Review of Yasha Levine's book Surveillance Valley. The secret military history of the Internet. " It tells a story about Silicon Valley that really isn’t told enough, and it points out some really unpleasant – but, alas, all too true – aspects of the technology that we have all come to depend on. Google, the “cool” and “progressive” do-good-company, in fact a military contractor that helps American drones kill children in Yemen and Afghanistan? As well as a partner in predictive policing and a collector of surveillance data that the NSA may yet try to use to control enemy populations in a Cybernetics War 2.0? The Tor Project as paid shills of the belligerent US foreign policy? And the Internet itself, that supposedly liberating tool, was originally conceived as a surveillance and control mechanism?"
Google henchwoman Anne-Marie Slaughter has shown far too openly how Google is throwing its money and weight around in DC.
"The good news is that Schmidt’s and Slaughter’s backfire won’t just dent her but has put a long-overdue spotlight on how much power Google and tech titans wield in the Beltway and how too few people have been willing to stand up to them. The fact that the New York Times ran a detailed, well-reported piece against Google when the editorial policies of its business section have moved strongly towards being even more pro-corporate, suggests that the Times and other media outlets have finally woken up to the threat that Google’s power over the Internet represents to them. The Times might have thought the way that Google was stomping on small blogs and politically-oriented YouTube channels was irrelevant to them. But the Google initiative to punish even major publishers like the Los Angeles Times for what Google deems to be too much ad clutter means Google has now taken the position that it can be the arbiter of what ads websites can run, which is tantamount to saying it can choke down their revenues. For anyone paying attention, this is a death threat."
Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive officer of Google, will head a new Pentagon advisory board aimed at bringing Silicon Valley innovation and best practices to the U.S. military, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Wednesday.
Verizon Business Network Services Inc., Ashburn, Va., was awarded a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract consisting of one five-year base period, two 24-month option periods and one 12-month option period and a maximum ceilin
Blowing away the corporate-fueled smoke, McChesney breaks through with insights like these: " “Most assessments of the Internet fail to ground it in political economy; they fail to understand the importance of capitalism in shaping and, for lack of a better term, domesticating the Internet,” says Robert W. McChesney in his illuminating new book, Digital Disconnect." * “The corporate media sector has spent much of the past 15 years doing everything in its immense power to limit the openness and egalitarianism of the Internet. Its survival and prosperity hinge upon making the system as closed and proprietary as possible, encouraging corporate and state surreptitious monitoring of Internet users and opening the floodgates of commercialism.”
A lobbying organization that counts Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple and other tech giants among its clients has lent support to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act,
The company that once had no use for Washington is now the eighth-biggest spender on lobbying in the capital, ahead of not only Microsoft but also mainstays like Lockheed Martin.