Google's Eric Schmidt Is Not Happy With The NSA.

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt isn’t happy about recent reports alleging the NSA engaged in spying activities targeting the information streams that flow between Mountain View’s various data centers. Schmidt pointed out that if proven to be true, the acts committed by the NSA are potentially illegal.

“It’s really outrageous that the National Security Agency was looking between the Google data centers, if that’s true. 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 told The Wall Street Journal in an interview on Sunday. “The Snowden revelations have assisted us in understanding that it’s perfectly possible that there are more revelations to come.”

In addition to the dubious legal standing of the NSA’s domestic spying program, Schmidt also offered that the tactics employed by the agency don’t exactly appear very pragmatic.

“The National Security Agency allegedly collected the phone records of every phone call of 320 million people in order to identify roughly 300 people who might be a risk. That’s just bad public policy…and perhaps illegal,” he said. “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.”

While the nation’s clandestine agencies might disagree, it would be difficult to argue from a technological standpoint that any mechanism exists to actually make effective use of the sum of all data gleaned from NSA domestic spying operations. Meanwhile, the agency for its part has only reiterated a statement made last week, wherein the NSA essentially absolves itself of any wrongdoing.

“NSA conducts all of its activities in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies — and assertions to the contrary do a grave disservice to the nation, its allies and partners, and the men and women who make up the National Security Agency."