As reported on Slashdot, and briefly at Cinematech, Google Video has announced a pilot program to digitize and make publicly available the entire contents of the National Archives.

To whet your appetite, Google Video has already uploaded quite a few videos at the NARA Google Video site. Here are a few direct links:

*Marines Raise Flag Over Iwo Jima 1945
*Allied patrols in action on Anzio beach
*Reclamation and the Arid West
*The Eagle Has Landed 1969
*Boulder Dam 1937
*White Sands 1938

A valiant effort, and one that will no doubt be greatly appreciated the world over. But it raises the question; why couldn’t the National Archives deliver such a solution on their own? Why must Google step forward? I am assuming, of course, that they did indeed step forward and were not approached first by the Archives.
Not to mention…geez, if this “Google” machine ever becomes concious, we are headed straight towards a Matrix-inspired armageddon…