Claire Bernish
\nThe Free Thought Project.com<\/p>\n
Julian Assange cautioned all of us a while back, in the vein of revelations similar to those provided by Edward Snowden, that Google \u2014 the insidious search engine with a reputation for powering humanity\u2019s research \u2014 plays the dark hand role in furthering U.S. imperialism and foreign policy agendas.<\/p>\n
Now, as the Wikileaks founder faces days of questioning<\/a> by a Swedish special prosecutor over rape allegations inside his Ecuadorian Embassy haven in London today \u2014 and particularly in wake of the presidential election \u2014 Assange\u2019s warning Google \u201cis not what it seems\u201d<\/b> must be revisited.<\/p>\n Under intense scrutiny by the U.S. State Department for several controversial Wikileaks\u2019 publications of leaked documents in 2011, Assange first met Google Executive Chairman, then-CEO, Eric Schmidt, who approached the political refugee under the premise of a new book. Schmidt, whose worth Forbes<\/i>\u00a0estimates exceeds $11 billion<\/a>, partnered with Council on Foreign Relations and State Department veteran, Jared Cohen, for the work, tentatively titled The Empire of the Mind<\/i> \u2014 and asked Assange for an interview.<\/p>\n Later acknowledging na\u00efvte in agreeing to meet the pair of tech heavyweights, Assange found afterward how enmeshed in and integral to U.S. global agendas Schmidt and Cohen had become.<\/p>\n In fact, both have exhibited quite the fascination with technology\u2019s role in burgeoning revolutions \u2014 including, but not-at-all limited to, the Arab Spring. Schmidt created a position for \u00a0Cohen in 2009, originally called Google Ideas, now Google Jigsaw<\/a>, and the two began weaving the company\u2019s importance to the United States into narratives in articles, political donations, and through Cohen\u2019s former roles at the State Department.<\/p>\n That same year, Schmidt and Cohen co-authored an article for the CFR journal Foreign Affairs, which, seven years hence, appears a rather prescient discussion of Google\u2019s self-importance in governmental affairs. Under the subheading \u201cCOALITIONS OF THE CONNECTED,\u201d they wrote<\/a> [all emphasis added]:<\/p>\n \u201cIn an era when the power of the individual and the group grows daily, <\/i>those governments that ride the technological wave will clearly be best positioned to assert their influence and bring others into their orbits.<\/i><\/b> And those that do not will find themselves at odds with their citizens.<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cDemocratic states that have built coalitions of their militaries<\/i><\/b> have the capacity to do the same with their connection technologies. [\u2026] they <\/i>offer a new way to exercise the duty to protect citizens<\/i><\/b> around the world who are abused by their governments or barred from voicing their opinions.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Perhaps appearing laudable on its surface \u2014 at least to some degree \u2014 as Assange pointed out, there is a self-mischaracterization by the American and other Western governments and inaccurately-monikered \u2018non-governmental organizations\u2019 that their interests in other nations\u2019 affairs are innately good.<\/p>\n This cult of government and non-government insiders have a firm belief their goals should be the unassailable, unquestionable motivator for American imperialism \u2014 whatever the U.S. thinks best as a \u201cbenevolent superpower,\u201d so should the rest of the \u2018non-evil\u2019 world.<\/p>\n \u201cThey will tell you that open-mindedness is a virtue, but all perspectives that challenge the exceptionalist drive at the heart of American foreign policy will remain invisible to them,\u201d<\/i><\/b> Assange wrote<\/a> in When Google Met Wikileaks<\/i>. \u201cThis is the impenetrable banality of \u2018don\u2019t be evil.\u2019 They believe that they are doing good. And that is a problem.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Cohen, an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the notorious Council on Foreign Relations<\/a>, lists his expertise<\/a> in \u201cterrorism; radicalization; impact of connection technologies on 21st century statecraft; Iran,\u201d<\/i> and has worked for both Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton at the Department of State. Fortune<\/i>, calling Cohen a \u201cfascinating fellow,\u201d<\/i> noted<\/a> that, in his book Children of Jihad<\/i><\/a>, the young diplomat and technology enthusiast \u201cadvocates for the use of technology for social upheaval in the Middle East and elsewhere.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Under the auspices of discussing technological aspects at Wikileaks\u2019 disposal for the upcoming book, Schmidt; Cohen; Lisa Shields, a CFR vice president at the time; and Scott Malcomson \u2014 who would shortly afterward be appointed Rice\u2019s lead speech advisor for her role as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations \u2014 descended on Assange\u2019s safe haven in Norfolk, outside London.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t until weeks and months after this gathering Assange fully realized how closely Google operates in tandem with the government of the United States \u2014 and how perilous the innocent mask of its public intentions truly is in light of such cooperation.<\/p>\n Ironically enough, in Wikileaks\u2019 publishing three years later of the Global Intelligence Files \u2014 internal emails from private security firm, Stratfor \u2014 Cohen\u2019s and Google\u2019s true depth of influence became strikingly apparent. Assange wrote:<\/p>\n \u201cCohen\u2019s directorate appeared to cross over from public relations and \u2018corporate responsibility\u2019 work into active corporate intervention in foreign affairs at a level that is normally reserved for states.<\/i><\/b> Jared Cohen could be wryly named Google\u2019s \u2018director of regime change.\u2019<\/i><\/b> According to the emails, he was trying to plant his fingerprints on some of the major historical events in the contemporary Middle East. He could be placed in Egypt during the revolution, meeting with Wael Ghonim, the Google employee whose arrest and imprisonment hours later would make him a PR-friendly symbol of the uprising in the Western press. Meetings had been planned in Palestine and Turkey, both of which\u2014claimed Stratfor emails\u2014were killed by the senior Google leadership as too risky. Only a few months before he met with me, Cohen was planning a trip to the edge of Iran in Azerbaijan to \u2018engage the Iranian communities closer to the border,\u2019 as part of Google Ideas\u2019 project on repressive societies.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n However, most significantly, Stratfor vice president for intelligence Fred Burton, also a former official with the State Department, wrote in one of those emails:<\/p>\n \u201cGoogle is getting WH [White House] and State Dept support and air cover. <\/i>In reality they are doing things the CIA cannot do<\/i><\/b> . . . [Cohen] is going to get himself kidnapped or killed. <\/i>Might be the best thing to happen to expose Google\u2019s covert role in foaming up-risings<\/i><\/b>, to be blunt. The US Gov\u2019t can then disavow knowledge and Google is left holding the shit-bag.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Of course, the massive company \u2014 its various facets now under the umbrella of Alphabet, Inc. \u2014 has never been fully absent government involvement. Research for what would become ultimately become Google had been undertaken by company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in cooperation with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) \u2014 the strictly secretive technological testing and planning arm for the Department of Defense.<\/p>\n Indeed Google\u2019s continued coziness with the diplomacy, military, and intelligence wings of the United States government should not be, though perpetually are, ignored.<\/p>\n Political establishment bulldogs on both sides of the aisle and their cheerleader corporate media presstitutes will continue for months or years to debate the failed presidential bid of Hillary Clinton and the apparently-shocking rise and election of Donald Trump, but technology played a starring role in those events. Several reports last year cautioned Google\u2019s algorithms could swing the election \u2014 and not only the American election, but national elections around the globe.<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cWe estimate, based on win margins in national elections around the world,\u201d<\/i> said Robert Epstein, a psychologist with the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology and author of one of the studies<\/a>, \u201cthat Google could determine the outcome of upwards of 25 percent of all national elections.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Considering lines between the tech giant and the government have essentially been abandoned, this revelation puts power and influence into acute, if not terrifying, perspective.<\/p>\n Google\u2019s ties with the Pentagon and intelligence communities never ceased. Revealed by a Freedom of Information Act request cited by Assange, Google founder Brin, together with Schmidt, corresponded<\/a> casually by email with National Security Agency chief Gen. Keith Alexander in 2012, discussing a program called the \u201cEnduring Society Framework<\/a>.\u201d Alexander wrote to Brin:<\/p>\n \u201cYour insights as a key member of the Defense Industrial Base are valuable to ensure ESF\u2019s efforts have measurable impact.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n According to the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Industrial Base <\/a>is \u201cthe worldwide industrial complex that enables research and development, as well as design, production, delivery, and maintenance of <\/i>military weapons systems, subsystems, and components or parts<\/i><\/b>, to meet U.S. military requirements .\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n It also provides \u201cproducts and services that are essential to mobilize, deploy, and sustain military operations.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Although Schmidt and Cohen ultimately watered down their book title The Empire of the Mind<\/i> into the more palatable and less blatantly imperialistic, The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations, and Business<\/i>, its message amounted to self-congratulatory justification for broader foreign policy goals. Nefarious warmonger Henry Kissinger, for one, praised the work, which included telling lines by the Google execs, such as:<\/p>\n \u201cWhat Lockheed Martin was to the twentieth century, technology and cyber-security companies will be to the twenty-first.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n So ubiquitous has Google become, its presence \u2014 like similarly U.S. government-connected Facebook \u2014 is nearly indispensable in the daily lives of hundreds of millions worldwide.<\/p>\n However well-known is the government intelligence framework in such platforms, it would be ill-advised to ignore the far darker Machiavellian aspects of private corporate technology\u2019s intersection with global political agendas \u2014 and the force that coalition wields around the planet.<\/p>\n Whether or not the American establishment\u2019s empire suffered a blow in the election of Donald Trump will be a debatable point for some time, but it\u2019s a veritable guarantee its cogs \u2014 seeing themselves as the planet\u2019s saviors \u2014 have planned in advance for just such an occasion.<\/p>\n