The Wall Street Journal interviewed Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt on the latest news reported by the Washington Post that the NSA has been going behind the back of Google and Yahoo and infiltrating their data centers around the world. The first few questions in the video below address the issue.
A rough transcript, with help from the WSJ article here.
“It’s really outrageous that the National Security Agency was looking between the Google data centers, if that’s true. The steps that the organization was willing to do without good judgment to pursue its mission and potentially violate people’s privacy, it’s not OK. It’s just not OK. So, in that sense the Snowden have assisted us in understanding that. It’s perfectly possible that there are more revelations to come.”
“…We [Google] have complained to many many people, starting with the National Security Agency, the president, the vice president, you name it, as well as the Congress. There is legislation that’s begin discussed in the Congress. And I think it just doesn’t pass the smell test.
“The NSA allegedly collected the phone records of 320 million people in order to identify roughly 300 people who might be a risk. It’s just bad public policy…and perhaps illegal.”
“You have to take a strong position in favor of privacy. Privacy is really the right to be left alone. Do you really want the government tracking all of those information, especially if you’re just a domestic citizen who is just going about your life?”
“There clearly are cases where evil people exist, but you don’t have to violate the privacy of every single citizen of America to find them.”
Eric Schmidt on 'customer' privacy: "“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” and “We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.” and “You can trust us with your data”
What's the difference between Google and the NSA?
There is a lot of difference between a private communications provider randomly sampling customer emails for key words commercially useful in directing advertisers to potentially interested customers, and a government spy agency scanning all citizens' private emails and storing them for the purpose of establishing a massive data base for future use in investigating and/or prosecuting what ever citizens the government may — now or in the future — deem "subversive" or "suspicious" or "potentially criminal." Just read the recently revealed information on our (US) Government's so-called "Insider Threat" program — requiring or encouraging all federal employees to report "suspicious" or "disloyal" conduct or comments by fellow federal employees — to get confirmation of how far our current federal Government has gone down the road toward eliminating our First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and/or association. From a Constitutional perspective, there is a world of difference between Google (a private business corporation to which the Constitution does not purport to apply) and the NSA (a federal Government agency to which the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments were intended to and do apply).
You are splitting hairs–from what I see there is not a world of difference between Giggle and the FedGov and it's pretty much an open secret Giggle, Hoo-yah and others are branch offices of the NSA and CIA.
Nah, I'm not so sure about yahoo really. But Google is shady.
Julian Assange:
"Documents published last year by WikiLeaks obtained from the US intelligence contractor Stratfor, show that in 2011 Jared Cohen, then (as he is now) Director of Google Ideas, was off running secret missions to the edge of Iran in Azerbaijan. In these internal emails, Fred Burton, Stratfor’s Vice President for Intelligence and a former senior State Department official, describes Google as follows
Google is getting WH [White House] and State Dept support and air cover. In reality they are doing things the CIA cannot do… [Cohen] is going to get himself kidnapped or killed. Might be the best thing to happen to expose Google’s covert role in foaming up-risings, to be blunt. The US Gov’t can then disavow knowledge and Google is left holding the shit-bag." http://cryptome.org/2013/08/assange-google-nsa.ht…