State Department Googles To Create Banned Iranians List

from the the-Google-spies dept

Mon, Dec 11th 2006 11:20pm — Mike Masnick

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.

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20 Comments

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Baecke, 11 Dec 2006 @ 11:44pm

CIA can google
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
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Drew, 12 Dec 2006 @ 1:07am

Google is not bound to confidentiality?
Wouldn't it be interesting if google decided to be vindictive and release their seach history?
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2006 @ 4:10am

Re: CIA can google
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.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2006 @ 4:12am

Re: Google is not bound to confidentiality?
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.
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novernetsbandit, 12 Dec 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
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Louis, 12 Dec 2006 @ 4:37am

Re: Re: CIA can google by Grammar Fool.
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.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2006 @ 5:14am

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
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Awesome Mr Ethan, 12 Dec 2006 @ 5:16am

Woah
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".
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Louis, 12 Dec 2006 @ 5:37am

Yeah
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.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2006 @ 5:52am

Re: Re: CIA can google
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.
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joe, 12 Dec 2006 @ 6:03am

Re: Re: CIA can google
you're the idiot

let's = let us

go back to school
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urdumb, 12 Dec 2006 @ 6:20am

Re: Re: CIA can google
And you can spell better? Run your little post through a spell checker too buddy.
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rstr5105, 12 Dec 2006 @ 6:41am

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.
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kiknit, 12 Dec 2006 @ 6:59am

Grammar this!!!
Man! What a bunch of pettiness!!!
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Vincent Clement, 12 Dec 2006 @ 7:39am

The Real Story
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.
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Louis, 12 Dec 2006 @ 8:06am

Re: 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.
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Another Anon, 12 Dec 2006 @ 8:37am

In General
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.
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Unknowledgeable Geek, 12 Dec 2006 @ 12:50pm

No. 15
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.
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Jeff, 12 Dec 2006 @ 12:54pm

CIA shills
See, the black helicopters are right. They're trying to derail the conversation. They don't want you to know.
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rick, 12 Dec 2006 @ 1:32pm

Re: Re: Google is not bound to confidentiality?
...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.
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