Google’s Warning about PRISM in Chrome

PRISM is everywhere this week. In retrospect, I’m wondering if Google was trying to warn us about it in some small way with this message in its Chrome browser shown every time you use “Incognito Mode”, Google’s version of “private browsing”.

When I first saw it a few years ago, I thought it was a really useful explanation of what the privacy risks were for anyone using it, and when I saw the reference to “Secret Agents”, I always chalked it up to some engineer trying being funny or cute.

Now I’m not so sure.

Was Google trying to subtly tell us that Secret Agents really were watching all of our private browsing? That the NSA has access to our browser data in “private mode” as well?