Did Google Autocomplete Ruin This Man's Life?

[evilsatan]

A cautionary tale: Back in 2009, government contractor Jeffrey Kantor was browsing online, seeking to make a radio-controlled airplane for his son. Hebegan to type his search into Google: “How do I build a radio-controlled”—[enter autocomplete]—”bomb.” That's right, before Kantor knew it, he had accidentally asked Google how to make an explosive device. And his life would never be the same.


According to a suit filed in federal court this week by Kantor and as Gawkerreported, after his Google autocomplete mishap, the government began harassing Kantor, putting him under constant surveillance and ultimately getting him fired.


"Kantor's coworkers at the Army,” the complaint alleged, “including Northrop Grumman contractors ... would repeat back Kantor's private information, including emails, websites he went to, library books he got from the library, conversations he made in his house or in his car, phone calls, information about the contents of his house, and then someone would immediately say that there is a person who dropped dead from hypertension."


In response to this alleged harassment, Kantor’s taking Attorney General Eric Holder, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry to task — to the tune of $60 million in damages.


To be sure, this is all what Kantor alleges. Nothing has been proven. And one has to wonder,

could an autocomplete error on Google actually prompt years of harassment and, as Kantor claims, death threats?

Hindsight provides some context for how this might have occurred. In June of 2013, former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden began disclosing the massive online surveillance operations of the National Security Agency and other international intelligence outfits. We now know the agency collects American’s telephone metadata, taps Internet cables, tracks cellphone locations, collectsemails, browser histories, encrypted messages and chats. Further, the guidelines for what legally makes one targetable are vague and flexible. Conceivably, Kantor was monitored by one of these programs.


One important note, however, is that no leak has revealed that the NSA directly monitors the browsing of American citizens. If the government isn’t engaged in any such program, it's difficult to imagine how exactly Kantor’s story would come together.


On the other hand, if in fact Kantor’s claims are accurate, they provide a compelling case against the NSA’s argument that those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear from government surveillance. In fact, the uncertaintly surrounding these claims is itelf in part the issue. As the American Civil Liberties Union wrote: “In fact, you have no idea if you have something to fear or not, because you do not know what the government does with the data it collects. If the government keeps secret what it is collecting about you or why, you cannot correct potential errors. And if you know anything about our justice system, you know that errors are common.

Source

[Geko]

I find that extremely hard to believe.

[evilsatan]

So did I but I always did wonder what would happen if you searched for certain types of stuff, I don't put it past the agencies to deploy monitoring tools. Just off to pick up my new tin foil hat

[Soulassassin]

I watched a film called 'Terms and Conditions Apply', makes you think, and certainly opens your eyes a bit. This story doesn't surprise me tbh.

[Rhinoz]

Anyone remember about 10 years ago there was rumours that if our emails contained certain words it would be picked up by such agencies ?

Everyone then sent an email around that contained many of the words in order to annoy or create extra work for the agencies.

Surely every form of digital communication is being monitored for keywords especially our mobile text messages, if you think bbm is more secure then surely it makes it easier to be monitored by being so centralized ?

Companies keep all employees emails so using work to send personal emails is a no no unless of course you don't mind who reads them.

It seems the digital age has made it easier to be snooped upon regardless of whether you mistyped into Google or not, even Google cookies are being used by government agencies.

[corskey]

We will all no be monitored by the CIA as we have read a thread with the keywords R-C bomb :-)

Sent from my M470BSE using Tapatalk

[muttleymacclad]

Would be interesting to see how this guy can prove his surveillance is down to one auto complete.

If he's a defence contractor it's more than likely that he's regularly monitored and checked on anyhow by his employers and the gov't in any case.