The Federal Government & Google
March 30th, 2008 by John Stauffer
When the NSA or CIA attempts to search its databases for intelligence information they’ll soon be able to say what most civilians do when searching for information: “Google it”
A little known group within Google, the federal sales team, recently signed a deal with the federal governments’ intelligence agencies to provide servers for a secure searchable database much like the popular civilian Internet search engine.
“We are a very small group, and even a lot of people in the federal government don’t know that we exist,” said Mike Bradshaw, head of Google’s federal sales team, in a recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.
This new contract is a sign of the Mountain View-based company’s efforts to make inroads into the state and federal governments. Other federal agencies, such as the NOAA and the Coast Guard already use Google’s servers and Google Earth to manage information and plot data.
The intelligence agency’s new Google servers will also fuel Intellipedia — the Wikipedia for the Intelligence agencies — which shares information across many agencies.
We’ve reported on Intelledpia in earlier Executive Biz Blog postings. Brush on the intelligence communities’ answer to Wikipedia here and the Chronicle’s full article here. And finally head over to Google for Government page for a fantastic tour through the robust connection between Google and the federal government.
