Shelly Palmer

Google: ‘Government surveillance is on the rise’

Google

The tangled David Petraeus scandal highlights how easily the U.S. government can access citizens’ private e-mails. The FBI’s request to access Paula Broadwell’s personal Gmail account was one of 7,969 similar requests Google received from the U.S. government in the first half of 2012, according to Google and news reports. The company said it complied with the requests, either fully or partially, 90% of the time. According to the latest Google Transparency report, Google fielded 20,938 requests for private account data from governments around the world between January and June of this year. Read the full story at CNET.