Google received more requests from the U.S. government to hand over user data during the first half of this year than from any other country, according to the search company's biannual "Transparency Report" released on Tuesday.
From January to June, Google received nearly 8,000 requests for user data from the U.S. government. The search company said it "fully or partially" compiled with roughly 90 percent of them. That's up from the 5,950 requests for user data that Google received from the U.S. government during the same period a year ago.
More than 16,000 Google accounts were specified in the U.S. government's user data requests, according to the report.
However, the search company cautioned that the total number of U.S. government requests for user data also tallied requests "issued by U.S. authorities on behalf of other governments pursuant to mutual legal assistance treaties and other diplomatic mechanisms."
Still, that number dwarfs the requests from other countries: India and Brazil came after the U.S. with 2,319 and 1,566 requests for user data, respectively, during the first half of 2012.
"This is the sixth time we’ve released this data, and one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise," said Dorothy Chou, senior policy analyst at Google, in a company blog post.
Overall, Google received 20,938 requests for user data from government officials worldwide in the first half of this year, which targeted roughly 34,614 accounts. That's up from the 18,257 government requests for user data that Google received during the same period a year ago, around a 15 percent rise.
In addition, Google saw a notable spike in the number of requests it received from government officials to remove content from YouTube and its other services during the first half of 2012. The search company said it received 1,791 requests from government officials to remove 17,746 pieces of content during the first half of this year — a 70 percent rise from the number of content-removal requests it received a same period a year ago.
Turkey topped the list of countries that sent the most content-removal requests, a total of 501 requests from January to June, according to the report. The requests were focused on removing YouTube videos, blogs and other content that was critical of the government.
The U.S. came in second with 273 requests to remove content, an increase of "46% compared to the previous reporting period," the report said.
"The number of government requests to remove content from our services was largely flat from 2009 to 2011," Chou said. "But it’s spiked in this reporting period."
The Hill's Hillicon Valley
MOSCOW, November 12 (RIA Novosti) – Russia will “react in the sharpest manner” to any US ships equipped with the Aegis combat system attempting to sail by its shores, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin told RIA Novosti in an interview.
Rogozin did not elaborate on Russia’s possible reaction, but lambasted the US missile defense system – part of which involves ships equipped with the Aegis integrated naval weapons system – for fuelling “an arms race.”
Russia is developing new S-500 interceptor missiles and does not rule out stationing radar stations outside its territory.
But the country has no plans to station its missiles in other countries, unlike the United States, Rogozin said.
“We have never placed our interceptor missiles near US borders on ridiculous fabricated pretexts such as ‘protecting our American friends from Canada and Honduras.’ But they do, on the pretext of protecting us and Europe from ‘bad guys in Iran and North Korea,’” Rogozin said.
The United States plans to place elements of its missile defense, intended to protect itself from “rogue states” like Iran and North Korea, in Eastern Europe. Russia vehemently opposes the plan, claiming that its own ballistic missiles would also be covered by the US shield, disrupting the nuclear parity between the countries.
RIA Novosti
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The budget deficit rose in October, the first month of fiscal year 2013, as looming negotiations over expiring tax cuts and imminent spending reductions dominated the post-election political landscape.
The Treasury said on Tuesday the October deficit was $120 billion, larger than economist forecasts for a $114 billion gap and up from $98 billion in October of 2011.
Growth in expenditures outpaced rising receipts, deepening the deficit. Outlays grew to $304 billion from around $262 billion in the same month last year while receipts rose to $184 billion from $163 billion.
Following President Barack Obama's election to a second term last week, the debate in Washington has quickly shifted to the combination of expiring tax breaks and new spending reductions known as the "fiscal cliff."
Lawmakers involved in the debate gathered in Washington on Tuesday for the first time since the elections, setting the stage for a week of trial balloons and rhetorical repositioning.
The Congress has just returned from a break after the November 6 elections. Topping the agenda is the year-end convergence of urgent tax and spending issues that, if mishandled, could plunge the economy into another recession.
The United States had reported a budget surplus for September, the final month of the 2012 fiscal year, but the tiny bump in revenues did not prevent the country's deficit from exceeding $1 trillion for the fourth year in a row.
The 2012 budget gap was $1.089 trillion, smaller than last year's deficit of $1.297 trillion largely because of higher corporate income tax receipts and less spending.
Yahoo News
President Barack Obama knows who the enemy is. September 11, 2012 was clear evidence that the killing of Osama Bin Laden was not a fait accompli when it comes to ending the terrorist threat. Obama is reluctant to openly admit that radical Islam’s open declaration of war presents a danger to America. The state of Israel shows no such hesitancy. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently stood before the United Nations and warned of a medieval war of civilizations that is set to erupt global security. A nuclear armed Iran is far different, Netanyahu pointed out, than a nuclear armed Russia. Netanyahu emphasized the distinction between the two ideologies of Iran and Soviet Russia:
“Militant Jihadists behave very differently from Secular Marxists. There were no Soviet suicide bombers. Yet, Iran produces hordes of them. Deterrence worked with the Soviets because every time Soviets chose between their ideology and survival, they chose survival. But, deterrence may not work with Iranians when they get their nuclear weapons.”
Netanyahu went on to explain that the difference between the two aggressors is the value placed on life. Iran anticipates its own destruction as a price to pay for bombing the globe into chaos:
“A great scholar of the Middle East, Bernard Lewis, put it best: ‘For the Ayatollahs of Iran, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it’s an inducement. Iran’s apocalyptic leaders believe that a medieval Holy Man will reappear in the wake of a devastating holy war, thereby insuring that their brand of radical Islam will rule the earth.’ Now, that’s not just what they believe, that is what is guiding their policies and their actions.”
Americans and nations worldwide must recognize the seriousness and inflexibility of Iran’s goal towards mutual destruction and the Obama administration’s role to date in the rapidly developing global crisis. Inexplicably to many, Barack Obama unleashed uprisings in the Middle East while implementing a radical Socialist agenda to “transform America” back home.
The overall intent is not as bifurcated as it may appear. The radical Islamists are waging a war of religion while the radical left is waging a war of ideas. The mutual goal is the toppling of a republic based, Judeo-Christian founded and Constitutionally-grounded America. Jihadists want America to become an Islamic state like Iran, whereas the left wants a “transformation of America” to a Socialist nation. Both systems devour individual rights and freedoms. Key to both movements is total elimination of all belief systems counter to their own. Were they to succeed, as natural enemies, Islamists and Socialists will eventually target one another. Radical Islam condemns to death all that reject a belief in Allah. Socialists constitute much of America’s Progressive-Left and have consistently legislated God out of American society, seeking to become god to the masses.
President Obama is the titular head of the Progressive-Left. President Obama understands Islam having studied the Koran in Indonesia. Part of the curriculum was that The Twelfth Imam or Twelfth Mahdi is the Islamic savior — its Islamic messiah. Islam requires that in order for the Twelfth Imam to reveal himself, the world must be in global war. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly believes that he has the divine mission to “hasten the return” of the 12th Mahdi. Destroying Israel, then America, erupts the world into the chaos needed for the Mahdi’s return.
Some 600 years before Islam, Christ appeared during His first coming as God-incarnate. The Christian Messiah is the Savior Jesus Christ. Islam reveres Jesus as a lesser prophet and not God, which puts Islam at inextricable odds with Christianity. Iranian President Ahmadinejad believes the “Mahdi” or “Twelfth Imam” will appear publicly during a time of great disaster, with Jesus at his side, to bring peace to a war-torn world. It is said that the 12th Mahdi will take Jesus to Mecca to replace the Bible with the Koran so that Christians worldwide will convert to Islam. A “Muslim anti-Christ” is also to surface in the world and falsely convince Jews that he is their “Jesus the Messiah” that they have long awaited.
An “Islamic Jesus,” it is said, will kill all Jews and behead anyone worldwide who does not accept Islam as the only true religion. The Islamic Mahdi will set-up his kingdom in Jerusalem, establish a worldwide Caliphate, along with Shariah Law, and rule the world. Homosexuals will be killed and women will remain as property and oppressed. Such belief is a driving force of today’s war on non-Islamic nations; an ancient war based on fundamental Islam that has entrenched the globe in a war on terror. Those who identify themselves as moderate Muslims declare that only extremists hold such beliefs.
The funding by Iran of the upheaval in the Middle East, the positioning of radical Muslim groups in governments across the region from Lebanon to Egypt cannot simply be dismissed as a war of ideologies between the West and the Muslim world. By Ahmadinejad’s admission, Iran’s role in the turmoil in the Middle East is to set the stage for the return of the Twelfth Imam. Obama’s years studying Islam should have taught him that he cannot schmooze leaders like Ahmadinejad, gain their favor, and unmoor them from what they believe is the only reason they exist on the planet. Islamic radicals seek world chaos targeting first Israel and then the United States. For Barack Obama to in anyway diminish the radical Islamist threat prioritizes his personally held biases that jeopardize America’s safety.
Netanyahu has recognized the danger and has openly warned of it for more than 15 years:
“Shockingly, some people have begun to peddle the absurd notion that a nuclear armed Iran would actually stabilize the Middle East. Yeah, right. That’s like saying a nuclear armed Al-Qaeda would usher in an era of universal peace. I speak about it now because the Iranian nuclear calendar does not wait for anyone or anything. I speak about it now because the hour is getting late, very late. I speak about it now because when it comes to the survival of my country, it is not only my right to speak, but my duty to speak. And, I believe that this is the duty of every responsible [world] leader who wants to preserve peace.”
Netanyahu warned that it is not just Israel and the United States, but the world at large that is being targeted:
“Militant Islam has many branches – from the rulers of Iran with their Revolutionary Guards to Al Qaeda terrorists to the radical cells lurking in every part of the globe. But, despite their differences, they are all rooted in the same bitter soil of intolerance. That intolerance is directed first at their fellow Muslims, and then to Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, secular people, anyone who doesn’t submit to their unforgiving creed.”
The MOral Liberal
