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U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data

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Re: U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data

#51

Post by karamazov »

0x12 wrote: post #46
cookiecaper wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the discontent comes because China is seen as something of an expeditionary market for American search providers. While you can give China the finger and get out, it's not tenable to do that in the US, so one is compelled to play by American rules. I don't necessarily believe that China's status as an expeditionary market makes it worthwhile to stop offering services in that country, just playing devil's advo…

Collaboration with a bad government is always optional, you can cease to do business. That's definitely tenable. It takes a lot of balls to do so. Imagine google coming right out and saying: 'Our do no evil motto is our guiding light and we have decided that being forced by the government to act in this manner to prevent our technology from being used to spy on American citizens in ways that we can not in good consci…

I very much doubt that Google threatening to pull out of the country would cause any action in Congress. The government has no incentive to act, and all the power to spin the story if there is some sort of public outcry - something to the effect of "Google is unpatriotic and doesn't care about your safety." Most people will buy it.

If anything, Microsoft would just step in to fill the vacuum with Bing, and business would continue as usual for everyone but Google.

Re: U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data

#52

Post by 0x12 »

karamazov wrote: post #51
0x12 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collaboration with a bad government is always optional, you can cease to do business. That's definitely tenable. It takes a lot of balls to do so. Imagine google coming right out and saying: 'Our do no evil motto is our guiding light and we have decided that being forced by the government to act in this manner to prevent our technology from being used to spy on American citizens in ways that we can not in good consci…

I very much doubt that Google threatening to pull out of the country would cause any action in Congress. The government has no incentive to act, and all the power to spin the story if there is some sort of public outcry - something to the effect of "Google is unpatriotic and doesn't care about your safety." Most people will buy it. If anything, Microsoft would just step in to fill the vacuum with Bing, and business w…

Gmail.

Re: U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data

#53

Post by Cushman »

karamazov wrote: post #51
0x12 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collaboration with a bad government is always optional, you can cease to do business. That's definitely tenable. It takes a lot of balls to do so. Imagine google coming right out and saying: 'Our do no evil motto is our guiding light and we have decided that being forced by the government to act in this manner to prevent our technology from being used to spy on American citizens in ways that we can not in good consci…

I very much doubt that Google threatening to pull out of the country would cause any action in Congress. The government has no incentive to act, and all the power to spin the story if there is some sort of public outcry - something to the effect of "Google is unpatriotic and doesn't care about your safety." Most people will buy it. If anything, Microsoft would just step in to fill the vacuum with Bing, and business w…

That's why I'm sayin' they can't just leave, and they can't just threaten. It has to be real civil disobedience. They have to be willing to say:

No, we're not going to do that. You'll have to shut us down, which will take years, and cost the economy millions of jobs and trillions of dollars.

Oh, and I hope it goes without saying that we won't be complying with any court orders related to this matter. If you're serious about doing this, there will be pictures of men pointing guns at innocent American technicians, right next to the headline "The Feds are Coming for Your Email," and underneath that, Senator, will be your name.

Then they'd say something like: "This is America, motherfucker. Land of the free. You can't get away with this shit."

...sigh. At least it'd make a good screenplay.

Re: U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data

#54

Post by andrewcooke »

guelo wrote: post #31

Maybe Americans should use European hosts and Europeans can use American ones. Does anyone know of any good international webmail providers, with SSL?

runbox (http://runbox.com) are norwegian and were, when i looked a year or two ago now, the best alternative i could find.

Re: U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data

#55

Post by andrewcooke »

cookiecaper wrote: post #45
guelo wrote: post #31

Maybe Americans should use European hosts and Europeans can use American ones. Does anyone know of any good international webmail providers, with SSL?

My understanding is that using a non-domestic service would actually make it much easier to retain data under traditional espionage procedures. Perhaps this is incorrect. Clarifications welcome.

it doesn't make any difference. you us citizens are being tapped just the same as all us evil foreign terrorists these days. https://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying

Re: U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data

#56

Post by guelo »

andrewcooke wrote: post #54
guelo wrote: post #31

Maybe Americans should use European hosts and Europeans can use American ones. Does anyone know of any good international webmail providers, with SSL?

runbox ( http://runbox.com ) are norwegian and were, when i looked a year or two ago now, the best alternative i could find.

I'm always disappointed when I go looking for European web services, why is that? Why can't they have a Hotmail counterpart? China has comparable duplicates of most American services, but Europe doesn't even try. It's weird.

Re: U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data

#57

Post by mattmanser »

Cushman wrote: post #53
karamazov wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much doubt that Google threatening to pull out of the country would cause any action in Congress. The government has no incentive to act, and all the power to spin the story if there is some sort of public outcry - something to the effect of "Google is unpatriotic and doesn't care about your safety." Most people will buy it. If anything, Microsoft would just step in to fill the vacuum with Bing, and business w…

That's why I'm sayin' they can't just leave, and they can't just threaten. It has to be real civil disobedience. They have to be willing to say: No, we're not going to do that. You'll have to shut us down, which will take years, and cost the economy millions of jobs and trillions of dollars. Oh, and I hope it goes without saying that we won't be complying with any court orders related to this matter. If you're seriou…

Look at this from the opposite direction.

You want a big multi-billion $ business to start dictating your laws?

Good luck on that one, that's not going to end badly is it?

Re: U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data

#58

Post by jbooth »

Cushman wrote: post #50
0x12 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collaboration with a bad government is always optional, you can cease to do business. That's definitely tenable. It takes a lot of balls to do so. Imagine google coming right out and saying: 'Our do no evil motto is our guiding light and we have decided that being forced by the government to act in this manner to prevent our technology from being used to spy on American citizens in ways that we can not in good consci…

Why even bother to shut down? Google could probably just go "Haha! Fuck you. Who's your closest supervisor in an elected office?" Next day, " wants Google to share your personal information with the Federal Government" magically becomes the top hit for that name. Bureaucrats and spooks are happy to play this game because they know it never comes back to them. Nobody who has to answer to voters would dare put their na…

Nobody who has to answer to voters would dare put their name on it?

Remember that 99-1 vote for the Patriot Act? The one senator who voted against, Russ Feingold, lost in 2010 to a guy who's campaign slogan revolved heavily around "freedom".

Re: U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data

#59

Post by kragen »

cookiecaper wrote: post #11

Applebaum, a tor developer, is i am sure astute enough not to leave unencrypted mails on gmail. he is used to governmental abuse at airpoets etc., so i am sure he saw this coming.

He can't prevent people from sending him unencrypted emails on Gmail, except by not using Gmail, nor can he force Google to delete them.

Re: U.S. Government Compels Google To Hand Over Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data

#60

Post by davidu »

I know Jake. I had the proud privilege of employing Jake. This is a fishing expedition, and an absolute abuse of the EPIC and PATRIOT acts.

The NYT filed a lawsuit yesterday to try to start getting some transparency into these matters -- even Congress is urging people to find out the truth: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111010/04043716279/nytime...

People can dislike Wikileaks all they want, but this is exactly why they exist. The raw information is not being released and they see fit to do so. When the USG has a law on the books that congress passed but the DoJ won't share their interpretation of what the law means, you know something is very very wrong. (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial )

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