[ariwilson]

Just to clarify the discussion here, since the NSA is involved in snooping on internet users along many different dimensions, I think what is being discussed here is encrypting internal Google data being transmitted from datacenter to datacenter via private fiber optic cables. Recent revelations seem to indicate the NSA has set up fiber taps on various company's networks. This encryption would frustrate those tapping efforts.

Legal requests to Google for user data are not affected by this change. Neither is private data at rest, which is still presumably encrypted. Neither are other extralegal avenues the NSA has to infiltrate Google (employee co-operation or intimidation, exploiting zero days to get into corporate networks, hijacking security protocol construction, etc).