Google and the NSA: Cyber Security or Threat?

The Washington Post reported that Google and the National Security Agency (NSA) had come to an agreement that will allow the NSA access to Google’s data in order to analyze an espionage attack that originated in a foreign country.

It has been said that the goal of the investigation is to protect Google and its users from cyber attacks, eliminating the cyberspace threat. There is no doubt that apprehension resulting from an alliance between the world’s largest search engine and the world’s most powerful country may overwhelm any “security” it might bring.

If we say that Microsoft controls the computer operating system, then, as the world’s largest search engine, Google controls nearly all Internet content. In the dozen years since it was created, Google has grown quickly, and its searching business has almost become a monopoly. Its millions of servers around the world work day and night, processing data nonstop, including user information. As an important intelligence organization, the NSA will be in charge of data gathering. The U.S. media has reported that the NSA also hires hackers.

Although these two parties have teamed up in the name of cyber security, we are certainly concerned.

Google assured critics that the NSA would only be supplied with data that did not contain personal information, but this still will not make the public feel at ease. The NSA has always had a bad reputation. Since 9/11, in name of anti-terrorism, the NSA has been eavesdropping on personal phone calls and checking personal e-mails. Now that Google has teamed up with the NSA, it is entirely possible for the latter to violate civil liberties, threaten national security or even encourage unfair competition of American enterprises.

Both the American government and Google have always spread the propaganda of freedom of speech, right to privacy and so on; it’s a pity that this alliance ignores its own propaganda. Some observers believe that this collaboration might hurt Google and the NSA themselves. From a personal view, who would want to use a search engine supported by United States intelligence agencies?