Group Sues Justice for Google Contacts from Washington Post reports that the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed suit against a former Googler. The EFF want to know what was said between Google and Jane Horvath, a former US Justice Department privacy lawyer who now works for Google.

The suit was filed in U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia yesterday. The EFF said:

Google has an unprecedented ability to collect and retain very personal information about millions of Americans, and (Justice) and other law enforcement agencies have developed a huge appetite for that information. We want to know what discussions DOJ’s top privacy lawyer had with Google before leaving her government position to join the company.

EFF wants Google to hand over all correspondence between Horvath and Google. They are suing, saying the Horvath has violated the Freedom of Information Act by withholding records they requested.

Postscript: Google has sent me a statement on this story:

Google did not work with Jane Horvath on this issue when she was at the Department of Justice.

Related Topics: Google: Employees | Google: Legal | Legal: Privacy

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz