Google CEO Says Privacy Worries Are for Wrongdoers

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/12/08/0127219/Google-CEO-Says-Privacy-Worries-Are-For-Wrongdoers

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/07/schmidt_on_privacy/

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/07/MNMF1AUFBM.DTL#ixzz0Z0vGXnTG

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/184446/googles_schmidt_roasted_for_privacy_comments.html

 

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/1...x-veteran-citing-ceo-eric-schmidts-latest-ou/

 

I'm so glad you posted this. I spent a better part of Monday and Tuesday really ticked about this and should have thought of posting it here. Schmidt saying this is the 3rd or 4th time he's made comments that make me want to never use anything Google-related again. He makes it perfectly clear how much he loathes anyone concerned with privacy. That silly motto "Don't Do Evil" sounds good, but then we have to define "evil" and that's the problem, huh?

 

December 9, 2009
My Reaction to Eric Schmidt
by Bruce Schneier

Schmidt said:

I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.

This, from 2006, is my response:

Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.
We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.

[...]

For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future -- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable.

[...]

This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from us. This is life in former East Germany, or life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And it's our future as we allow an ever-intrusive eye into our personal, private lives.

Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/my_reaction_to.html
The comments on this blog post are some of the best I've ever read.

Eric Schmidt touched a very sensitive nerve. Idiot.

 

I had one vestige of a Gmail account I was using for sales newsletters and other topical concerns, but I canceled even that one small account after seeing the video of Schmidt.

But... he is worth $6.2 billion. I guess he knows best...

WHATEVER.

 

I saw these two comments on another blog about Herr Schmidt's comments and had to post them:

(1) Posted by: ironkurton | 12/14/09 | 6:37 pm

"If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place."

(2) Posted by: dcx_2 | 12/14/09 | 7:01 pm

ironkurton - I don’t want anyone to know what it’s like when I poop.

 

If a person expects others to give up all their privacy- give up ALL yours first....
Schmidt needs to come clean, let us look in his 'life closet',
Yeah, like that's ever gonna happen...

Looks like someone already tried that...
[#6 paragraph in the link below.]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/07/schmidt_on_privacy/

This coporate 'peeping tom' stuff is all about Power=Money=Power=Money=ad infinitum~
NOT to protect us or keep the world safe and secure...
That's a little bedtime story for ...well, even kids aren't that naive!!

IMHO-The best way to do that is for each of us to live our very best life,
fulfilling our potential, treating others as we want to be treated-
we can, as individuals, make all the difference.