Call For DOJ To Reopen Google Wi-Fi Spying Investigation 82
angry tapir writes "Two U.S. lawmakers have called on the U.S. Department of Justice to reopen its investigation into Google's snooping on Wi-Fi networks in 2010 after recent questions about the company's level of cooperation with federal inquiries. Representatives Frank Pallone Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, and John Barrow, a Georgia Democrat, called on the DOJ to fully investigate Google's actions for potential violations of federal wiretapping laws. In light of a recently released U.S. Federal Communications Commission report on Wi-Fi snooping by Google Street View cars, the DOJ should take a new look at the company's actions, wrote the lawmakers in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder."
While they're at it... (Score:5, Insightful)
While they're at it why don't they go after their colleagues for trying to push laws that circumvent current wiretapping laws?
Commercial attack. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing to see here, nothing of note was taken, claims it was a seriuous attempt to intrude on anybody are laughable and most journalists writing on this subject are technically illiterate and working to a script.
A commercially derived attack from paid-for representatives of Googles opposition. If this is the best they can come up with after millions of dollars paid funding groups set up as sockpuppet attack dogs then I'm happy to define Google as safe.
Yawn.
(PS: I'm more concerned about why they are kept under such universal pressure from the MIC, presumably it's to force them to allow the Military/Right to snoop on Google's commercial, worryingly broad, data.)
Complete failure to understand technology (Score:5, Insightful)
The only difference between what Google did and what every other PC in existence does with a WiFi radio in it is store it somewhere other than memory.
Just like it isn't wiretapping to record someone having a conversation standing on the street, I fail to see how its wiretapping to intercept an unencrypted BROADCAST signal.
Am I violating wiretapping laws because I use an antenna to pick up ATSC broadcasts? Not really much different other than the TV station is smart enough to realize broadcast intentionally and nobody has bothered to tell most ignorant home users what WiFi actually does or how it works (i.e. the signal doesn't stop at some imaginary boundary or at the walls of your house.
The fact that it keeps coming up with politicians shows we need to stop electing 90 year old lawyers who don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about.
be careful what you wish for (Score:1, Insightful)
I hate google as much as anybody, and do not use their search engine because of their privacy-invading policies. I also do not run their tracking crap that's all around the internet, and recommend that NO ONE use them for these reasons: they are destroying the last shred of privacy that was left on the internet.
But the entire PURPOSE of 802.11 used without encryption is to allow random unknown devices to connect, listen, and send. It's designed for that reason. It provides multiple methods for encryption if you want to use it for semi-private communication. If people had so much as ROT13'ed their packets, I'd fully side with them if google broke the ROT13.
But do we REALLY want to live in a world where using computer and communication technology *as designed* is illegal? That's the very kind of muddled legal thinking that makes people say, "linking to illegal content is the same as hosting illegal content". Because make no mistakes, if we allow this to happen to companies we don't like, it WILL be used against us too.
Do not measure these things by how emotionally satisfying they are. Measure them by the harm they will do (will, not can!) when they are misapplied in other ways in the future. When the government wants to lock down the internet even more, and makes it illegal for the common person to do some simple thing that computers have been doing for decades.
Be careful what you wish for. You want to see google die? Me too. So let's all stop using them.
Re:Commercial attack. (Score:4, Insightful)
... And it's not illegal for many governments to force ISP's and telco to install no-warrent-required sniffers on all your telecoms.
One is HUGE threat to our whole society.
The other was (at very worst) a dumb attempt by a single engineer to bulild the most 'leet wardriving map ever!' piggybacked on a quite legit (and helpful to users by makign GPS work much faster) publically broadcast ssid collecting effort.
I can spot the difference.. can you?
Re:Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you. I'm quite sure that there are more corps that are giving money to our bought politicians than just MS but they sure are one of them.
The problem is Google should have just fessed up fully the 1st time this came up and then at least they could say look, we told you everything and we are sorry!
Instead they entered risk management too early and tried to cover up things. Well sorry Google you have a lot to learn about that vs the big boys from MS and others. If you want to break the rules you better learn how to fight dirty.