Simon Black, at Sovereign Man says that when you’re online you’re privacy is likely being violated and it’s time to get to Planting your electronic flag:

We all know that Google is in bed with the government… I suppose it’s nice that CEO Eric Schmidt is at least open about it.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Schmidt effectively admits that Google archives everything about a user– web searches (google), email and contact lists (gmail), online office documents (google docs), photographs (picasa), text and voice messages (google voice), and even a user’s current location (google maps).

The depth of this information is a bureaucrat’s fantasy, and as Schmidt indicates, Google is obliged to hand it over.

Google is obviously very convenient; its features are powerful and can make life very easy… it’s really unfortunate, however, that they are subject to the oversight of an increasingly intrusive and corrupt government.

This is simply a choice that you as a user have to make– privacy over convenience. If you fall in the ‘nothing to hide, nothing to fear’ camp, giving the government access to your entire electronic life may be perfectly acceptable.

For the rest of us, there are great solutions that provide a lot of conveniences.

For further reading, check out the rest of this article at Sovereign Man. Mr. Black discusses countries that are more privacy oriented in terms of web access and secure email accounts that can help keep your messages from getting into the wrong hands.