Email exchanges between the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) General Keith Alexander and the executives of Google Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt testify to a much more comfortable cooperative relationship than Google's after revelations last year by Edward Snowden.
Al Jazeera news agency today released two emails dating back a year before Snowden began the disclosure of US secret service operations.
On the morning of June 28, 2012, an email from Keith Alexander invited Schmidt to attend a four-hour classified briefing on external threats" and on August 8 a meeting to be held at a "safe facility near San Jose, of California. "
"They will be discussed specifically at the meeting issues, to get an orientation on mobile threats and security,” Keith Alexander said in an email.
Keith Alexander, Schmidt and other tech executives had met earlier, according to the message. But Keith Alexander wanted another meeting with Schmidt and "a small group of CEOs" later that summer because the government needed Silicon Valley help.
“Περίπου πριν από έξι μήνες, αρχίσαμε συζητήσεις με επίκεντρο την ασφάλεια των κινητών συσκευών,” ανέφερε ο Keith Alexander. “Με μια ομάδα (κυρίως η Google, η Apple και η Microsoft), είχαμε recently συμφωνία σχετικά με ένα σύνολο βασικών αρχών ασφαλείας.”
Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center, said she believed the exchange of information between technology companies and the government was "absolutely necessary", but at the same time, there was a risk to users' privacy and safety. from the way vulnerabilities are revealed. ”
The challenge for government and technology companies is to enhance security without compromising privacy, Granick said. The emails between Keith Alexander and Google executives show "the informal exchange of information is done in secret, there is no transparency, or a methodology to get security information in the right hands."
Read the emails leaked from Al Jazeera.com