Live data from Hacker News

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

eff.org

311–320 of 830 posts

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

#311
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole notion that Google (or Apple or anyone else) should ignore and flaunt the state is insane by itself. I don't want megacorps to ignore our EU laws just like I don't want them to ignore US laws. They're not people, they don't get the right to disobedience.

It is the US administration that is flaunting the law, not Google. Nobody is actually asking Google to break the law, they are in fact asking it to follow the law by not complying with illegal requests.

Which requests in this case were illegal? And isn't legality established by the person suing the government in this case and not megacorp playing the lawyer?

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

#312
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The maxim, "a government of laws, not of men" means state power should be exercised according to consistent principles and policy even beyond the letter of the law, not at the whim of bureaucrats or even leadership. Because it's generally impossible to draft laws to enumerate every possible scenario, contingency, and condition, statutes tend to nominally grant powers broader than for the purposes intended, even when…

I don't pretend to be a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that revoking a visa is not a criminal sanction, and the Dept of State has broad discretion wrt visas. The person who wrote the article was at a protest. I presume he was identified as being there via his cell phone. Then, being a visa holder, he was investigated for being a security risk. He evidently was not deemed to be one, his visa was not revoked, and he was n…

> I don't pretend to be a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that revoking a visa is not a criminal sanction, and the Dept of State has broad discretion wrt visas.

Their 1st sentence said clearly bureaucrats or even leadership should not have broad discretion I thought. And they did not say criminal sanction. What did you think implied it?

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

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

a) The kids in cages garnered significant press, public sympathy, and protest b) I also lived in Austin during that time, and the scale and militarization of current ICE action is on another level to what it was in the early 10's

idk, i live in oakcliff in Dallas. Per google 20% of people in the area are undocumented. Elementary schools are around 50% undocumented and the area high schools around 30% if not higher. My son is in the second most selective magnet HS in DISD and half of his friend group is undocumented.

I haven't seen a single ICE raid in the 10 years i've lived in the area. I did see DHS do a raid on a house once but i've yet to even see ICE. I'm not saying they're not around but they certainly don't make their presence known in an area overflowing with undocumented immigrants. I keep waiting for the jack boots and armored vehicles to roll through and wholesale round everyone up like i read about but it seems business as usual all day every day in Oakcliff.

edit: Honestly, i think no one really cares about oakcliff anymore. Dallas PD does nothing about the constant gunfire at night or street racing. So it makes sense ICE is never alerted, i think the people who would alert ICE just don't bother. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

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

#314

I simply assume that everything that travels out of my home through a wire gets tracked and stored by the government. Everywhere you go, if your phone is in your pocket, you are being tracked and stored, and available to the government. Everywhere your car goes, is tracked and stored and available to the government. BTW, the J6 protesters were all tracked and identified by their cell phone data.

But we don't want totalitarianism. It is like assuming every person on a train is an undercover spy, so you don't say anything bad about the government ever.

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

#315

Recently in SF, the police have been very open about their use of drones to follow thieves (completely violating their privacy). It is like China where there are posters telling you drone surveillance is in effect. I think we need to expand CCPA so that the government cannot simply spy on you by claiming that “criminals” are near you. Even criminals should have their privacy protected or else they will just label eve…

how does using a drone to follow thieves violate anyone's privacy? how is it any different than police pursuit in a marked car?

Don't know the specifics of what the OP is referencing, but some police departments are experimenting with some wild tech. Check out the Baltimore "Spy Plane", for instance. It used high-altitude Cessna airplanes (rather than drones) equipped with a massive array of cameras, that recorded everything.

It allowed analysts to:

- Watch and record a 30-square-mile area of the city simultaneously, in real-time.

- If a crime occurred, they could "go back in time" to see where a suspect came from. Ie. track a vehicle from its destination back to its source.

- Or they could follow a vehicle "forward" in time to see where it parked, identifying potential hideouts or residences.

Of course, it was recording everyone, not just criminals.

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

#316

The linked Google policy states: >We won’t give notice when legally prohibited under the terms of the request. The post states that his lawyer has reviewed the subpoena, but doesn't mention whether or not it contained a non-disclosure order. That's an important detail to address if the claim is that Google acted against its own policy.

EFF's letter offers more details and says that the subpoena did not contain a gag order: https://www.eff.org/files/2026/04/13/eff_letter_re_google_no...

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

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Administrative subpoenas are tenuous at best, but in the absence of an actual court order, words from ICE attorneys or officers saying "You are ordered not to disclose the details of this subpoena" have no actual weight in law.

The article pointed this out as well, but notably did not state that Google had in fact received an administrative subpoena.

From the article

> In April 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent Google an administrative subpoena requesting his data.

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

#318
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I migrated away from my main email, it wasn't a Google mail but it was on the providers domain. First I signed up with Proton Mail and added my own domain, they fit the bill for me, YMMV. Then I did a search in my password manager and went through those accounts. Then I just let the old account sit there for a year. Each time I got an email from something I cared about I'd log in and change mail. It's been a year now…

One thing I've not seen mentioned when people talk about moving to an owned domain is what happens when you don't own it anymore?

There are a million services that assume that if you have access to the email content you are the account holder. Google claims they don't recycle email addresses, but if you lose your domain, the next owner has access to all emails from that point forward.

If something happens and you're unable to renew your domain, are your next of kin out of luck?

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

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That puts some responsibility on you to provide more context for your comments as extra signals of authenticity.

No it doesn't. I don't care how many HN comments you have.

An extensive comment history signals alignment with the community.
Post reply on HN