The Google Press Conference That Should Have Been

In the recent weeks it has come to light that the giant technology companies in the United States have been lobbying for changes in the massive NSA spying apparatus.  I call this window dressing, pure and simple.

I have only one question for these elites, where were you before the Snowden revelations on PRISM and the myriad of tactics that the government uses to spy on everyone?

Where are you Larry Page?  I did not see the press conference that you surely have the power to call, and gather all the media and make the following statement;

"We here at Google not only value our customers privacy, it is in our articles of incorporation.  "Do no Evil" is a motto that we strive to adhere to on a daily basis.  We have been approached by the Federal Government and the  NSA.  They demand that we hand over all of our valued customers personal searches, and all the metadata that we have.  We are saying NO.  Our customers privacy and trust is paramount to us.  We will not break that trust.  Our lawyers are fighting this demand, and we will continue to keep you updated."

That is such a simple statement and would have garnered the goodwill of the people in so many ways.  Right now, there is no trust.

I sure as hell did not see Eric Schmidt or Marissa Mayer calling a press conference announcing that the NSA wants to collect all the data of Google and Yahoo and keep it.

I did not see Tim Cook of Apple walking the stage holding his Iphone5 and stating that the NSA knows where you are, what you are saying and whom you are saying it to.

How come that NSA is monitoring the phones of those in Congress?  Surely they are not terrorists?  This spying is all about blackmail and industrial espionage.

When we see these elites of the world on the stage, they seem bigger than life.  The only one who most likely stood up to the NSA was Steve Jobs. It is no coincidence that Apple caved to the NSA within 3 months of his death.

These people are worse than you and I.  They have no backbone, no spine.  They just caved and kept silent.  That is most sinister of crimes.  Thank god for Edward Snowden.

Google is the host of this blog.  I challenge Larry or Sergei to have that press conference.  They will not, you see, they really do believe they are better than us, the ones who make them rich, one search at a time, one click, one eyeball on one page.


These tech giants are only worried about one thing, their bottom line.  Profits are down all across the board.  They have very smart people monitoring the trends, and they do not like what they see.

Our future is at stake. Without it, we are nothing.

Big Tech Hindsight is not 20/20

Is is so easy for the tech giants to come out today against big government spying on not only the United States shitizens but the world community.  I am quite sure that they have their internal marketing weasels, the same ones who want to sell us crap we don't need on top of the "public outrage" panic button.  I have one question.

WHERE WERE YOU TECH GIANTS BEFORE THE SNOWDEN DOCUMENTS WERE RELEASED TO THE WORLD?

The all caps was not by accident.  Their polling of users/customers most likely shows that the world is angry at the lack of privacy in the on-line world. If the Snowden documents had not been so incredibly explosive in their information about the MASSIVE NSA spying program, we would not be hearing from them now.

I am also quite sure that Google, who is the host of this blog, knows everything I have ranted about since its inception.  We can still protest and resist on-line, but in the real world that ability is rapidly disappearing.  I am planning my departure from the GMail community.  I use this email address for many website and application logins, and I am working on changing them as we speak.

How bizarre, I can clearly recall a few years ago, suggesting to friends and family that Gmail is great, the ease and flexibility makes email a breeze to use.  That is gone, all the features that made it great, do not overcome the overriding fact that they give every word to the government, and I have no expectation to privacy.

I can probably make a very compelling argument that snail mail is more secure and private than any email you send with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL. Is AOL still around?

Thats my rant for this morning.  I am going to change over to Hushmail.  This email provider gives the user the ability to encrypt email.  Am I quite sure the NSA has figured out the encryption ? yes, but if it takes some NSA lackey an extra 10 minutes to read about what I had for lunch, so be it.

On that note, since the NSA and other intelligence agencies are spying on our private lives, my suggestion is to start blasting out emails about every minute of your day, make that 5 billion a day number jump to 10 billion.

Counter-point:  There are bad ass people in the world, ones who want to do us harm.  The FBI, NSA should so their police work the old fashioned way.  Put the "boots on the ground", gather intelligence on the bad guys, get warrants and then snoop and pry into their lives.  I have no problem with that. I know it boring, and time consuming, but making all shitizens the enemy is the wrong approach.

Gitmo Gil