Google’s Schmidt slams NSA over reports of data center spying

Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt blasted the NSA over reports that the agency has been spying Google’s data centers.

“It’s really outrageous that the National Security Agency was looking between the Google data centers, if that’s true,” Schmidt told The Wall Street Journal in a recent interview.

{mosads}”The steps that the organization was willing to do without good judgment to pursue its mission and potentially violate people’s privacy, it’s not OK.”

Schmidt criticized the broad scope of the surveillance programs.

“There clearly are cases where evil people exist, but you don’t have to violate the privacy of every single citizen of America to find them,” he said.

That the NSA has “allegedly collected the phone records of 320 million people in order to identify roughly 300 people who might be a risk” is “just bad public policy … and perhaps illegal,” he said.

Schmidt called for “appropriate oversight and appropriate transparency” regarding the NSA’s surveillance program and said Google has brought its concerns to the agency, to members of Congress and to the White House.

“We have complained to many, many people, starting with the NSA,” he said.