A lot of comments follow Mr. Assange's opinion piece.

They're worth a read, too.

he lost me at "white geek's burden"

The only thing I get from the comments is how polarizing Julian Assange is.

For example, he makes this statement:

"The advance of information technology epitomized by Google heralds the death of privacy for most people and shifts the world toward authoritarianism."

He's missing the word MIGHT or POTENTIALLY. This is not a given. There's a lot of checks and balances in the world.

"Every day, another million or so Google-run mobile devices are activated. Google will interpose itself, and hence the United States government, between the communications of every human being not in China."

Is his fear that Google has become too powerful already?

I think it is that plus Google and the US Govt getting each of their hooks into one another.

If anything, they seem to be fighting each other more.

Government wants access to things that Google doesn't want to give access to.

I'm thinking about reading Eric Schmidt's book. Anyone read it yet?