Google Chairman Calls NSA's Alleged Spy Practices 'Outrageous'
MOUNTAIN VIEW (KCBS) — Google's executive chairman has called the alleged spy tracking of communication data by the National Security Agency "outrageous" and potentially illegal, according to a published report.
Eric Schmidt told The Wall Street Journal that if revelations from Edward Snowden—the former NSA contractor and whistleblower—that NSA is tracking information sent between Yahoo and Google data servers overseas are true, that the agency's actions are a violation of people's privacy.
Google Chairman Calls NSA's Alleged Spy Practices
"The simple example is the National Security Agency allegedly collected everyone phone call of 320 million in order to identify roughly 300 people who might be at risk; that's just bad public policy," he said.
He said there needed to be an appropriate amount of oversight and transparency for the NSA.
"There are clearly cases where evil people exist but you don't have to violate the privacy of every single citizen of America in order to find them," Schmidt said.
Google had filed complaints with the NSA, President Obama and members of Congress.
In response, the NSA repeated its statement from last week that reports of the agency's spying have misstated the facts and mischaracterized its activities.
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