Mayor Bloomberg says surveillance drones are inevitable in NYC: 'get used to it'

via theverge.com

Governmental use of unmanned surveillance drones has inspired a lot of concern about privacy, but New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks the battle's already over. In a radio interview this week, Bloomberg said essentially that drones are an inevitable part of our future (and maybe our present), comparing them to the thousands of cameras already located around Manhattan. "What's the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building?" he asked. "We're going into a different world, uncharted... you can't keep the tide from coming in."

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Google: Government Surveillance Is on the Rise

via gizmodo.com

Google's released its twice-yearly transparency report, and there's one message within it that rings loud and clear: the US government is spying on us harder than ever.

Seems the search giant is increasingly being asked to hand over user data and remove content by governments and courts from around the world. As Google explains:

[G]overnment demands for user data have increased steadily since we first launched the Transparency Report. In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 34,614 accounts...

The number of government requests to remove content from our services was largely flat from 2009 to 2011. But it's spiked in this reporting period. In the first half of 2012, there were 1,791 requests from government officials around the world to remove 17,746 pieces of content

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