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Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist Credit Card Number

theintercept.com

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Re: Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist Credit Card Number

#211

Post by JuniperMesos »

fakedang wrote: post #168
philipallstar wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the sense that all reasons are made up, I suppose that might be true. But while deporting illegal immigrants for no other reason is totally fine, deporting the ones that also have a criminal conviction is definitely not made up reasons.

Yeah, and your point? ICE has already descended into detaining anyone, literally anyone, because they have quotas to meet. They seized a white Irishman last October who had a valid work permit and was just about to head to his green card interview. This is Gestapo all over again.

That guy had been overstaying a tourist visa for something like 17 years, and only started the green card process in April 2025. I don't think people who have overstayed tourist visas for 17 years should be eligible for any kind of permanent residency in the US, and would support laws making it impossible for someone in his position to get a green card or a work permit.

The fact that he is a white Irishman is legally irrelevant and enforcing immigration law in a race-neutral way is pretty un-Gestapo-like behavior.

Re: Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist Credit Card Number

#212

Post by fsflover »

frumplestlatz wrote: post #155
PlatoIsADisease wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wild guess: You like Apple more than Google. I only guessed that because that is a strange conclusion to draw when Apple was involved in PRISM, they worked with China to black pro- democracy hong kong apps, and I believe they turned over data to China and Russia. Apple's PR/marketing is best in class, so I can also see this just being a knowledge level error rather than bias.

You don't have to like Apple to recognize that they take a materially different stance from Google when it comes to user privacy. Take this, for example: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102630 You can trivially disable web access to your data; at that point, Apple literally does not have the keys to your end-to-end encrypted data and cannot read or disclose it.

This is not all so straightforward. I'm afraid Apple's "privacy stance" is just marketing, even if they might be a tiny bit better than Google:

https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/04/10/apple-makes-it-re...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42014588

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43047952

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433

Re: Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist Credit Card Number

#213

Post by bigyabai »

charcircuit wrote: post #210
bigyabai wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubtful, charcircuit deliberately writes inflammatory comments just to throw them over the fence and refuse to elaborate.

Sometimes I choose to not respond to people who reply to me in bad faith or if it is a tired argument. This comment thread is about how to avoid having law enforcement query Google for your data. My suggestion was to avoid getting in trouble in the first place to remove the need for law enforcement to care about you in the first place. I am not part of the law enforcement operation. I don't have all of the details ab…

> I don't have all of the details about what the person in the article did or did not do.

How is your advice supposed to actually pertain to insulating against federal mistreatment, then? Contextually it reads like a series of accusations, which the parent is calling you out on.

Re: Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist Credit Card Number

#214

Post by ethanwillis »

legitster wrote: post #86
crooked-v wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Administrative subpoenas" have always been bullshit that mostly rely on there being no penalty for companies that hand over user information to anyone with a badge and then justify it with a five-hundred-page TOS document.

There is a case to be made that administrative subpoenas can be good. They save taxpayers money, they speed up investigations, and they free up the court for more important matters. As with all things though, these agencies should not be self-regulated without civilian and judicial oversight.

Save taxpayers money?

I don't think I've ever seen my taxes go down in any tangible way from all the supposed taxpayer saving initiatives over the years.

Somehow we broke the "cheap, fast, good" metric and we don't even get "good" nor "cheap".

I'd prefer good and what i'm paying regardless over some false "savings"

Re: Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist Credit Card Number

#215

Post by lenerdenator »

shevy-java wrote: post #110
legitster wrote: post #32

So I don't think I actually have a problem with businesses handing over their customer data if there is a valid warrant or subpoena. That's the system working as intended. The main crux of the problem here is that the DHS has been granted a wide berth by congress to issue administrative subpoenas - i.e. not reviewed by a real judge and not directed at criminals. In "good" times this made investigations run smoothly.…

I don't see how what has been described here as "the system works as intended". A free state should not be able to sniff after people for made up reasons.

Ultimately, whether or not people are able to do anything involves consequences for their actions.

There's the "three" boxes of liberty that are meant to give a framework for how humans in a society are to introduce consequences to state actors who abuse rights: the soap box, the ballot box, and the jury box.

So we need to start using at least those three to prevent human rights abuses with regard to search warrants.

Re: Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist Credit Card Number

#216

Post by baconbrand »

reliabilityguy wrote: post #193
fakedang wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and your point? ICE has already descended into detaining anyone, literally anyone, because they have quotas to meet. They seized a white Irishman last October who had a valid work permit and was just about to head to his green card interview. This is Gestapo all over again.

[flagged]

I listed asylum seekers and visa holders in detention but they are definitely grabbing citizens too. Usually they do not hold them for very long.

This happened at the Target I shop at:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/13/ice-immigrat...

Two teenagers just doing their jobs, dogpiled by roughly four adult men, beaten up and released hours later. One of them was just dropped off at the Walmart down the street, the other they released at the federal building they’re working out of.

Re: Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist Credit Card Number

#217

Post by pedroma »

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #99
mike_bob wrote: post #95

Remember "Don't be evil"? It's crazy anyone would trust a corporation with anything these days.

It's crazy that "corporations = bad" passes as insightful comment on HN these days.

I don't know why I still lurk on what is essentially r/politicsandtech.

Re: Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist Credit Card Number

#218

Post by pear01 »

throwway120385 wrote: post #90
pear01 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they going to stop because a company fights a subpoena? Or perhaps in the case of some touted alternatives, even if a subpoena were acted upon, no data would be intelligible? Maybe they'll just show up to your house next time. I'm not sure why people complain about US companies complying with US government subpoenas. Isn't that how it is supposed to work? Imagine if the opposite were routine, would you like that?…

It's more nuanced than "the federal government is too powerful." I feel more like non-law-enforcement agencies like ICE are too powerful right now, but I also believe that the FBI and the DOJ had a good mandate that should be preserved. And I also believe that antitrust needs to be a high priority. Please don't lump me in with people who just want to tear it all down so they can live in a fiefdom. There are good peop…

The system is clearly breaking. Rather than couching your language in rehashed partisan politics that will only lead to further and more egregious breaks, the best thing you could do is acknowledge these events as a system failure. The safest thing is then to first work to defang the system. This is also bipartisan and more likely to succeed.

Just look at the situation as the founders would. It's amazing a society that came from a generation that engineered their own form of government is now trapped by their forebears' invention. They told us explicitly they were merely men, not gods. When America was founded it was a weak, newborn power of 3 million people who were forced to make awkward compromises mostly to protect the country from being recolonized by European domination. And yet our system of government has remained mostly unchanged from the founding.

Any of you Americans out there worried about a European armada? Or the British burning down the White House again?

America's sister republic - the French - has gone through many more iterations. Your problem is you have no imagination. Regardless of what you think of Trump, he does. He is an avatar for a group of people that understand correctly that what had been the prevailing system was no longer responsive to the times, so they are essentially remaking it on the fly. What is your answer to that, that isn't just lets rewind the clock? You tried that with Biden and the disease became worse.

Do it a second time and I fear the future will bring you someone who makes Trump look like a saint.

Re: Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist Credit Card Number

#219

Post by wahnfrieden »

baconbrand wrote: post #216
reliabilityguy wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I listed asylum seekers and visa holders in detention but they are definitely grabbing citizens too. Usually they do not hold them for very long. This happened at the Target I shop at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/13/ice-immigrat... Two teenagers just doing their jobs, dogpiled by roughly four adult men, beaten up and released hours later. One of them was just dropped off at the Walmart down the stree…

There’s this case where a citizen was detained and they called his authentic RealID “fake”: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/24/us-citizen-d...

So even using valid papers on you is not enough. We’re beyond a “papers please” situation. It is up to their mood.

Re: Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist Credit Card Number

#220

Post by sneak »

cvhc wrote: post #141
edm0nd wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you get the NSL for? Did it result in you being raided? Were you ever indicted or convicted of anything?

I dunno. Maybe because I used to do research at a Chinese lab when I was a student? That was my impression when I was once questioned for many hours by DHS at the airport. It's impossible to get an answer. They are granted broad legal authority to screen foreign nationals. No indictment. Nothing physical. But a lot of headaches like delays in visa/immigrant application :shrug:

It was obviously such a credible threat that they couldn’t get a judge to sign a real warrant and had to do a warrantless fishing expedition.
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