Google furious over US govt snooping

Oct 31, 2013 | 6:48 AM |by Sapa-dpa

Google is fuming over the chance that the US National Security Agency had broken into the links that connect its data centres.

"We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fibre networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform," said David Drummond, chief legal officer.

According to the Washington Post newspaper, NSA cracked into both Yahoo and Google's data centres, giving it access to the accounts of hundreds of millions of users.

Drummond said Google has long been concerned about the possibility of such snooping, "which is why we have continued to extend encryption across more and more Google services and links, especially the links in the slide."

Drummond insisted that Google does not provide any government access to its systems.

The Post cited documents provided by Edward Snowden who has, in recent months, leaked documents to the media from his time as a National Security Agency (NSA) contractor. It reported that millions of records were intercepted and sent from Yahoo and Google's networks to the NSA's headquarters.

Snowden, who has been charged with espionage by the US, has been granted refuge in Russia with the understanding that he not distribute any more leaks.

But a continuing stream of new revelations have provoked worldwide uproar, particularly in Germany, where it is alleged the United States spied on Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone.

Germany sent its two top security officials - German National Security Advisor Christoph Heusgen and Guenter Heiss, Germany's secret service coordinator - to meet on Wednesday at the White House with their US counterparts.

NSA chief Keith Alexander denied that the agency had access to the company's servers, and said it had only accessed thousands, not millions, of internet records, and all of those legally.