EPIC Sues NSA for Info re Google Relationship

From the Electronic Privacy Information Center [an organization that's been fighting the good fight since the early 1990s] web site:

EPIC Files Suit For Documents Regarding Google/NSA Partnership
Today, EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the National Security Agency in the United States District Court in the District of Columbia. The agency failed to respond to EPIC's FOIA request for documents about an "Information Assurance" partnership with Google. EPIC previously appealed to the agency to comply with its legal duty to produce the documents, but he agency failed to respond. EPIC is also seeking the Presidential Directive that grants the NSA authority to conduct electronic surveillance in the United States. For more information, see EPIC: Open Government.

Google: Technology Good, Anonymity Bad!

Anyone who has been paying attention at all lately knows that Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt is no friend of privacy in general and net anonymity is particular. Still, it is good to be reminded.

Schmidt addressed the start of the Techonomy Conference yesterday in Lake Tahoe, and CNET reported this.

For those concerned with privacy, Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave them a few more things to start worrying about.

At a conference here Wednesday, Schmidt noted that using artificial intelligence, computers can take 14 pictures of anyone on the Internet and stand a good chance of identifying that person. Similarly, the data collected by location-based services can be used not only to show where someone is at, but to also predict with a lot of accuracy where they might be headed next.

"Pretty interesting," Schmidt said. "Good idea, Bad idea?...The technology of course is neutral but society is not fundamentally ready."

[. . . .]

Schmidt said that society really isn't prepared for all of the changes being thrust upon it. "I think it's time for people to get ready for it."

Schmidt said these records are a challenge for everyone....

On balance, Schmidt said that technology is good, but he said that the only way to manage the challenges is "much greater transparency and no anonymity."

Schmidt said that in an era of asymmetric threats, "true anonymity is too dangerous."

[emphasis mine]