gold inside of MySpace wasn't the number of users, but the information they're providing." [Google, it should be noted, now also represents the interests of Rupert Murdoch's US empire. In August Google became Fox's principal online advertising agent for MySpace, Fox TV and Fox Interactive.]

Given this emerging marketing model, the US broadband infrastructure may well become one giant "brandwashing" machine. The most powerful communications system ever developed by humans is increasingly being put in the service of selling, commercialization and commodification. And it will lead to an inherently conservative and narcissistic political culture, in which the interests of the self and the consumption of products are the primary, most visible, media messages. And unless we begin to challenge it now, the emerging digital culture will seriously challenge our ability to effectively communicate, inform and organize.

www.911oz.com has been online since January of 2006.

During the time the website has been online, web stats showed an average 40-50 unique visitors per day. In early September I added a number of RSS news links to the main page. On 11 September 2006 there was a sharp spike which lasted for one day, as expected. On this day I had 120 vistors. Traffic then returned to the previous average.

In the week following the anniversary of 9/11 there was another sharp increase in the number of visitors to about 250. The traffic then spiked again to about 400 visits per day after I posted an essay on 9/11 Blogger.

A few days later the traffic dropped again sharply - and is now back to the previous average of 40-50 visits per day. There is a major difference in current traffic statistics however - whereas before a large part of my traffic came from google searches, now it is coming almost exclusively from "direct links". In order to investigate why this might be I ran a few google searches on blocks of text taken directly from my home page. The search results in all cases came up empty of links to 911oz.

Prison Planet points out that Google appears to be censoring 9/11 news.

Today's Prison Planet article focuses on Google's censorship of Alex Jones' Terror Storm film, Charlie Sheen's statements about 9/11, and the website SpaceWar.com.

Action item:

"Please e mail Google and ask them why they keep trimming the viewership figures for Terror Storm. Demand an answer as to why they are unfairly blocking Terror Storm from reaching large numbers of people. We appreciate the great service that Google Video provides for free but what are they so afraid of that they would deliberately alter viewership totals and suppress the impact of this movie?"

Get those numbers back up, view Terror Storm on Google here.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2006/250906googlecensorship.htm

Google is again embroiled in a censorship farce after its Google Video sub-division was caught altering viewing statistics for Alex Jones' Terror Storm documentary, resetting runaway growth curbs to prevent the video making the website's top ten and its online viewership exploding exponentially.

Following last week's buzz about Terror Storm being available for viewing free on Google Video, numerous websites linked to our promo page and as a result viewing figures for all versions of Terror Storm at Google Video began to climb rapidly.

However, upon checking the same viewer figures on Sunday, Alex Jones noticed that many had been reset to zero and had only begun to climb into the hundreds and early thousands, nowhere near their previous levels of tens and hundreds of thousands for the previous days. The trends had been artificially reversed and this prevented Terror Storm from entering the top ten list of Google Video which would have ensured an explosion of further circulation of the video.