Advocacy group Consumer Watchdog released a report this week claiming that “Google’s WiSpy snooping could have sucked up and recorded communications from members of Congress, some of whom are involved in national security issues”. The BBC quickly picked up on the story, reporting that Google’s Street View “snoops” on Congress members, but overlooks one important piece of the puzzle: If these people are involved in issues of national security, why haven’t they put a password on their wireless network?
According to a blog post last May by Google, a leftover piece of code made it into code used in Google’s Street View cars, which collected not only the intended SSID and Mac Addresses, but also wifi payload data. This meant that Google inadvertently collected information sent over unsecured wireless networks as it took pictures and other information. Already, the company has been sued and faced multiple investigations. Now, Consumer Watchdog is calling for another investigation, saying that “Congress owes Americans action.”
The group “sent technicians with equipment similar to that used by Google to five members’ homes depicted on Street View to see if there were open WiFi networks that Google could have tapped into and recorded communications.” Apparently, they found that Representative Jane Harman of California – chair of the Intelligence Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Committee – was among a group of nearly 20 high level government officials whose home networks “could have been breached by Google.”
John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog told the BBC that the group thinks “the Google Wi-Spy effort is one of the biggest wire tapping scandals in US history” and that its purpose “was to show that members of Congress are targets just as much as every other citizen in the land”.
A better purpose, it would seem, would be to show that government officials entrusted with issues of national security are apparently broadcasting information out to the public over unencrypted networks – perhaps this merits an investigation.
