(Mis)Uses of Technology

(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick




State Department Googles To Create Banned Iranians List

from the the-Google-spies dept

It appears our government intelligence agencies are still a bit confused about this whole internet thing. A few months ago, we noted that the FBI lost a lawsuit after a judge was shocked that FBI agents didn't do a simple Google search in trying to figure out if someone was still alive. Then, last week, we noted that our intelligence agencies were starting to make use of the tools of social applications, but not necessarily the community of people out there. However, when the CIA turned down a State Department request for names of Iranians who deserve to be sanctioned for their work on Iran's nuclear program, the State Department set up a junior employee to go about Googling things like "Iran and nuclear" to come up with a list. After some cutting down the list, the CIA eventually approved a small list of people, but it still seems bizarre to think that the best way to determine dangerous people is to do a simple Google search. That isn't to say that the intelligence community shouldn't be using tools like Google. Obviously, they should be using them quite a lot -- but that doesn't mean it's right for everything: such as figuring out the best list of people to sanction over a clandestine nuclear weapons program.

20 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Dec 11th, 2006 @ 11:44pm
  • CIA can google

    by Baecke

    Let's drop the "I" in CIA and that would explain a lot of their thinking. One can relate to "Militairy Intelligence" in the same fashion. Greetz

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 4:10am
    • Re: CIA can google

      by Anonymous Coward

      You comment would be amusing except for the fact that you can't even spell military, and the word lets does NOT need an apostrophe. The word you made into a contraction is "let is", now how intelligent is that? If I were a betting man, and I am. I would put every cent I have that anyone who works at the CIA, and yes I even mean the janitors, is more intelligent than you.

      (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

      • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 4:37am
      • Re: Re: CIA can google by Grammar Fool.

        by Louis

        You comment would be amusing except for the fact that you can't even spell military, and the word lets does NOT need an apostrophe. The word you made into a contraction is "let is", now how intelligent is that? If I were a betting man, and I am. I would put every cent I have that anyone who works at the CIA, and yes I even mean the janitors, is more intelligent than you.

        Your comment is friggin' hilarious considering your own seeming inadequate grasp of English grammar.

        And I like the word "militairy" - it rhymes with "fairy". Which would be a pretty good description of most men in the military. Haha. Bite me grammar man.

        (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

      • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 5:52am
      • Re: Re: CIA can google

        by Anonymous Coward

        Look at the grammar police - up so early in the morning. Someone have a bad case of cranky-pants?

        I believe "let's" is a contraction for "Let us" NOT "Let is" ...

        Class dismissed.

        (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

      • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 6:03am
      • Re: Re: CIA can google

        by joe

        you're the idiot

        let's = let us

        go back to school

        (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

      • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 6:20am
      • Re: Re: CIA can google

        by urdumb

        And you can spell better? Run your little post through a spell checker too buddy.

        (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    Dec 12th, 2006 @ 1:07am
  • Google is not bound to confidentiality?

    by Drew

    Wouldn't it be interesting if google decided to be vindictive and release their seach history?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 4:12am
    • Re: Google is not bound to confidentiality?

      by Anonymous Coward

      If Google released what the U.S. gov't was searching about it COULD be considered a violation of national security and quite a few employees of Google would end up in jail.

      (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

      • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 1:32pm
      • Re: Re: Google is not bound to confidentiality?

        by rick

        ...but how hard would it be for thier miami isp to sniff the traffic going in and out of the firewall IP address. This has always worried me about searches. I think an interesting product might be some sort of distributed anonymyzer network or, for a fee paid to google, direct vpn connections to them so no one could easedrop along the way.

        (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    Dec 12th, 2006 @ 4:25am
  • reply to 4

    wasnt the us government tring to force google to give up search history? Now if the us government wants the general public to know what there doing im all for it. Google is currently the most powerful player in the Search Engine Game and by the gov using them it strengthens this

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 5:14am
  • by Anonymous Coward

    grammer nazis...grammer nazzis..

    lolerskate, roflcopter,shitties.....

    wow. everyone has bad grammar (the e above was intentional) whom should we blame? it's he inet phase, and public education sucks....and in private schools, they are more worried about using a fountain pen (see one of yesterday's articles)

    so....wow....just...wow

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 5:16am
  • Woah

    by Awesome Mr Ethan

    I could've sworn that it was Let us. And in fact it is. Because Let is is just silly. That's like saying "Don't" is wrong because you just abbreviated "Don" and "At".

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 5:37am
  • Yeah

    by Louis

    I was hoping Grammar man would catch on about the slip up on "let's", obviously I put too much trust in the everyman's grammar ability.

    For the record, the above apostrophy was used to indicated possesion - not an abreviation of "everyman is". THat would be stupid.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 6:41am
  • louis.....

    by rstr5105

    Louis, as a former marine, and quite a straight one at that, I hope you die and rot in hell.

    As a matter of fact, not to make idle threats, If I ever meet you in person, chances are I will kick your ass on base principle.

    Thank you.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 8:06am
    • Re: louis.....

      by Louis

      Louis, as a former marine, and quite a straight one at that, I hope you die and rot in hell.

      As a matter of fact, not to make idle threats, If I ever meet you in person, chances are I will kick your ass on base principle.

      Thank you.


      LOL! Man, I knew some closet homophobe would get upset about that fairy comment! And an ass kicking threat no less!

      Mister Marine, if you and I meet, chances are you'd just embarass yourself and prematurely blow your load in your pants.

      (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    Dec 12th, 2006 @ 6:59am
  • Grammar this!!!

    by kiknit

    Man! What a bunch of pettiness!!!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 7:39am
  • The Real Story

    by Vincent Clement

    Wait a minute, I thought that one of the reasons for the creation of Homeland Security was to facilitate the exchange of information between various agencies. So, five years after 9/11 - which was partly blamed on the lack of data sharing between various agencies - we still have one agency initially refusing to share some data with another agency.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 8:37am
  • In General

    by Another Anon

    Does anyone remember what you were communicating about? Seems the CIA are not the only ones who don't know how to behave, shame on you all.
    The stupidity of human behaviour never fails to amaze me.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 12:50pm
  • No. 15

    by Unknowledgeable Geek

    You could not have said it any better.

    Our government is so stupid and so it's my way or the highway that they still have NATIONAL DEFENSE departments not talking to each other. WHAT the FFFFF. What is the major reason for the existence of government, to PROTECT not to job protect. This is ridiculous and better yet this occurs and all you idiots can do on this page is call or military personal fags and correct someones grammar.

    You all need a reality check or 9/11/07 is right around the corner.

    This is absouletly unacceptable.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Dec 12th, 2006 @ 12:54pm
  • CIA shills

    by Jeff

    See, the black helicopters are right. They're trying to derail the conversation. They don't want you to know.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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