Google involved in Syria controversy?

'Our logic behind this is that while many people are tracking the atrocities, nobody is visually representing and mapping the defections...'

One of Hillary Clinton's recovered emails revealed Jared Cohen's, president of then-Google Idea, now Jigsaw, anti-Assad app.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) -  In an email dated March 8, 2012, Cohen wrote: "Please keep close hold, but my team is planning to launch a tool on Sunday that will publicly track and map the  defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from. Our logic behind this is that while many people are tracking the atrocities, nobody is visually representing and mapping the defections, which we  believe are important in encouraging more to defect and giving confidence to the opposition. 

"Given how hard it is to get information into Syria right now, we are partnering with Al-Jazeera who will take primary ownership  over the tool we have built, track the data, verify it, and broadcast it back into Syria. I've attached a few visuals that show what the tool will look like. Please keep this very close hold and let me know if there is anything eke [else] you think we need to account for or think about before we launch. We believe this can have an important  impact."

The message, sent to Clinton's team, revealed Google's attempt to help topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The email was then forwarded to Clinton by her deputy chief of staff, Jake Sullivan, who wrote the app was "a pretty cool idea."

The gist of the app is simple: It would track and map anyone defecting from Assad's regime. The app would collect all the information it needed then would be sent back to Syria, which would lead to an uprising against Assad.

Jigsaw's mission statement includes its constant strive "to use technology to tackle the toughest geopolitical challenges, from countering violent extremism to thwarting online censorship to mitigating the threats associated with digital attacks."

Though it claims to want to help, its 2012 attempt has met with much scrutiny - particularly for its attempt to incite regime changes.

Meanwhile, Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, claims Google "is not what it seems" and that Cohen was a "fast talking 'Generation Y' ideas man."

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