Schmidt on the Sunday Morning Shows, denounced Washington “bickering” as the reason for what ails the economy. Of course, Schmidt is offering a straw man argument to deflect blame away from Obama’s failed record of big government spending and crony socialism.

The trillion-dollar stimulus did not fail because it was not big enough or because of partisan bickering. As you may remember, the stimulus bill was passed quickly and with little debate out of the Democrat controlled House and Senate at the time. No, the trillion-dollar stimulus failed because the ideas it represented failed. Big government spending does not create jobs or economic growth – it didn’t work for the New Deal and it didn’t work for Obama’s Raw Deal.

It is shocking, however, to see Schmidt take to the airwaves to embrace failure. Of course, this may be a strategic decision. Schmidt and Obama have been thick as thieves since Google raised over $1 million for the president’s campaign. They have been rewarded – no different that Solyndra – with government contracts and policy decision that are designed to help the company. Obama has looked out for Google and now it looks like Schmidt is returning the favor.

But rather than spit in the eye of the Tea Party, conservatives and Americans concerned about our growing debt problems, Schmidt might be better served addressing some of the issues that brought him to Washington in the first place.

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will look into a host of decisions by the company that have violated the law, the privacy of the American people and the intellectual property rights of small businesses.

It was just a few weeks ago, Google was fined by the federal government half a billion dollars for knowingly violating American law by facilitating the sale of illegal prescription drugs. Schmidt admitted knowingly violated the law and profiting from it. Rather than any real punishment, Google was forced to return its profits by what appears to be a sweetheart deal by the Justice Department. Perhaps embracing the failed stimulus program a way of saying “thank you.”

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee should have a busy day as they probe Schmidt the prescription drug deal, the theft of intellectual property rights and the fact that the company refuses to protect the privacy of their users.

Eric Schmidt and Google appear to be a symbol of everything wrong with the American economy. Rather than running away from government, too many executives are running toward it looking for contracts and favors. Crony capitalism needs to end and it should start with Google.

Lately, the United States has gotten into the act.  Last year, the Federal Communications Commission opened an investigation after the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a complaint asking the Commission to investigate violations of federal wiretap law and the U.S. Communications Act. Now, the FTC has launched an anti-trust probe into Google and the Senate will be holding hearings on privacy and Google’s anti-competitiveness nature when Congress returns in September.  But authorities have only begun to scratch the surface of issues relating to whether Google has lived up to its mantra of “Do No Evil.”

One thing is clear–Google’s position on privacy turns America’s long-standing view of the Constitution on its head.

In December 2009, Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, declared about privacy concerns: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines—including Google—do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.”

If Schmidt’s view was the law of the land, police would be able to enter your home without a warrant because if you have nothing to hide then you should welcome them into your home whenever they want.

Google has become the de-facto watchman of oour every Internet move.  Google gathers IP addresses, dates, and times for a 9-month span for a single user in order to determine what ads to display according to location, content of e-mails, and YouTube video watching habits.  Google stores, scans, and analyzes millions of e-mail messages via the Gmail system.  Through Google Maps for iPhones and the Android platform, Google can easily track a user’s whereabouts, hence the scandal earlier this year in which this was proven to be actively going on in both iPhones and Android phones.

Google also has detailed satellite imagery, images from their “Street View” fleet of cars fixed with wide-angle cameras, and of course we can’t forget the fact that Google never gets rid of this data.  Never.

These capabilities and attitudes are all the more troubling in light of Google’s growing relationship with government authorities—like the NSA, a relationship that involves communications and searches that a court recently ruled could remain secret.

The reality is that Google has pioneered many of the most invasive practices on the web today placing them at the dead center of the thorny issues that surround the nexus of e-commerce and personal privacy. And investigations into Google’s behavior are bound to raise a multitude of competing opinions on the matter. But anyone who thinks that Google’s unprecedented capabilities coupled with a long and clear track record of outright disdain for privacy (and even the rule of law in some instances) aren’t a problem are just wishful thinking.

Google’s policy toward individual and personal privacy of its users can be summed up by comment of their CEO Eric Schmidt who said, “Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.” Unfortunately for consumers, it appears that Google cross that line – often.

Google’s history of privacy violations is long and often appears to be part company policy. Google has admitted it collected personal information and data for three years across the globe while its cars traveled through neighborhood snapping pictures for its Street View program. The cars also collected information from Wi-Fi’s from people’s homes.

Former House Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton initially called for hearings into Google’s Wi-Fi scandal. “[Google] made fairly significant verbal assurances that they would improve their behavior but apparently that’s all they did,” Barton said. “They really didn’t change their business model and it appears to me Google had adopted a model of saying one thing in Washington and doing another in their business practices. We might need to drop the ‘G’ from Google and just call them ‘Oogle’ because of what they appear to be doing,” he said.

If the Wi-Fi incident were the only instance where Google grabbed personal information from consumers, it might be excused but there appears to be a clear pattern of apathy towards personal privacy.

Google’s latest entre into the social networking space is an example of the bull in the China shop attitude the behemoth has toward its competitors and its customers.

Faced with a “friend deficit” versus Facebook, the company endorsed ‘Facebook Friend Exporter,” a tool to snatch unwitting Facebook friends and their personal information into the Google Empire. Names, addresses and even personal phone numbers are pulled into Google+.

When Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) questioned what the Federal Trade Commission was doing about this, the representative responded that she couldn’t comment on things that weren’t “public”.

So while it’s possible that the FTC is already looking into Google’s data snatching program specifically, its clear that Google has some answering to do for their privacy practices overall.

In a letter sent to Google on June 10, the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights Senators Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Mike Lee (R-UT) requested the company provide one of their top two executives to testify at an oversight hearing exploring Google’s business practices.

But so far Google has refused and offered to send their legal counsel instead prompting the Senate subcommittee to threaten subpoenas to compel either Larry Page or Eric Schmidt to appear.

It will be interesting to see how Google responds to the FTC subpoenas. But in the case of Congress, Google’s sudden interest in privacy is irony at its best.

Google has historically taken an approach to privacy and property rights that can be called cavalier at best. Whether its secretly capturing data from unsecured WiFi networks, uploading books without permission, or using personal data to launch a new social platform without users’ permission Google has seemingly held privacy in low regard.

In fact, Google has become a juggernaut in the Internet advertising and search markets by capturing and using the personal data of every person who uses any Google product. Every Gmail sent, every Google search and every GoogleDoc created are stored on Google’s servers—forever.  This massive cache of data enables Google to create consumer profiles and behavioral models that are highly valued by advertisers.

Google has made billions peaking behind your curtains or as Schmidt calls it get ting “right up to the creepy line” and then using what they find there. But now that Congress and potentially the FTC is poking around their curtains, Google seems to suddenly value privacy.

Google’s change of heart is even more ironic when you consider the advice Eric Schmidt offered in December 2009 in response to those expressing privacy concerns in relation to the government:

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines—including Google—do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.”

Google’s seeming reluctance to have their top executives testify as executives from so many other companies have done in the past leaves the impression that there is something they don’t want us to know.  Which of course begs the question: what is it they shouldn’t have been doing in the first place?

Democratic sources told the Tribune that the dinner was “part of the Obama team wooing and coordinating with the tech world.”  In the case of Google, we are confident it was more about coordinating than wooing.

Google and the president are well beyond the wooing stage of a relationship. Schmidt has been named a potential nominee to fill the vacated Secretary of Commerce position.  Such a nomination would cement Google’s influence over the Administration – a relationship that has put the company in a position to steer policy and taxpayer funded contracts back into the pockets of Google executives who have funded the president since his initial foray into the presidential arena in 2007.

In 2008, Politico detailed the relationship between the newly elected president and the company.  “’ From the staff attorney all the way up the line, everybody now knows that Google is close to Obama,’” Politico reported. “And that could subtly affect the policy playing field in Google’s favor.”  Subtly was an understatement.

The group Consumer Watchdog has detailed some of the way Google has benefited from their relationship with the Obama Administration, including how NASA’s Moffett Airfield has been turned into a subsidized private airport for Google executives.  But that is just crumbs off the government largess table.  Google has received contracts from NASA, the NSA and other government agencies.  At the same time, they have placed key people in policy positions in the White House.

Conservatives have little qualm with companies that are successful, hence some reservation about efforts to call for anti-trust review of the behemoth.  However, Google isn’t running away from the government – it is running to the government with arms wide open.  They are seeking contracts, policy bailouts and taxpayer support to help beef up their bottom line.  This spigot of taxpayer support for the company needs to be cut off and conservatives need to lead the charge.

An upcoming book about Google claims that Eric Schmidt, who is to step down next week as chief executive, once asked for information about a political donation he made to be removed from the Internet giant’s search engine, The New York Times reported Friday.

The Times said Schmidt’s request is recounted in “In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives,” a book by technology journalist Steven Levy which is to appear in stores on April 12.

The Times said Levy spent three years reporting inside the company to write the book, a copy of which was obtained by the Times.

According to the book, Schmidt’s request was rejected as unacceptable by Sheryl Sandberg, who served as Google’s vice president of global online sales and operations for six years before leaving in March 2008 for Facebook.

Google announced in January that Schmidt would be replaced as chief executive on April 4 by Google co-founder Larry Page.

Read the whole thing here. This goes to the heart of something that’s been a bit of a nagging concern for civil libertarians. Namely, that Google could or would somehow “game” their search engine results for its own ends. According to this account, the company denied the request, but that its CEO would even think of it is cause for concern.

It’s no secret that Google was one of corporate America’s biggest Obama backers donating over $800,000 to his presidential campaign. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt actively promoted his candidacy and helped pay for the Obama inauguration.

And what has Google got for its “investment” and relationship in the Administration? In Washington, there is an old saying – “Personnel equals policy.” In the case of Google, it’s clear the tail is wagging the dog. Former Google policy maker Andrew McLaughlin, was named White House deputy chief technology officer in June where he’ll be in a position to shape policy that affects Google’s rivals creating a disadvantage for Google’s competitors.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Google’s Street View operations have collected photos, videos and sensitive personal information from WiFi connections. As Ken Boehm reported the Federal Trade Commission abruptly ended its investigation of “Street View” – a decision that came on the heels not only of Google’s admission that its surveillance was much more serious than previously disclosed but only days after a $30,000-a-head fundraiser for President Obama at the home of a Google executive. The FTC’s decision came only four days after Google admitted a key fact it had long denied: that “Street View” did capture URLs, e-mails and passwords.

It will be up to the Congress to determine why the investigation was dropped. Did the Administration weigh in to protect their piggybank? Time will tell.