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Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data

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Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data

#161

Post by tantalor »

traderj0e wrote: post #54
avazhi wrote: post #18

[flagged]

Yes, US companies need to comply with US laws, but there wasn't any legal demand here to hand over the data.

There was an administrative subpoena, which was not signed off by a judge, but does carry significant legal weight.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and Stored Communications Act (SCA) requires service providers to disclose certain types of data (IP addresses, physical address, other identifiers, and session times and durations) in response to an administrative subpoena. The actual content of communications is excluded.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2703

Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data

#162

Post by jiveturkey »

> That notice is meant to provide a chance to challenge the request.

That's the author's interpretation. The promise doesn't indicate anything of the sort (as of this writing). And users cannot challenge these requests -- users don't own the data (in the US). The promise is very clear that Google will provide the data, if the request is compliant.

Now the text of the notification was past tense, that the information was provided, whereas the promise is crystal clear that Google will notify before providing the info, but to me that could amount to a simplification of "we have verified that the request is legally compliant and will be providing the info to them in 250 ms".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not on Google's side. I'm a huge privacy nut. But the fix is to not give your info to Google, not trust that they will abide by any policy. Especially in a case like this where your freedom is at risk. Most people are completely unaware and unthinking but this guy seems that he was fully aware and placed his trust in Google.

Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data

#163

Post by miltonlost »

celdon25 wrote: post #149
smallmancontrov wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of HNers who were earnestly arguing that this was the party of free speech indicates that this absolutely needs to be on the HN front page. > the administration’s rhetoric about cracking down on students protesting what we saw as genocide forced me into hiding for three months. Federal agents came to my home looking for me. A friend was detained at an airport in Tampa and interrogated about my whereabouts.

If it helps you feel better, I voted for free speech and feel that the administration did not hold up their end of the deal. The FTC’s recent “debanking” letter to the payment processors is just theater until something changes. I’ll leave it at that.

You found that after the first administration, in the end, he had earned your vote for Free Speech?

Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data

#164

Post by [deleted] »

pesus wrote: post #100
jfoworjf wrote: post #5

This story is the one that finally pushed me to leave google. I moved off my ~20 year old Google account and deleted everything off their services including almost a decade of Google photos. I cancelled my Google one subscription for extra space. I'm now self hosting what I can and paying proton mail for everything else. I refuse to allow a company that will hand over data at the request of an administrative warrant…

Have you run into any serious complications doing that? I'm a bit worried that I've used my google account for so long and for many things that I might accidentally lock myself out of something important without it.

[deleted]

Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data

#165

Post by vel0city »

hn_acc1 wrote: post #129
smallmancontrov wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in this industry. I sample the same distribution in person. I don't think they were, I know they were.

I'm seeing it in a lot of younger tech people. We had a NASA presentation at work about air quality and that forest fires are one of our biggest problems in CA. TWO separate people (from maybe 20-25 attending) brought up "do you think that if we managed our forests better, this could help?" (clearly talking about the crazy "raking the forests" Trump rhetoric). It blows my mind how "intelligent" people can be this stu…

While Trump's "raking the forest" take is clearly uninformed and unintelligent, there's a substantial kernel of truth to longstanding forest management policies making some of these wildfires worse than what they could have been. We've been artificially suppressing fires far too long in a lot of these places, for example.

Not that this is the only factor in play here on a lot of these fires, and once again I do agree Trump's take is idiotic and ultimately he's not helping but pouring gasoline on the issue. Just pointing out, we definitely aren't managing our forests well for a multitude of reasons.

https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/12/12/twenty-year-study-confi...

Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data

#166

Post by jll29 »

diego_moita wrote: post #28

Does anyone remember when western nations were freaking out that Huawei would handle everybody personal data to the Chinese government? Now, please tell me that American companies are better at privacy than the Chinese ones. Btw, some alternative email providers in truly democratic countries: * ProtonMail (Switzerland) * TutaMail, Posteo, Mailbox.org and Eclipso (Germany) * Runbox (Norway) * Mailfence (Belgium)

Personally, I would not trust anyone (e.g. ProtonMail) more than Google.

If you have sensitive things in your emails, host your own mail, use GPG encryption or a one-time pad, or even avoid electronic networked machines altogether (depending on the level of security that you require).

Switzerland-hosted services are no safer than others, recall that Crypto AG, who promised to sell secure encryption machines, were just a cover by foreign intelligence services (jointly US/DE-owned/operated by the CIA & BND).

Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data

#167

Post by fwip »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #73
traderj0e wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

So they were weaponizing immigration law to deport pro-pali students? Care to back your feelings up with some facts?

Not that far off from the truth. A number of college students who were protesting for Palestine had their college enrollment suspended, and lost their visas, effectively being deported. Which, yes, the university made that decision, but it didn't come without influence from the government.

Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data

#168

Post by marcosdumay »

WalterBright wrote: post #72
soganess wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because the American ideal of our forefathers was FAFO? This is embarrassing to admit, but I miss the halcyon days when folks were still nominally pretending to be free speech warriors.

If you are invited to visit someone's home, and you go, and say nasty things to the homeowner, you'll be tossed out despite your right to free speech. If you're a guest in another country, act like a guest. When I was living on a military base in Germany, I and my family were required to behave as a guest of the Germans. The military was quite strict about that. I didn't have any issue with that. When I travel to ano…

Restricting the protest rights of non-citizens is an extremely heavy-handed policy.

Yes, I know it's widespread, but it should really apply to non-residents. People that live and work in a country should have the right to protest.

Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data

#169

Post by smallmancontrov »

drnick1 wrote: post #124
smallmancontrov wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kamala was a lot less bad than Trump. It wasn't close.

[flagged]

That's what they said about Obama, but he got Iran to give up their stockpile of enriched Uranium, give up enrichment beyond 4%, and submit to a severe inspection program. All for unfreezing less money than Trump has spent so far on the Iran War, let alone the $200B that he wants, let alone the economic damage from the Hormuz shutdown, let alone the $5T that happened last time a Republican asked to spend $200B on a quick little war.

At the time, the Republicans whined incessantly about how soft Obama was. But they sure enjoyed dropping those Obama Bombs last year that he commissioned as a Plan B. Obama spoke softly, carried a big stick, and hammered out a brilliant deal. Trump bragged loudly, tore up the deal, swung the stick he inherited, missed, and fell in the oil. Sad.

At the time, Israel whined incessantly about how Iran was going to secretly enrich anyway. But their own intelligence from compromising the enrichment program shows in hindsight that this was not the case and Iran was behaving themselves.

That's why I base my expectations on track records, not on Republican whining.

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