guardian.co.uk,
Josh Halliday, Tuesday 25 October 2011
 |
| Google office. Photograph: Walter Bieri/AP |
Google
faced down demands from a US law enforcement agency to take down YouTube videos
allegedly showing police brutality earlier this year, figures released for the
first time show.
The
technology giant's biannual transparency report shows that Google refused the
demands from the unnamed authority in the first half of this year.
According
to the report, Google separately declined orders by other police authorities to
remove videos that allegedly defamed law enforcement officials.
The demands
formed part of a 70% rise in takedown requests from the US government or
police, and were revealed as part of an effort to highlight online censorship
around the world.
Figures
revealed for the first time show that the US demanded private information about
more than 11,000 Google users between January and June this year, almost equal
to the number of requests made by 25 other developed countries, including the
UK and Russia.
Governments
around the world requested private data about 25,440 people in the first half
of this year, with 11,057 of those people in the US.
It is the
first time Google has released details about how many of its users are targeted
by authorities, as opposed to the number of requests made by countries.
"For
the first time, we're not only disclosing the number of requests for user data,
but we're showing the number of users or accounts that are specified in those
requests too," said Dorothy Chou, a senior policy analyst at Google.
"We
believe that providing this level of detail highlights the need to modernize
laws like the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which regulates government
access to user information and was written 25 years ago—long before the average
person had ever heard of email."
Brazil made
the most content removal requests in the first half of this year, according to
the report, followed by Germany, the US and South Korea.
Related Article:
United States Marine Corps. Sgt. Shamar Thomas from Roosevelt, NY went toe to toe with the New York Police Department. An activist in the Occupy Wall Street movement, Thomas voiced his opinions of the NYPD police brutality that had and has been plaguing the #OWS movement.
Thomas is a 24-year-old Marine Veteran (2 tours in Iraq), he currently plays amateur football and is in college.
Thomas comes from a long line of people who sacrifice for their country: Mother, Army Veteran (Iraq), Step father, Army, active duty (Afghanistan), Grand father, Air Force veteran (Vietnam), Great Grand Father Navy veteran (World War II).
YouTube footage of protesters being pepper-sprayed
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