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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

#541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it did contain a request to not notify according to that same letter. I suppose that brings up several questions. 1. Does that mean the same thing in the ToS? 2. How valid are these requests?

I'm very curious about this. Google knows users care about their privacy, and it made the promise in its terms precisely for that reason. People pay attention to this stuff, as the popularity of this story shows. Therefore, it's generally not going to be in Google's interest to break its own terms. So what's going on? Did a Google employee simply mess up? Is the reporting not accurate or missing key details, e.g. Goo…

>Google knows users care about their privacy, and it made the promise in its terms precisely for that reason. People pay attention to this stuff, as the popularity of this story shows.

Do Google users care about their privacy? I'd expect not, given that Google is (and hasn't been shy about telling us about it) reading all their emails in order to provide more targeted advertisements.

And, as I mentioned, Google hasn't been shy about saying that's exactly what they do (prioritizing their ad revenue over their users' privacy), so I have to assume that Google users don't care about their privacy.

If they did care about their privacy, they'd self-host their email on hardware they physically control.

That's orthogonal to Google giving up data to the government, with or without notifying the user(s) in question, except that the above makes clear what we already know: Google doesn't respect the privacy of their users.

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

#543
post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And probably bought a pizza at some point, too. That's not studying. Shameful liar.

That's not a meaningful comparison. Eating a pizza isn't the same as violating the terms of your visa - which is an explicit contract between you and the country you're entering which you sign before you enter the said country.

Please quote the clause he violated in said contract.

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

#544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There elections every two years, it's not too late. But only if people actually want that enough to vote and press politicians.

There's no mechanism for pressing politicians except threatening not to vote for them again, and politicians are exceptionally cowardly and avoid picking up hot potatoes that could incur criticism. I'm in a district with one of the safest seats in the country, and getting my representative to state a position on many issues is like getting blood out of a stone. There's no formal mechanism of accountability for member…

I wonder how the dynamic between members of Congress and their constituents would change if we had a larger Congress. Instead of the ~786k people per representative, having ~107k like the UK. Would it be feasible? Probably not. But Congress is way too small and it results in some poor incentives.

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

#545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should he be harassed and deported for this?

Yes. If you're a guest in a country and don't follow the law you should be deported. You don't need waste money putting them on trial (except for murder/rape/etc), just deport.

How do you find out if someone followed the law without a trial?

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

#546
post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically incorrect, Supreme Court precedent has held that aliens are entitled to lesser First Amendment protections while seeking to enter the United States. You could be on US Soil (i.e. entering customs at an airport) and those protections don't apply. The person in question said he was in Geneva when he received the email from Google. Therefore is a non-US citizen residing outside the country entitled to 1A pro…

To condone what happens to him, you must first condone that your government lists and identifies people attending opponent meetings. Whether the government waits for him to leave the country to violate his rights feels like a small detail in this issue. Also, if you intend to claim that us foreigners are free targets for any abhorent behaviour of your government, maybe you should rename your bill of rights a bill of…

Whoa! I’d slow down with the hypotheses, considering we have one side of the story.

What we do know is that the US, like all other countries, has wide legal latitude on not allowing foreigners into the country. You can be denied entry for no more than a Facebook like of the wrong post.

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

#547
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? Eventually notifying him seems like the one thing Google did right here.

On a scale of 1-10, Yeah, I'd give them a 1-2 for notifying him after the fact. The problem is they tell user that they'll inform you right away and give them a chance to challenge the subpoena. A quick search shows that they've done in the past and people have been able to get the subpoena's withdrawn. https://thefulcrum.us/rule-of-law/us-administrative-subpoena...

Google's lawyer responded by claiming they do follow that policy normally except when their lawyers nearly miss the "artificial deadline set by the government" and sometimes send it out same day.

I'm curious if this was a common issue or Google's legal team was flooded with subpoenas during the first months of the administration during their deportation surge (they did around 100k removals around that time). Homeland sent the request to Google a month prior to when they released the data and notified him, so they had time to notify, but it clearly isn't an automated thing.

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

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it did contain a request to not notify according to that same letter. I suppose that brings up several questions. 1. Does that mean the same thing in the ToS? 2. How valid are these requests?

I'm very curious about this. Google knows users care about their privacy, and it made the promise in its terms precisely for that reason. People pay attention to this stuff, as the popularity of this story shows. Therefore, it's generally not going to be in Google's interest to break its own terms. So what's going on? Did a Google employee simply mess up? Is the reporting not accurate or missing key details, e.g. Goo…

> Therefore, it's generally not going to be in Google's interest to break its own terms.

It is also not in Google’s interest to resist this administration. I would not be surprised if they decided to kiss the ring and be by internal policy more cooperative than what the law strictly says.

I guess we’ll get a better idea if more cases show up.

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

#549
post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very curious about this. Google knows users care about their privacy, and it made the promise in its terms precisely for that reason. People pay attention to this stuff, as the popularity of this story shows. Therefore, it's generally not going to be in Google's interest to break its own terms. So what's going on? Did a Google employee simply mess up? Is the reporting not accurate or missing key details, e.g. Goo…

It's quite possible that google is more afraid of what will happen if they resist ICE than they are of bad publicity like this.

It's not just bad publicity. They may be sued

But yeah no matter the amount they lose in courts, it's inconsequential compared to angering this federal administration even a little bit

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

#550

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

What is freedom of speech a freedom from?
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