It's very nice for Bruce Schneier to express opposition to invasion of privacy. I agree with him. But unless I totally misunderstand Schmidt's comments, Schmidt is not suggesting people should not make love to their wives, for example, but rather, that if you are going to do something that you don't want the government to know about you, you shouldn't give it to someone that is legally obligated to tell the government about it if they ask.
Regardless of how Google feels about privacy, it's unreasonable to expect them to martyr themselves for our sakes when the Department of Justice or the FBI knock on their door with a subpoena. The way to protect your privacy is to not tell people things you don't want them to know(or to use Tor or the like).
Eric Schmidt is an American business leader. He has the same First Amendment rights as anybody else. He is obligated to follow the law, but he is not obligated to do so without complaint, let alone make excuses for his activities and those of his government.
Schmidt could have said "We understand that Google collects a lot of data; we have privacy policies that protect that data and we fire anyone who abuses them. We take data privacy very seriously. But we're aware that people are unhappy that various governments can compel us to disclose data. We believe that this is wrong. We believe that a world where anonymous government employees can see anything you do is a dangerous world. We believe in the power of data, but we want to encourage society to take steps to prevent this kind of abuse."
But he didn't, of course. Instead he told us that the innocent have nothing to hide.
it's unreasonable to expect [Google] to martyr themselves for our sakes
"Martyr", indeed. That is no mere hypothetical. Read this:
This is Herta Mueller, formerly of Romania, describing her life in the Ceausescu regime. There you could, indeed, face harsh reprisals, ranging all the way up to martyrdom, for refusing to spy on your fellow citizens.
I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect those people -- Mueller's friends, stuck in a scary totalitarian regime -- to stick up for their principles and resist the state's order to inform on their friends. (Though many did resist, and paid the price for it.) But Google? Google isn't even human. It has no fingernails to pull out. It is an American corporation, whose leaders live in America, with enough legal budget to sue God himself. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the company's leader to use some of that power to lobby for good, instead of looking sheepishly at his feet, kicking the dust, and claiming that he's only following orders.
"But he didn't, of course. Instead he told us that the innocent have nothing to hide."
Please keep in mind you're commenting about a snippet of a televised interview. For all you know Eric Schmidt agrees with everything you wrote above. (He may have even said something along these lines and it was edited out.) He certainly did not say or even imply "the innocent have nothing to hide."
Except that the former is plainly false, and the latter is pretty much indisputable provided you aren't walking up to the phrase with a preconceived notion that it's codespeak for something more sinister.
I should add that I very much agree with what you said about Google being in a position to make a much stronger stand for privacy rights in this country. I equally think that this is a pointless little shitstorm that detracts from the larger issue by making privacy advocacy look like petty language lawyering.
He's quoting a snippet of the interview. I have no reason to believe he hasn't read or watched more of the interview. If he has, then he's commenting on more than just that snippet. What's more, the interview is available to you. Why not look at it (if you haven't already) and see if that part of the interview is taken out of context, and explain why it's taken out of context, if you think it is?
Also, if it seems it might have been taken out of context, people should rail on what he said anyway, so he has a chance to defend himself. If he doesn't defend himself, there's a pretty good chance he meant it.
It seems like Google might be coming out of the closet as a regular megacorp, just like Apple did a few years ago when it started using DRM, and again a couple of years ago when it made a deal with AT&T, and finally put away any question of them being an exception to the rule when it came out with its app store.
I don't understand why only a megacorp would use DRM. Imagine yourselves in the shoes of a content owner: Congress has decided you have certain rights to control the distribution of your content, using DRM. Some company comes along and decides those rights are invalid and immoral. Would you want to do business with them, or with a competitor who allows you to exercise the full rights given to you by law?
If they're going to any length to get business, even if it pisses off they're staunchest fans, they're acting like a megacorp.
I'm not arguing for them sacrificing their customer base. I'm arguing for us not letting companies like Apple and Google get away with looking like the good guys when they're just the profit-driven guys like everyone else. Google's "Don't Be Evil" motto makes me sick, just like the squeaky-clean reputation Steve Jobs once had.
But what is more evil - refusing to honor the rights from content owners that Congress has passed laws protecting, or enforcing some content consumer right you think you have?
I want to live in a world where people have to make dry, quantified, lawyer-pleasing statements all the time just to make sure there is no speculation a lot less than I want to live in a world where Google may hold data about me which the US government can demand. :)
at the least, i think you are misreading the tone and giving a rather generous interpretation of what was said. schmidt could have said what you wrote. he could have something much more critical of the position he was in. he did neither.
also, your definition of "reasonable" is not one we all need share. there is a trade-off between profit and privacy here - the balance google has chosen is not the only one possible.
so twice you slant your argument to suit google. once by interpreting what was said in as favourable a way as possible, and once by presenting the false dichotomy of "google v martyr".
"People are treating Google like their most trusted friend. Should they be?"
"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."
The quote was in response to a question about to what extent it is wise to trust Google(not a moral question, but a pragmatic one). All of Schmidt's response, except perhaps one sentence("If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.") which is itself ambiguous, is describing pragmatic reasons why Google can not legally protect you from the government. Given that the context of the remark in which "maybe you shouldn't be doing it" either means you shouldn't be doing something you want hidden, or means that you shouldn't be trusting Google with the knowledge that you are doing something that you don't want the government knowing about because they may not be able to keep that information from the government without violating the law, I'm inclined to interpret it as the latter.
With regard to "google v martyr" being a false dichotomy, how could Google not respond to a subpoena for the search data for a certain IP address without suffering legal consequences?
Just to clear the record: there is technology out there that can obfuscate data (anonymization) and offer protection against unauthorized access (it is even possible to store data in tamper-proof systems to which nobody has access, including Google). Nobody is suggesting Google should not respond to subpoenas. We are suggesting that Google protect our data and take steps to reduce the risks of subpoenas.
That's a reasonable statement, and it's supported by parts of his interview. However, most people are complaining about this quote: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." It's really a different sentiment.
Sometimes a pronoun refers to a wrong antecedent. This problem usually occurs because the wrong antecedent comes between the pronoun and the real antecedent. To correct this error, place the pronoun as close to its antecedent as possible.
So this is not a case of English failing any more than it is Schmidt failing at English (if you believe he is pro-privacy).
Since Schmidt seems like a smart man, it is far more likely that he really did mean that "it" to be "the thing you don't want anyone to know".
1. Intelligence in one area does not imply intelligence in another. I don't know all of Schmidt's areas of expertise are but I doubt it includes English. (Don't link me to wikipedia, already read it)
2. Even if he is an expert at English, people are very sloppy with their native language. All you need to do is go to a university for a couple of weeks to figure out most PhDs make the same grammatical errors as the rest of us.
Please stop treating this simple rule of grammar as some piece of esoteric knowledge.
It is common sense that the antecedent of a pronoun defaults to the closest noun.
You don't get through college or even a PhD as Schmidt has (where you write many papers) by repeatedly making ambiguity mistakes like these. A research paper is useless if no one can make any sense out of it. Not to mention that he is a CEO: a job where you live or die by how well you communicate.
Firstly the others are right: even smart guys write & speak "wrong" English :)
Secondly don't forget this is spoken - emphasis and so forth change in the spoken language. I haven't heard it myself (anyone got a link to a recording?) but it could well be dependant on how it was spoken :)
And finally I think applying strict grammar words to what someone has to say does them a lot of injustice :) people just dont work like that do they. Essentially it is saying were going to ignore any meaning or connotation or mistake and take everything literally - god forbid that becomes a fad! :)
The quoted sentence is not normally interpreted in the latter way, even if the topic from previous sentences was typing it (the thing done) into the search engine.
In order to be outraged about this quote, you have to ignore the fact that ES is a smart guy and interpret the sentence as literally as possible (while simultaneously ignoring the implications of the word "maybe"). Then you have to take it out of context, and apply it to situations that ES obviously wasn't referring to.
People are making Eric Schmidt into the bad guy here, because they want him to be the bad guy. And that matters more to them than whatever his true intentions might have been when he uttered that statement.
And that matters more to them than whatever his true intentions might have been when he uttered that statement.
No it's much more than that. You forgot the wiretapping advocates and corporations like AT&T who will most likely use this quote to support their position.
I was actually under the impression that was the statement we were interpreting?
I've read it over about 50 times and I think he is giving an example - only a really unclear one, and a really bad one too. I do think it does read like the "worst case" guys are interpreting it: but I also am not convinced that was what he means at all.
Im still in the camp of Assume Good Faith for the moment.
I realise that Schmidt was taken out of context for media hype purposes but...
Even in context what he says is worrying though. It is not just advising you on how to keep you data out of government hands. It is also making some sort statement about Google's position.
Surely their position is 100% clear: they cannot deny a legal government request for information.
The point it becomes contentious (and something this doesnt touch on) is whether they need to keep XYZ data in a personalized way, and where holding said data tips over from giving us value into causing us danger.
Personalised data is one thing. How long data is kept for is another.
Also, a theoretical possibility of a government demand for data is very different from a yearly demand for data on 5-10 people which is very different from a daily demand for data on thousands. US citizens/residents only or data on foreign residents? International terrorists? Terrorist states? Enemy states? Any states?
Which government? US only. Google invoices have an Irish address on them, btw.
A whole other spectrum of problems appears when you look at this internationally. The US has the Patriot Act? What other countries have or will have data seizing laws? Will Google hand over data to these? Does it depend on where servers are? Servers move.
It's not just that their position is unclear. Where you stand is unclear. People have no idea what could become of their data, what it can be used for & by who.
I don't buy it. I think it's an underhanded tactic. I think he meant to say it, but to say it in a way that was deniable.
The excuse that people should only worry about privacy if they have something to hide, is nothing new. I think Eric Schmidt is good at recognizing patterns, and therefore must have noticed that he said that while he was taking part in the interview. I know I couldn't let those words slip by if I said them.
I was talking specifically about Eric Schmidt, not "people". I think he's pretty smart, and smart in the kind of way that would make him notice things like this. Google certainly wouldn't have hired Dubya for CEO.
Under what conditions does google have to turn over the search records? Can the government say, "Give ue all the records for those who searched for 'murder' related queries." I'm guessing not, and that a warrant must be presented, but I'm still curious.
My search history probably makes me out to be a psychopath, when in fact I just have a wide array of strange interests.
Search warrants have to be very specific regarding what they target. "Give us all the records for those who searched for 'murder' related queries" isn't specific enough for a warrant. "Give us the records of [some user] searching for [terms related to some specific technique of disposing of bodies] during March 2009" might be valid, but IANAL.
If you're ever brought to trial using evidence gained by a warrant which didn't list that evidence to some reasonable specificity, any decent lawyer will have that evidence removed from consideration.
It would usually have to be even more specific than that.
i.e. they would probably have to specify what they were looking for as well as some specifics of why they think X user (IP or google username) relates to Y person in their investigation.
Were forgetting, I think, there is already wide provisions for law enforcement to get your email password.. no one ever gets het up about that in the same way but most of the big ISP's can be forced, with warrants, to hand over access to accounts :)
Regardless of how Google feels about privacy, it's unreasonable to expect them to martyr themselves for our sakes when the Department of Justice or the FBI knock on their door with a subpoena. The way to protect your privacy is to not tell people things you don't want them to know(or to use Tor or the like).
Edit: fixed a minor typo