Alliances

Google Teams with NSA for Cybersecurity

Delicate negotiations in progress.

Google is forging an alliance with the National Security Agency, the world's most powerful electronic surveillance organization, to protect its networks from cyberattacks, The Washington Post reports. This January, Google announced that hackers had targeted its underlying source code and the email addresses of human rights activists in a massive breach. Shortly after the attacks, which Google believes originated in China, the web giant approached the NSA, and since then the two groups have been engaged in delicate negotiations to forge a partnership that will allow the two to share critical information without violating Google's policies or American laws protecting the privacy of online communications. Ellen McCarthy, president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, an organization of current and former intelligence officials, put it this way: "The critical question is: At what level will the American public be comfortable with Google sharing information with the NSA?"