Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data • Hacker News Board

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

#401

Post by rootlocus » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:27 PM UTC

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #190

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.

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences of that speech

So I'm free to murder, I'm just not free from the consequences of murder?

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

#402

Post by duped » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:27 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #55

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.

The Jan 6 insurrectionists in my county were turned in by their neighbors after bragging about it. Cell phone data was used to convict them.

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

#403

Post by exiguus » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:29 PM UTC

Still waiting for the story that apple does the same.

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

#404

Post by grzegorzx2 » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:33 PM UTC

I believe there are many US citzens discussing here. I always wanted you to ask: do you ever wonder why there are retaliations related to pro-Palestinian protesters in your country? Do you think sometimes why your mainstream media name them always this way while they actually are anti-Israel protests? Are you aware about anti-boycott regulations which you have since many years?

I think this is much more important than what big-tech do.

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

#405

Post by jsmo » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:35 PM UTC

Thanks for sharing, this should get more attention.

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

#406

Post by foobarchu » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:35 PM UTC

drnick1 wrote: post #133

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…

This. The real solution here is to keep your data, encrypted, on your own devices. The idea that everything needs to be in the cloud is absurd and naturally leads to concentration of power.

That is A solution. To be "the real solution", it needs to be within the grasp of a regular person. Self hosting your entire digital life is absolutely asking too much of the vast majority of people

This is like saying the real solution to bad practices of food companies is to exclusively grow your own food, or the answer to anti-repair practices is to only build your own devices, vehicles, etc. Contractors cut corners? Don't try to regulate, just learn carpentry, plumbing, and HVAC plus codes!

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

#407

Post by angry_octet » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:40 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #391

Quarrelsome wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That would be true if We The People were reliably informed when we showed up to cast our votes. Weren't the democrats criticised for campaigning on the message that voting for Trump was a significant risk to due process and democracy? I feel like every voter was aware of what happened on Jan 6th and still voted for him with some level of knowledge about that.

I agree. People had already experienced one round of Trump before, and had every opportunity to see what he was planning for this term. There is no reasonable conclusion other than that they indeed wanted exactly what we got.

The US has very low voter turnout. Winning is mainly getting your voters to turn up, but usually apathy wins. Of course the media plays a huge part in this, but voter suppression is the US is fine art.

Personally I feel that non voters effectively voted for Trump, and they should own that as much as die hard MAGA types.

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

#408

Post by inkysigma » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:40 PM UTC

traderj0e wrote: post #43

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…

Wasn't even a warrant, right? They did this willingly.

Depends on how legitimate you consider an administrative warrant and how willingly you think complying with one is.

On a more practical level, forcing them to go to court might not be much better. If this went to a FISA court, those are essentially rubber stamps and give nearly 100% approval.

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

#409

Post by traderj0e » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:41 PM UTC

traderj0e wrote: post #105

smallmancontrov wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think they earnestly tried to swim against the current, but yeah, they always knew where it was taking them. Removing the yellow background behind paid results was the turning point IMO. > The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. - Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, 1998

Idk what they've even done that was not profit-motivated. They loss-led newer products in the 2000s just like everyone else, then 2010s started tightening up, then 2020s went to maximizing profit and paying out. That's ok in a way really, they're a corporation after all. But nobody ever took that "don't be evil" slogan seriously unless maybe they were Google employees.

Ok idk if anyone cares but wanted to fix it, 2020s they went to maximizing profit on some things, but are still aggressively spending and growing on other things.

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

#410

Post by contingencies » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:42 PM UTC

trocado wrote: post #330

sam345 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think fastmail is going to help you. They are subject to legal requirements too and probably American jurisdiction also despite what their particular position is. https://www.fastmail.com/blog/fastmails-servers-are-in-the-u... . People love to hate Google but they're just doing what any corporation subject to law is going to do.

Fwiw that post states: > It has been pointed out to us that since we have our servers in the US, we are under US jurisdiction. We do not believe this to be the case. We do not have a legal presence in the US, no company incorporated in the US, no staff in the US, and no one in the US with login access to any servers located in the US. Even if a US court were to serve us with a court order, subpoena or other instructi…

They can say what they like, and I am a customer, but in hand-wavey generalization terms one should be aware that Australian law enforcement has excessively broad access to telecommunications data on request and a long history of doing the bidding of the United States. Carriers are forced to retain your data for 2 years.

Under TIA Act provisions (such as s180), an authorised officer of a criminal law‑enforcement agency can authorise access to prospective telecommunications data [metadata only; not whole messages] if satisfied it is reasonably necessary for investigating an offence punishable by at least three years’ imprisonment. (In other words, ~any time they want)

Example: the data‑retention regime’s records were being accessed over 350,000 times a year by at least 87 different agencies, including non‑traditional bodies such as local councils and the RSPCA [pet cruelty nonprofit].

Given Australia's population is only 28M, that means roughly 1 in every 80 people gets communications metadata pulled by their own government annually.