The Washington Post reported last Thursday (Feb. 4, 2010) that Internet search giant Google will be teaming up with the National Security Agency “in the name of cybersecurity.”

The arrangement will have the NSA helping Google analyze a security breach that the company says originated from China. The stated objective is to better defend Google and all of its users from future attack.

“Sources” say that the arrangement will allow the two organizations “to share critical information without violating Google’s policies or laws that protect the privacy of Americans’ online communications.” Also, “sources” say the deal “does not mean the NSA will be viewing users’ searches or e-mail accounts or that Google will be sharing proprietary data.”

Well, to quote a movie – like us 20-something Mid-western males like to do – “I’ll believe that when me shit turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbet.” If we’ll all take a second to remember, the NSA is the same agency that tapped American phones and emails without warrants after Sep. 11, 2001.

This seems to be the message from the top: The Google Attacks should have us afraid. And because of our fear, we should trust the largest information-technology company in the world to share at their discretion with our government whatever information about us is deemed in the interest of national security.

And what’s the cost? Only our privacy, our civil liberties and our Bill of Rights. Some will argue that if one is not a criminal, one has nothing to worry about. Those who make that argument need to take a few more history lessons.

Governments have used fear to motivate the populace into complacency since humans set up the first social contract to avoid lifetimes that Hegel called “nasty, brutish and short.” Humans even used it before that. It's primal. Chimpanzees fear grin in a gesture of submission to higher-caste brethren. But humans are intellectual, and our potential is better than that. Nevertheless, governments have always been successful in using that fear to trample the rights of the guilty and the innocent alike.

Google was supposed to be off-loading much of its collected data on user-related information. However, it was revealed that the company was in fact keeping and storing this information. So Google can already tie IP addresses to countless searches, e-mail addresses and so forth. Now they are partnering with the technology surveillance arm of the U.S. Government.

As Andrew Beal wrote in Marketing Pilgrim, “Big Brother just partnered with Big Brother.”

So today I became a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and I signed a petition to be delivered to Google opposing this deal.

And I’m now writing this blog. Why? – because I’m filled with fear and loathing (to make another cultural reference). I’m not afraid that “they” are bringing the hammer down. I’m afraid that at this point, if “they” every chose to bring the hammer down, we would essentially be helpless to stop them.

Think about what you’ve Googled in the past week. Think about what any stranger could learn about you by viewing that history. Think about what a company could do by organizing, collating, analyzing and selling that information. Now think about what a government could do. Now think about what a ruling elite concerned about an enormous, unacknowledged population problem could do.

In On Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau made the point that our moral obligation is not necessarily to fix the injustices of the world, but to not be complicit in them. Any complacency on our part is complicity, by definition. I urge you to sign this petition as I have in an attempt to stop the erosion of our civil liberties.

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