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

#71

Post by wredcoll » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 6:58 PM UTC

smallmancontrov wrote: post #67

jmward01 wrote: post #4

Privacy, technology and actual freedom overlap massively. Stories like this making it to HN are important since many of the people working at Google that had interactions with this, either by creating the tech or being aware of internal policy changes, read HN. Additionally many founders and decision makers in companies read these stories because it hit HN. Knowing that Google will do this changes your legal calculat…

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.

> The number of HNers who were earnestly arguing that this was the party of free speech

Do you think any of them were sincere?

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

#72

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 6:58 PM UTC

soganess wrote: post #26

avazhi wrote: post #18

[flagged]

Yeah, because the American ideal of our forefathers was FAFO? This is embarrassing to admit, but I miss the halcyon days when folks were still nominally pretending to be free speech warriors.

If you are invited to visit someone's home, and you go, and say nasty things to the homeowner, you'll be tossed out despite your right to free speech.

If you're a guest in another country, act like a guest.

When I was living on a military base in Germany, I and my family were required to behave as a guest of the Germans. The military was quite strict about that.

I didn't have any issue with that. When I travel to another country, I behave as if I was their guest, which I was.

A couple times there were protests in a country I was visiting, and I stayed well away from them.

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

#73

Post by smallmancontrov » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 6:58 PM UTC

traderj0e wrote: post #69

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.

[flagged]

So they were weaponizing immigration law to deport pro-pali students? Care to back your feelings up with some facts?

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

#74

Post by smallmancontrov » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 6:59 PM UTC

wredcoll wrote: post #71

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.

> The number of HNers who were earnestly arguing that this was the party of free speech Do you think any of them were sincere?

I work in this industry. I sample the same distribution in person. I don't think they were, I know they were.

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

#75

Post by wredcoll » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 6:59 PM UTC

selectodude wrote: post #70

traderj0e wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Democrats have so far not been led by the nose into bombing Iran and fucking up the global economy so I’m not sure how one can keep saying that with a straight face.

It's pretty pathetic when the best argument you can make is a whataboutism that isn't even equivalent.

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

#76

Post by LastTrain » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 6:59 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #24

fluidcruft wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did you find out about this? The timeline of this actually pushing you to do all that seems a bit unbelievable and difficult to take seriously.

It's this account's only comment and was only created right before posting. It has no credibility.

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?

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

#77

Post by ifyoubuildit » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 6:59 PM UTC

smallmancontrov wrote: post #67

jmward01 wrote: post #4

Privacy, technology and actual freedom overlap massively. Stories like this making it to HN are important since many of the people working at Google that had interactions with this, either by creating the tech or being aware of internal policy changes, read HN. Additionally many founders and decision makers in companies read these stories because it hit HN. Knowing that Google will do this changes your legal calculat…

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.

I'm all ears if you've got someone that we can put in power that won't rat fuck us when it comes to privacy or civil liberties. Bonus points if they aren't just slightly less bad than the other guy.

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

#78

Post by righthand » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 7:00 PM UTC

crooked-v wrote: post #52

eaf7e281 wrote: post #45

I still don't understand. Who gave ICE such power, and who is ordering them to do all this? To me, ICE's actions are similar to those of a private army.

Trump (with indirect support from the Republicans in Congress), and Trump (with indirect support from the Republicans in Congress), respectively.

I would call passing a bill to fund it, pretty direct support from Republicans in Congress/Senate.

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

#79

Post by EA-3167 » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 7:00 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.

Protestors huh? That’s quite the revisionist take on recent history.

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

#80

Post by pwg » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 7:00 PM UTC

PaulKeeble wrote: post #13

ihaveajob wrote: post #8

"Don't be evil" they used to say.

They dropped that a long time ago, at least a decade ago. Which is really an odd thing to do, what company would think that not being evil was holding it back but Google clearly did.

"Don't be evil" was dropped after the DoubleClick acquisition completed their internal takeover of the old "Don't be evil" Google (Google purportedly purchased DoubleClick, in reality they 'did' purchase them, but then the old DoubleClick advertisers slowly took over old Google from the inside out).

What is called "Google" today is actually the old, fully evil, advertising firm "DoubleClick" pretending to be "Google" to make use of the goodwill the "Google" brand name used to have attached to it.