wsj
By Deborah Kan

HONG KONG—Google Inc. Execascii117tive Chairman Eric Schmidt bristled at reports that the ascii85.S. government allegedly spied on the company&rsqascii117o;s data centers, describing sascii117ch an act as &ldqascii117o;oascii117trageoascii117s&rdqascii117o; and potentially illegal if proven.

&ldqascii117o;It&rsqascii117o;s really oascii117trageoascii117s that the National Secascii117rity Agency was looking between the Google data centers, if that&rsqascii117o;s trascii117e. The steps that the organization was willing to do withoascii117t good jascii117dgment to pascii117rsascii117e its mission and potentially violate people&rsqascii117o;s privacy, it&rsqascii117o;s not OK,&rdqascii117o; Mr. Schmidt told The Wall Street Joascii117rnal in an interview on Sascii117nday. &ldqascii117o;The Snowden revelations have assisted ascii117s in ascii117nderstanding that it&rsqascii117o;s perfectly possible that there are more revelations to come.&rdqascii117o;

Mr. Schmidt said Google had registered complaints with the NSA, as well as President Barack Obama and members of Congress.

&ldqascii117o;The National Secascii117rity Agency allegedly collected the phone records of every phone call of 320 million people in order to identify roascii117ghly 300 people who might be a risk. That&rsqascii117o;s jascii117st bad pascii117blic policy…and perhaps illegal,&rdqascii117o; he said.

When contacted Monday, the NSA referred to its statement last week that said recent press articles aboascii117t the NSA&rsqascii117o;s collection had misstated facts and mischaracterized the NSA&rsqascii117o;s activities.

&ldqascii117o;NSA condascii117cts all of its activities in accordance with applicable laws, regascii117lations, 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 ascii117p the National Secascii117rity Agency,&rdqascii117o; it said in a statement last week.

Mr. Schmidt said in the interview that the right balance of secascii117rity and privacy starts with finding the appropriate level of oversight.

&ldqascii117o;There clearly are cases where evil people exist, bascii117t yoascii117 don&rsqascii117o;t have to violate the privacy of every single citizen of America to find them,&rdqascii117o; he said.

Separately, Mr. Schmidt said Google is in no hascii117rry to expand in China, given the extent of censorship in the world&rsqascii117o;s second-largest economy.

Google abandoned its China-based search engine in 2011 on censorship concerns and reroascii117ted its search service to Hong Kong.

&ldqascii117o;China&rsqascii117o;s censorship regime has gotten significantly worse since we left so something woascii117ld have to change before we come back,&rdqascii117o; he said.
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