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Why didn't tech company leaders blow the whistle?

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Re: Why didn't tech company leaders blow the whistle?

#81

Post by bbotond »

weland wrote: post #58
JanezStupar wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In ex Yugoslavia we had secret laws, published by secret official journal and enforced by secret courts. So you could easily get persecuted for breaking the law that you were prohibited to know it even existed. The same was going on in east Germany and other socialist countries. I warmly recommend watching The Lives of Others ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/ ) to those who haven't seen it yet.

My surprise was directed at the fact that people have this in a system advertised as democratic. I am quite well-acquainted with cases like those you quote.

The Soviet Union was advertised as democratic. Nazi Germany was advertised as democratic. Communist China was/is advertised as democratic.

Re: Why didn't tech company leaders blow the whistle?

#83

Post by wmf »

conanbatt wrote: post #40
dylangs1030 wrote: post #18

There are several valid reasons why they didn't blow the whistle: 1. As the NYTimes article leaks[1], the leaders of these tech companies may not actually know the extent of FISA and PRISM within their servers - employees cooperating with the NSA would be forbidden from sharing this even with the CEOs. 2. What are they blowing the whistle on? There are a flurry of competing facts and fragmented stories. It came out a…

The government making a request like this to an employee of a tech company, with a gag order that doesnt let him share that information with the company he is working for is a blatant abuse of power. An employee has no resources to fight something like this if he cant tell the company he works for what he is doing, meaning that any company is vulnerable to this way of operating.

Companies like Google ought to have internal audits to detect rogue employees. (These audits are usually put in place after the first time a curious employee snoops on a famous person.) If the employee refuses to justify his actions, he's fired.

Re: Why didn't tech company leaders blow the whistle?

#84

Post by wmf »

conanbatt wrote: post #40
dylangs1030 wrote: post #18

There are several valid reasons why they didn't blow the whistle: 1. As the NYTimes article leaks[1], the leaders of these tech companies may not actually know the extent of FISA and PRISM within their servers - employees cooperating with the NSA would be forbidden from sharing this even with the CEOs. 2. What are they blowing the whistle on? There are a flurry of competing facts and fragmented stories. It came out a…

The government making a request like this to an employee of a tech company, with a gag order that doesnt let him share that information with the company he is working for is a blatant abuse of power. An employee has no resources to fight something like this if he cant tell the company he works for what he is doing, meaning that any company is vulnerable to this way of operating.

Companies like Google ought to have internal audits to detect rogue employees. (These audits are usually put in place after the first time a curious employee snoops on a famous person.) If the employee refuses to justify his actions, he's fired.

Re: Why didn't tech company leaders blow the whistle?

#88

Post by discodave »

bbotond wrote: post #81
weland wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My surprise was directed at the fact that people have this in a system advertised as democratic. I am quite well-acquainted with cases like those you quote.

The Soviet Union was advertised as democratic. Nazi Germany was advertised as democratic. Communist China was/is advertised as democratic.

My old debating coaches saying was that any country with 'democratic' or 'peoples' in it's name was most certainly not either of those things.

Re: Why didn't tech company leaders blow the whistle?

#89

Post by tsotha »

The problem is the subpoenas come stapled to a gag order. "Why didn't tech company leaders blow the whistle?" is really not the right question to ask, and not the one the thread answers. They couldn't "blow the whistle" without going to jail.

The right question to ask is "Why didn't tech companies fight the orders in court", and the answer is, of course, if you're in a heavily regulated industry the government can crush you without involving the judiciary. You could win the court battle and go out of business, even if regulators don't attack you personally over "three felonies a day".

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