Google = Government Owned & Operated Generated Lead Engine
You've all heard of Echelon - the DARPA project that collects every electronic transmission - however, data collection on this scale is highly inefficient. Why not use the internet to monitor what people are looking for, integrate that with their phones/devices and allow a more streamlined approach to individualized data collection? Such a clearinghouse would allow constant, real-time monitoring on a global scale, and instant magnification of persons of interest by focusing on an individual account. Such data mining could weed out terrorists, find skeletons in the closets of potential political leaders and sway public opinion.
(DeSade - is grannyfappin, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 19:24, 1 reply)

That's not a conspiracy theory.
Other than the mildly amusing acronym that's exactly how it works.
Google are well known for passing data to the US government agencies* and every ISP on earth is pretty much guaranteed to pass any data they have to some government or other. Add to this the growing number of laws in "The West" making every communications provider log everything and it's pretty clear that, should they wish, any government could easily get a shed load of information about anyone.
*They're not the only one, RIM have had to go the the expense of opening data centres in many countries so that local law enforcement can grab the information without having to ask the Canadian government for it.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 23:52, closed)