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Google's Eric Schmidt has a stupid moment on privacy

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zridling:


First it was Mozilla exec Asa Dotzler taking a golf club to Google's head by recommending Firefox users switch to Bing as their search engine in response to privacy concerns with Google. Now the big dog, Bruce Schneier steps up to the tee.

Google's Eric 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.

Schneier's response, from 2006:
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.

.......................................................
Total Recall all over again. Why do I feel like whatever can be used against me will be used against me online? (Usually by a corporation.)

app103:
It's not just big corporations and the government we have to worry about. A rubber duck can steal your identity on facebook.

40hz:
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.[/i]
-zridling (December 11, 2009, 12:09 AM)
--- End quote ---


So too can the names of people in China who disagree with Chinese government policies.

Or who simply want to read unsanctioned world news coverage.

Google can be proud of it's record when it comes to acting both legally and morally.

rxantos:
There is also a chance that something be morally right but not legal. And legal but not moral. And even legal and moral but subject to repercusion.

 For example what if you want to start a union in your workplace. You want other employees to know but you don't want management to know until you got the vote. Or what if a person is escaping Persecution from an unjust government. Like the jews on WW2 or the slaves of the past? Would you follow the law or your concience?  

Privacy is often the only tool against tyrants. And that is why they don't want you to have it.  

Stoic Joker:
Privacy is often the only tool against tyrants. And that is why they don't want you to have it.
-rxantos (December 23, 2009, 07:25 AM)
--- End quote ---
Damn Straight! Privacy and personal freedoms are slowly being stripped away in favor of convenient (feel-good) legislation that will allegedly protect "us" (by locking us it smaller & smaller Gilded Cages...).

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