The latest revelations from Snowden’s stolen documents, as conveyed by journalists not familiar with SIGINT, have it that NSA is doing nefarious things with Google databases. I was on CNBC today and I expressed my skepticism about both the story and about Google’s faux indignation:
Yeah, look – first of all, what we’ve heard so far, most recently, are allegations from Edward Snowden’s stolen documents. They are just allegations at this point, and a lot of his allegations turn out to be not exactly true.
Second of all, NSA does not spy on Americans without a warrant, and the only grounds for spying on Americans are a warrant granted from the FISA court on grounds that you’re working for foreign intelligence or foreign terrorism. There are no other grounds. Period. End of story.
Google collects information on all of us. I don’t know how one could use the Internet without using Google. I spent almost a decade with NSA in counterintelligence, working some of the most sensitive projects in the US government, and I’ll bet you today Google knows more about me than NSA does.