The controversy surrounding Google Street View's accidental Wi-Fi snooping took another turn in early July when the Santa Monica, Calif.-based advocacy group Consumer Watchdog said Google "could have sucked up and recorded communications from members of Congress, some of whom are involved in national security issues".

Consumer Watchdog says it went out and "sniffed" for unprotected wireless Internet connections at five U.S. Congressmen's homes. Out of the five, the group found one with a "clearly identifiable and vulnerable network." The other four members of Congress had vulnerable networks nearby that might belong to them.

Computerworld reports Google is "downplaying" Consumer Watchdog's findings. But whether Google unintentionally intercepted the data really should not be the biggest worry. Instead what should be of the most concern is if members of Congress are in fact using non-password-protected unencrypted wireless networks at home. After all, while Google says it did not mean to snoop on anybody's Wi-Fi, there are certainly people with ill intentions out there who would purposely try to spy on members of the U.S. Congress.

Consumer Watchdog's statement about its Wi-Fi network sniffing experiment and its other actions against Google's so-called "WiSpying" can be found on the group's website at InsideGoogle.com.