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If true, this story is appalling. In order to do this, the Feds would have to have "fire hose" access to Google queries or have access to their servers to be a
by downandout 13y ago
If true, this story is appalling. In order to do this, the Feds would have to have "fire hose" access to Google queries or have access to their servers to be able mine the search data of everyone, including US persons. Since a regular federal judge couldn't issue a search warrant for such sweeping surveillance on US citizens, it would mean that Google is voluntarily giving up all of its search data to government agencies. That would be a striking and disturbing revelation, given their adamant PRISM denials. It would be enough to make millions of Google customers run away from them.
- Houshalter 13y agoIsn't the stuff you search for encoded in the URL? Could they get it just by intercepting your web traffic?
- downandout 13y agoThey aren't supposed to be able to do that since google uses SSL by default. But if Google has coughed up its SSL keys, I guess anything is possible.
- Houshalter 13y agoIt turns out that it was the employer that alerted the police, nothing to do with the NSA. Not sure what that means about Google's security if a mere employer can intercept Google searches.