Google Street View accused of Congress 'snooping',
including some involved in national security issues!
In a statement, Google wrote "as we've said before, it was a mistake for us to include code in our software that collected payload data, but we believe we did nothing illegal. We're continuing to work with relevant authorities to answer their questions and concerns".
"We think the Google Wi-Spy effort is one of the biggest wire tapping scandals in US history," John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog told BBC News.
Consumer Watchdog wants Congress to hold hearings on the issue and ensure that Google boss Mr Schmidt be made to testify under oath.The search giant said the snippets could include parts of an email, text, photograph, or even the website someone might be viewing.
This practice is often described as "drive-by spying" and is favoured by criminals who trawl the streets to find houses or businesses using unencrypted wifi, so they can steal financial information.
The Consumer Watchdog group conducted an experiment to highlight the vulnerability some users expose themselves to by retracing the same routes, used by Street View cars, to detect unencrypted or open networks.
Consumer Watchdog focused on a number of high profile politicians whose homes appear on Google's Street View maps. It found that Congresswoman Jane Harman, who heads the intelligence sub committee for the House's Homeland Security Committee, has an open home network that could have leaked out vital information that could have been picked up by Street View vehicles.
Included is the home of Congressman Henry Waxman, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over internet issues.
"Our purpose was to show that members of Congress are targets just as much as every other citizen in the land" said Mr Simpson. (DUH-Do You Think?)
The Computer & Communications Industry Association, CCIA, said the tactics used by Consumer Watchdog left a lot to be desired.
"What Consumer Watchdog did was not a useful contribution to what could and should be a broader online privacy debate," said CCIA president Ed Black.
"They detected unsecured wifi networks that anyone, including neighbours, can pick up. It proves nothing about what, if anything, a person or company like Google might have done to intercept and record data."
These reckless actions by Members of Congress, Committee Members, should cost them their Seats!
national security issues, or any sensitive issues,
on OPEN UNSECURED WI-FI Networks?
H/T > Drudge Report.com, Infowars.com
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It serves always to distract the public councils and feeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration to confine themselves with in their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all departments in one and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.
If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed."
…George Washington’s Farewell Address…
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