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Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
671–680 of 830 posts
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#672an apropos bit from the NYT today: President Trump pressured House Republicans on Wednesday to extend a high-profile warrantless surveillance law without changes, declaring on social media: “I am willing to risk the giving up of my Rights and Privileges as a Citizen for our Great Military and Country!” Mr. Trump urged the G.O.P. to “unify” behind Speaker Mike Johnson for a critical procedural vote that had been sched…
You should submit this as a HN article, this is important.
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#673Earlier 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…
In addition to what the sibling comments say, this also puts Fastmail at risk of having their US based service suspended while they attempt to resist government overreach (were they to attempt to do so) which is really not a lot better for their users.
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#674Earlier quoted context omitted.
> administrative subpoenas frequently include non disclosure orders Which Google definitely knows are not enforceable.
When you're a huge company trying to do business in the US (or any country, for that matter) you have to think very, very carefully before you make an enemy of the government. Google could refuse to go along with this stuff and find itself the subject of a big, expensive anti-trust probe.
Or more simply, a target of a temper tantrum that suddenly declares them a national risk and orders everyone in the government to stop doing business with them.
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#675Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here’s a video of what this guy was involved in (to my best knowledge): https://statements.cornell.edu/2024/20241019-career-fair-dis... I’m a First Amendment absolutist and AFAIK foreign students can protest, but this video shows to me it probably crosses the line into something else. Exactly what, I have no opinion.
Yeah, masks and intentionally antagonizing police doesn't scream peaceful protest
> Yeah, masks and intentionally antagonizing police doesn't scream peaceful protest
They wear masks in case their political opponents take exception to their actions and hunt them down later and hurt their families.
(This seems like an extremely dubious justification to me, but I've been told on HN that this is the reason that ICE wear masks, so why wouldn't it apply here...?)
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#676Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 corne…
Yes. I'm a a software developer, but as a father of three I just don't have the time to maintain self-hosting.
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#677Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they were motivated enough by this story to delete 20 years worth of history maybe they were motivated enough to create an account and talk about it?
I don't care. The UX means I can't give it any credibility. For all I know this could be somebody's OpenClaw spouting bullshit. The default credibility of all throwaways is zero and that was even true before 2023. If you let it influence your opinion in any way you're a fool.
The content of the message is the credibility. It doesn't matter where it came from or who posted it. This exact topic comes up every time Google reveals its true self and lots of us have a resurgence of our latent interest to de-Google (the massive inconvenience being the major barrier).
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#678Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you're a huge company trying to do business in the US (or any country, for that matter) you have to think very, very carefully before you make an enemy of the government. Google could refuse to go along with this stuff and find itself the subject of a big, expensive anti-trust probe.
Or more simply, a target of a temper tantrum that suddenly declares them a national risk and orders everyone in the government to stop doing business with them.
Or a tax action where the government sues them for for billions by ruling assumptions Google made are incorrect.
That's my point, though. The levers the government has to move businesses are endless.
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#679The First Amendment applies to everyone on US soil, not just citizens. That’s settled law. The government can revoke visas for legitimate immigration violations, but it’s not allowed to use immigration machinery as a pretext to punish political expression. That’s exactly what they are doing. It looks like the courts will eventually put an end to this [0] but it won’t reverse the damage that’s already been done. I’m g…
Here’s a video of what this guy was involved in (to my best knowledge): https://statements.cornell.edu/2024/20241019-career-fair-dis... I’m a First Amendment absolutist and AFAIK foreign students can protest, but this video shows to me it probably crosses the line into something else. Exactly what, I have no opinion.
Okay, but is being present at a protest where others push through a barrier enough for the first amendment to no longer apply or do we know he was one of the people doing the barrier breaking? The original post implies he bailed out after only 5 minutes - quite possibly because he wasn't on board with the (relatively mild) escalation. At this point, we don't know. But if he did cross that line, he should be criminally prosecuted like the students with American citizenship (if they even are...) and not presumed guilty being punished via the immigration system without any kind of trial.
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#680Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For me, most threads get their own account. This is a violation of the guidelines: "Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to."
It's also futile because you generate a signature that can be traced across aliases, sites, etc.
True, but it also assumes HN is engaging in this practice which is not a given because it's a rather unusual site.