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Google Earth increasingly compliant with censorship requests

Wed, 27th August, 2008 - Posted by Joshuah

Source: The Raw Story

Google has becoming increasingly compliant to government requests to block purportedly sensitive information — including images of Tibet, military installations and even a General Electric research plant — according to a new report prepared by the Open Source Center for the Bush Administration’s Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and reports circulated online about areas Google has blocked or blurred.

The research report was not approved for public release but was leaked to Secrecy News (view pdf). It is prepared entirely on public information — so called “open source” intelligence. But it paints a picture of an increasingly pliant global communications juggernaut, willing to do business with authoritarian regimes and US government agencies at the expense of transparency.

China, for instance, has an “online geographical information security management and coordination group” which regularly browses online mapping sites.

“When problems are discovered, they are either raised with Google’s China headquarters or through diplomatic channels,” the report says.

“Google has been very cooperative in the course of communications,” a Chinese spokesman remarked.

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Category : Police state

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