Eric Schmidt: Julian Assange is paranoid and lives in luxury

GOOGLE CHAIRMAN Eric Schmidt has called Julian Assange paranoid and claimed that he is living in palatial luxury.

Schmidt is one the big men at Google and is often asked to comment on Google and its role in the shadowy PRISM internet surveillance network.

It is possible that he sees people like Assange and Edward Snowden as flies around some sort of trough. Whatever, he thinks he does not have much time for them.

In an interview on the telly about a book he has written and is promoting, the image of Assange in his London garrett came up. Assange is also in the book business, but his movements are limited. Limited to 'luxury lodgings' according to the Google chairman, who does not seem keen on Assange's incoming tome When Google met Wikileaks.

'He's of course writing from the, shall we say, luxury lodgings of the local embassy in London,' Schmidt said.

'The fact of the matter is, Julian is very paranoid about things. Google never collaborated with the NSA and in fact, we've fought very hard against what they did... We have taken all of our data, all of our exchanges... we fully encrypted them so no one can get them, especially the government.'

Julian Assange entered the Ecuadorian embassy on 19 June 2012. We have not been inside, but from the outside it does not look like a standout luxury.

Still, what Eric Schmidt does or doesn't know about luxury is a topic for another report.

However, we know he is solid on paranoia and its causes. Infamously, in 2009 he suggested that just about everyone who wanted their privacy protected had something to hide.

'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place,' he said. µ