China, Google, the NSA and the CIA

There is more than enough evidence to suggest that Google's links with U.S. intelligence came into existence long before the reported tie-up with the NSA on the 5th of February this year, even if one  might expect the "enlightened readers" of the daily drivel to have been clapping their hands at this move to stop the Chinese hacking "their" precious search engine. One genuinely wonders if they would even be bothered by the fact that as early as October 2004 Google acquired Keyhole Inc., which had a database of 3-D spy-in-the sky images from all over the globe. Yes this does sound suspiciously like 'Google Earth', doesn't it? Therefore, what is the problem and don't we all like "street view"? Well no problem if it were not for the fact that Keyhole Inc. is, or was, supported by In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm  funded by the CIA.  

Now, the spooks in Langley might get it wrong from time to time but they knew that they were on to a winner here, so much so that in 2003, a year before the Google "takeover", the Keyhole CEO, John Hanke, was to say that "Keyhole's strategic relationship with In-Q-Tel means that the Intelligence Community can now benefit from the massive scalability and high performance of the Keyhole enterprise solution." Do you get the picture? "The Keyhole enterprise solution" is 'Google Earth'.

These links are not imaginary they are real and, while most of you know what the CIA does it might be worth mentioning that the less well known, but larger and probably more effective, NSA not only conducts surveillance and code breaking for the US government, but it also has its own rather comprehensive spying operation which would appear to include spying not only on American citizens but indeed on the whole planet. Yes, what we have here are the master hackers accusing the other side of hacking. Indeed, they might not even be wrong, but the hypocrisy? Yes, whatever the reasons behind this cyber war between the US and China, and here Webster Tarpley hits the nail on the head when he refers to it as "folly", it is most certainly not about the Chinese government hacking Google or cracking down on freedom of speech.