Eric Schmidt has founded The Groundwork, to ensure that Clinton has the engineering talent needed to win the election.
http://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-working...
They are even hiring here. https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=loomin-arty
Because the Donald really wants to change the flow of trade and how large corporations build and hire.
From Oprah show, 25 years ago:
They've been acting along those lines, you mean. That's even scarier.
We are in an election year in the USA... and if not the USA, there's always some other election in some other country. If not an election, then an insurrection... Google has no business meddling in the affairs of states.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_(company)
The email is lacking context, but it appears that they gather data from open sources, not from some sinister surveillance program. And they use this data in open partnership with Al Jazeera. And the company itself is not the main "Google" that is tied to search an ads, but was launched, at inception, as "global technology think-tank".
So I see no relationship between what's discussed in these emails and hypothetical scenarios you're describing.
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In fact, Cohen had moved to Google from the US State Department in 2010. He had been a fast-talking “Generation Y” ideas man at State under two US administrations, a courtier from the world of policy think tanks and institutes, poached in his early twenties. He became a senior advisor for Secretaries of State Rice and Clinton. At State, on the Policy Planning Staff, Cohen was soon christened “Condi’s party-starter,” channeling buzzwords from Silicon Valley into US policy circles and producing delightful rhetorical concoctions such as “Public Diplomacy 2.0.” On his Council on Foreign Relations adjunct staff page he listed his expertise as “terrorism; radicalization; impact of connection technologies on 21st century statecraft; Iran.”
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Good or evil is quite subjective, but there is a pretty clear connection to at least one presidential candidate.
That article is a seriously interesting (and long) read, assuming that it's all true of course - it is not interesting enough for me to start digging for proofs! ;)
It looks like high tech in US is in relationship with politicians who promote war, warrant-less NSA spying and built torture programs http://www.drop-dropbox.com/