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.

• sam345

  today at 7:45 PM

  I agree, but the purpose of these kind of lawsuits and journalism is to push the activism narrative. All one has to do is read their policy. There is no basis for going after Google that's obvious.

• jmyeet

  today at 7:57 PM

  According to the ACLU [1]:

  > This document explains two key ways that recipients can resist immigration administrative subpoenas: First, any gag order in these subpoenas has no legal effect; you are free to publicize them and inform the target of the subpoena. Second, you do not have to comply with the subpoena at all, unless ICE goes to court—where you can raise a number of possible objections—and the court orders compliance.

  [1]: https://www.acluofnorthcarolina.org/app/uploads/drupal/sites...

• FireBeyond

  today at 7:50 PM

  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.

  • Spooky23

    today at 8:42 PM

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

  • hypeatei

    today at 8:00 PM

    This exactly. It's like everyone is assuming whatever ICE ordered Google to do was completely lawful. Even if this administration was a tightly run ship, when an agency gets a massive funding increase and daily quotas to hit like ICE did, all bets are off and you should never give them the benefit of the doubt. Obviously when the DHS secretary is calling American protesters domestic terrorists, cosplaying as a cop, and spending $200M+ on ads that feature herself, then you definitely give maximum scrutiny to everything that agency is doing/did.

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 to hold my data.

• baranul

  today at 8:47 PM

  Use of Google seems to have become implied consent for them to use or give away any and all of your data, for whatever purpose, to any government, legal entity, or advertiser.

• drnick1

  today at 7:16 PM

  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.

• smallmancontrov

  today at 6:47 PM

  Migrating is such a good feeling. You don't have to do it all at once, either: I migrated to fastmail over the course of several years. Each time google did something that got my blood pressure up I went into my password manager and migrated another account. In aggregate it was a hassle, but these days I almost miss the feeling of being able to do something in response to stinky actions from google.

  • BeetleB

    today at 8:26 PM

    Anticipation of stories like this are why I didn't rely much on Google 20 years ago.

    Never used Gmail other than as a throwaway account.

    Went many years before I had a Youtube account. Finally made one to upload some videos. I am normally not logged in.

    (OK, OK - I was more concerned with them suddenly charging for a "free" service, as well as selling data to commercial enterprises than with them giving to the government).

    (OK, OK - I do use Android).

    • tclancy

      today at 8:33 PM

      What will the world be like in 2046?

  • sam345

    today at 7:48 PM

    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.

  • anonymousiam

    today at 7:32 PM

    I've migrated everything from Google except for Google Voice. I have yet to find an alternative that can match the feature set and ease of use, regardless of the cost.

• pesus

  today at 7:07 PM

  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.

  • magicalhippo

    today at 7:13 PM

    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, and I'm about to terminate the old account. All I get there now is occasional spam.

    I really dreaded this, but all in all quite painless. And next time it should be easier since I now own the email domain.

    edit: Forgot to mention I use Thunderbird, so old email I archived to local folders. That's part if why I ended with Proton, their IMAP bridge allows me to keep using Thunderbird.

    • barrkel

      today at 8:22 PM

      I exported all my email with Google Takeout, and Claude Code was able to write me a threaded email viewer local web app with basic search (chained ripgrep) in about 10 minutes, for any time I need to search archived emails.

  • jfoworjf

    today at 7:19 PM

    Nothing. To the contrary things work BETTER outside the google eco system. The way to do it is incrementally. You don't just yolo delete you Gmail day 1. I still have mine, it's just getting almost no traffic today. Start by moving to an alternative email provider. I use proton. Buy a domain so that you can move providers easily in the future and use catch all email. Do a Google takeout and store the backup somewhere safe (I just use two hard drives sitting and home, replicated). Move the thing that you need day to day somewhere else. You can pay for someone to host it for you or self host. I'm self hosting immich for my Google photos replacement. I'm using proton calendar and email for Gmail service replacements. I was already using signal for most communications, but do that. I moved to graphene to get off of android and there are some sharp edges there if you want off Google play. I had to give up Android auto and gps tends to work worse (graphene does support android auto but I didnt like the tradeoffs). Nothing dealbreaking but can be annoying.

    For general security, I also use a yubikey for all services that support it, froze credit with all agencies, and added phone support passwords to all my financial institutions.

    • fragmede

      today at 7:53 PM

      > I just use two hard drives sitting and home, replicated

      The failure modes of that are fire/natural disaster, and thieves. Do that, but also have a geographically redundant backup scheme. Either encrypted eg Backblaze or a relatives house in another state.

  • today at 7:29 PM

  • yellow_postit

    today at 7:46 PM

    I use Fastmail and the main difference I notice is less effective spam filtering — it’s good but not as great as Gmail was.

    Overall it’s been an acceptable trade off and I’m glad years ago I switched to a custom domain for email so I can have portability.

    • rubyn00bie

      today at 8:14 PM

      Damn that’s wild to me, because Gmail absolutely refuses to send things to spam despite me incessantly marking them as spam.

      I honestly assumed that everyone had a rotten time with Gmail spam filtering but I guess it’s just a me problem. I suppose that means I’m up for an interesting time dealing with it as I move to a custom domain somewhere else.

      Anyone have any recommendations for providers that have exceptionally good spam filtering? Hell I’d even just settle for ones that honor “mark as spam,” because Gmail absolutely does not.

      • subscribed

        today at 8:45 PM

        I get maybe one genuine spam not marked as such and maybe one false positive per month.

        I'm getting a lot of emails and between 10-20 spams a day, but that's years of the very careful messages reporting and categorisation.

        Similarly with important and "normal" emails - i only get one-two important per week, and marked as such for the same reasons; no false negatives.

    • FireBeyond

      today at 7:52 PM

      Interesting, I have used Fastmail for probably a decade plus at this point, and whether it's my obsessive rating of false negatives and positives, it is amazingly rare that I get spam slip into my inbox (maybe one message a week from ~100/day received, while my spam folder gets about 10/day).

  • hexmiles

    today at 7:14 PM

    Personally, I deleted everything I could but kept the Gmail account for a couple of years with a forward to my new account, and after that, I also deleted it. Google Takeout is a very useful way to quickly create a backup of everything Google.

• traderj0e

  today at 6:46 PM

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

  • pixel_popping

    today at 6:47 PM

    Google leak ALL the time without warrant, Apple as well.

    • traderj0e

      today at 7:13 PM

      When have they done this before?

      • pixel_popping

        today at 7:14 PM

        500k time a year: https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview

        • traderj0e

          today at 7:19 PM

          Those are supposedly ones where they legally had to comply. This case was different.

          • pixel_popping

            today at 7:25 PM

            No, they do it also for any sort of administrative, without warrant.

• fluidcruft

  today at 6:37 PM

  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.

  • nostrademons

    today at 6:47 PM

    Note that there was a major press cycle about this in October / November of last year - a quick Google showed stories in the Guardian, The Intercept, and the Cornell Sun, as well as commentary on Reddit. Not inconceivable that they found about it last October and had six months to leave and de-Googlify.

    • caminante

      today at 7:03 PM

      > Note that there was a major press cycle about this in October / November of last year

      Fair point. However...the parent's comment is also fair because the article does a poor job of raising this material fact. You have to click through a sub-article.

      It's almost like this article should be tagged (2025) because it's basically a replay of the author's account from 2025.[0]

      [0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/05/palest...

  • jfoworjf

    today at 7:00 PM

    As other comments say, it was a major story months ago. I started moving off around December. It's a long process to switch over all email accounts. I only recently got self hosted kubernetes set up for immich as a Google photos replacement and some other hosting needs but for the most part I am off google. I get probably 1-2 emails a week still going to Gmail but when I do I just switch those accounts to my new email. It will be a while before the old Gmail is deleted entirely unfortunately.

    I didn't mention it in op but I also moved to graphene os which tbh feels much better than android has recently.

  • jjulius

    today at 6:47 PM

    Setting aside the fact that this is a new account and it's their only post, what about the timeline is difficult to understand?

    The request came in April 2025, and the user was notified the following month. That's next to a year for them to hear about it internally and then quit and setup self-hosting prior to today.

  • wat10000

    today at 6:43 PM

    Maybe they read one of the articles written about this incident months ago.

  • busterarm

    today at 6:37 PM

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

    • jfoworjf

      today at 7:06 PM

      One of the best things about hn is that accounts are cheap and disposable. For me, most threads get their own account. I don't like people tracking my full comment history across the internet with it all tied to one account, even when it's just one I use to comment on harmless tech stories

      • fluidcruft

        today at 7:52 PM

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

        • traderj0e

          today at 8:41 PM

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

      • busterarm

        today at 7:10 PM

        `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.`

        This just proves my point to discount what you say. You're basically admitting to being a pest.

    • LastTrain

      today at 6:59 PM

      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?

      • busterarm

        today at 7:08 PM

        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.

        • linkregister

          today at 8:11 PM

          From busterarm's profile: "Most people are stupid and/or on drugs."

          The account is from 2013 but given that profile, I can't give it any credibility. After all, it could be somebody's OpenClaw having been granted control of the account.

    • djeastm

      today at 6:42 PM

      They could just be very concerned with privacy.

• dismalaf

  today at 7:01 PM

  Apple and Microsoft are also subject to US laws. It's not like any company can get around this.

  • linkregister

    today at 8:07 PM

    Administrative warrants do not carry the weight of law. It's merely a term of art for a request for information.

  • jll29

    today at 7:20 PM

    That statement is true at face value. But if you look at how Eric Schmidt travels with government representatives, how rich and powerful BigTech is, and how much they individually and collectively spend on lobbying, then they could be a massive obstacle if they only cared.

How was Amandla even identified? Stingray at the protest? Then how was the phone number linked to Google? Facial recognition at the protest? I guess his details are on file under terms of the visa? So then the government simply asks Google for all details on the individual by name? Either is pretty disturbing.

• wmil

  today at 7:02 PM

  Cell carriers sell geofenced data about cell phones in an area at a given time to anyone. There's zero privacy.

  KYC laws mean that his carrier has his name and email address and the feds probably got that without anyone informing the customer.

  • orbisvicis

    today at 7:40 PM

    What about the find-my-phone BLE database, for which I just learned modern phones broadcast even when off? Is that controlled by the OS (Google, Apple) and not the carrier?

  • SoftTalker

    today at 7:17 PM

    Or there may be more to the story than he's telling.

    • dwaltrip

      today at 8:23 PM

      Is there a specific reason for suspicion?

      • traderj0e

        today at 8:43 PM

        The fact that we're only hearing one side is suspicious enough

      • buttersicle

        today at 8:46 PM

        [dead]

    • peyton

      today at 7:34 PM

      Guy seems to have earned himself a ban from entering Cornell’s premises[1]. They seem to be letting him finish [2], which tracks—they’re pretty chill IME. Something might’ve went down…

      [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/05/palest...

      [2]: https://panthernow.com/2026/03/03/international-students-sel...

  • hn_acc1

    today at 7:21 PM

    Tracfone burners for any protests?

> While ICE “requested” that Google not notify Thomas Johnson, the request was not enforceable or mandated by a court

Sounds like Google stopped caring.

But... Why on earth do the people filing an administrative subpoena not have to notify the interested parties too? Why is it Google's responsibility? If they didn't tell you, would you ever find out?

• titanomachy

  today at 7:50 PM

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

  • Ardren

    today at 8:03 PM

    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...

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.

• laweijfmvo

  today at 7:36 PM

  The people. We voted for the people who gave the power, and we re-elected them. It’s really that simple. Is it “too late” now? maybe, but we had ~25 years since this all started post 911 to react, and chose not to.

  • oceansky

    today at 8:30 PM

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

    • anigbrowl

      today at 8:47 PM

      [delayed]

• stackskipton

  today at 7:09 PM

  Congress gave them the power. They are federal law enforcement who actions were mainly restrained by desire of their leadership (US President) to keep their actions curtailed.

  That desire is gone so they are going all out.

• jmyeet

  today at 7:59 PM

  The answer to this is that Google gave ICE this power by complying instead of fighting the subpoena or notifying the subject of the subpoena, both of which they can do according to the ACLU [1].

  Willing, optional compliance with the administration is the core problem here.

  [1]: https://www.acluofnorthcarolina.org/app/uploads/drupal/sites...

• pixl97

  today at 7:12 PM

  You're making a mistaken thinking power is given. Quite often in the US government organizations 'just do', and it's the power of the executive, judicial, or legislative to stop them.

  Unfortunately Trump is doing whatever he wants at this point and ignoring anyone that says otherwise.

  • asdfman123

    today at 7:16 PM

    Democratic backsliding occurs through the gradual erosion of norms and safeguards. One small step at a time...

• crooked-v

  today at 6:48 PM

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

  • righthand

    today at 7:00 PM

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

  • js2

    today at 7:16 PM

    It's Stephen Miller, enabled by Trump.

• MisterTea

  today at 6:48 PM

  [flagged]

• htx80nerd

  today at 7:40 PM

  No one cared about ICE or deporting until Orange Man Bad won in 2016.

  I lived in Austin TX during this time and there was never a single anti-ICE or anti-deportation protest until Cheeto won.

  Obama had kids in cages. Obama deported people. But he is a (D) so it's no big deal.

  "Free thinking liberals" are wildly subject to what CNN , AP News and Reddit says.

  • mplanchard

    today at 7:50 PM

    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

    • 9x39

      today at 8:20 PM

      c) despite appearances and the current state of fear, Trump's second-term ICE has deported merely a fraction (0.6m) achieved under Obama's ICE (3m+), so if it's on a different level, it's clearly a lower one. Movement vs action, perhaps.

      https://www.wlrn.org/immigration/2026-01-23/politifact-fl-im...

      https://tracreports.org/tracatwork/detail/A6019.html

      https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO00/20200109/110349/HHRG...

  • linkregister

    today at 8:15 PM

    If someone does something to nth degree, it's bad. If someone does something to (n*10)th degree, are the sheeple really at fault for reacting? Do you not behave the same way in your own life?

• dismalaf

  today at 7:03 PM

  Believe it or not, immigration authorities (like the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency) have the power to enforce immigration laws.

  The author isn't American.

  Edit - wait until y'all find out other countries also have borders and laws...

  • rootusrootus

    today at 7:13 PM

    Which immigration laws are they enforcing in this case? And are you also going to suggest that the Constitution does not protect foreign nationals inside the US?

    • today at 7:52 PM

    • mothballed

      today at 7:39 PM

      The Constitution uses the following in regard to protest in the first amendment

         Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
      

      It uses this same "right of the people" in the second amendment

          ... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
      

      In both cases, the right is restricted to "the people." Note in the first amendment, only the final bit about protests is restricted to "the people" the rest is generally protected whether it is "the people" or not.

      Note in Heller and elsewhere it was determined "the people" are those who belong to the political class (which is a bit vague, refer to next sentence, but not same as voting class). Generally this is not those on non-immigrant visas or illegal aliens (though circuits are split on this). If you don't have the right to bear arms, clearly you are not "the people" since people by definition have the right to bear arms, which means you wouldn't have the right of "the people" to protest either, no? So it appears since they are not people, they don't have the right to assemble in protest, though they may have other first amendment rights since it's protest specifically that was narrowed to "the people" rather than many of the other parts of the first amendment which are worded without that narrowing.

      For instance, speech without assembly isn't narrowed to just "the people." Perhaps this was done intentionally since allowing non-people to stage protests was seen as less desirable than merely allowing them to otherwise speak freely.

      Note: Personally I do think non-immigrants are people, but trying to apply the same "people" two different ways with the exact same wording makes no sense. If they can't bear arms they necessarily are not "the people" and thus are not afforded the right to "assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

      • Peritract

        today at 7:58 PM

        If you have to work your way round to "they are not people" for the law to be consistent, consider that it might be a bad law.

        • traderj0e

          today at 8:44 PM

          It's not that they aren't people, they aren't the people that the Constitution refers to. There are many rights that visitors don't have.

          • Peritract

            today at 8:49 PM

            That is one possible (specious and self-serving) interpretation of a document that pre-dates the concepts and laws it's being used to prop up.

            How many of the Pilgrims had a valid modern visa?

        • today at 8:07 PM

    • pjc50

      today at 7:48 PM

      > And are you also going to suggest that the Constitution does not protect foreign nationals inside the US?

      I thought it was settled constitutional law that it doesn't? Moreover, during the war on terror, it was established that the president can freely order the murder of non Americans outside the US.

      • FireBeyond

        today at 8:00 PM

        Not even remotely. Citizens may be granted additional protections from some things, but the Constitution applies to all persons inside the US.

        • oceansky

          today at 8:32 PM

          Might apply to people outside of US too, given that Maduro is being tried in NY for drug and firearm charges while never having set foot in US before.

  • rdiddly

    today at 7:16 PM

    Apparently they have the power to murder and kidnap American citizens too, or violate their rights if they happen to freely speak or assemble in ways they don't like.

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.

• solid_fuel

  today at 6:53 PM

  > BTW, the J6 protesters were all tracked and identified by their cell phone data.

  Many of the insurrectionists were also caught on camera in congress after they broke down the doors and stormed the building. Some even took selfies in the offices of various senators and house reps.

  • baggachipz

    today at 7:35 PM

    And now they're being let off and called "heroes" by the United States Government.

    • solid_fuel

      today at 8:11 PM

      It's all part of this administration's strategy to set the stage for next time. By pardoning violent criminals, they make it clear that they endorse political violence. Now, when he incites a mob to interrupt the elections next time he loses - in 2026 or 2028 - everyone in the next mob will know that their actions will be pardoned.

• ryandrake

  today at 7:16 PM

  We keep failing to learn over and over that "Cloud is just someone else's computer." If you wouldn't send a particular bit of data to some random person's computer, then don't send it to a cloud service, either. This includes Gmail, iCloud, AWS, Facebook, WhatsApp, iMessage, everything.

  If it's not your computer, it's not your data.

• gorgoiler

  today at 7:11 PM

  So much of this was backed up by Snowden, not just in the machinations of each of the CODENAMEX operations but also in the attitude that the TLAs felt entitled to implement them in the first place.

  There’s been some pushback since then, but nothing to give any confidence that CODENAMEY, CODENAMEZ, and many others have have sprung up.

• today at 7:05 PM

• mothballed

  today at 6:54 PM

  Meanwhile it took them 4+ years to find the barely functional autistic pipe bomber in his parents basement. And IIRC, a large part of the FBI at one point assigned to it.

• LastTrain

  today at 7:01 PM

  Some of them were identified by DNA left in the shit they took on Pelosi’s desk.

• EA-3167

  today at 7:00 PM

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

  • wtf_acc1

    today at 7:26 PM

    [dead]

I would love more information.

What exactly did the request for information say from DHS? What exactly was the reason for them to look for you specifically (certainly there are many others protesting)? Following up on that, how do others avoid something like this? What red flags should be avoided and how?

There may or may not be a solid answer for any of this. But this article feels like it's made for awareness, when it could also be made for action, with the right details included.

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 calculations. Should I trust them to store my company's data? Will they honor their BAA requirements if they are ditching other promises they made?

People may be tired of seeing stories like this appear on HN, but getting this story exposure to this group is exactly why they need to hit the homepage.

• shevy-java

  today at 6:37 PM

  > People may be tired of seeing stories like this appear on HN

  I am not tired of that at all. But you have people be tired of tons of things, on reddit too. That should not distract discussions. If technology is involved I think it perfectly fits HN and in this regard, the state uses technology to sniff after people - without a real legal, objective cause. It's almost as if the current administration attempts to inflate court cases to weaken the system, e. g. until judges say "no, that's too much work, I just auto-convict via this AI tool the government gave me".

• smallmancontrov

  today at 6:55 PM

  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.

  • wredcoll

    today at 6:58 PM

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

    Do you think any of them were sincere?

    • smallmancontrov

      today at 6:59 PM

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

      • pjc50

        today at 7:45 PM

        What they meant is "freedom to say slurs", not "freedom of LGBT books in school libraries"

        • metrix

          today at 7:56 PM

          Being trans, I feel this so much.

          On a side note, it was interesting after Trump was elected where some of my co-workers wanted to use old pronouns after some laws changed _in meetings_ and I realized the only thing stopping them was the awkwardness it would have been for _them_ in that situation

          • smallmancontrov

            today at 8:32 PM

            In the Before Times, I thought that asking Americans to mind pronouns would never work -- not because they were mean, but because it would require the average American to learn what a "pronoun" was.

            Of course, it turned out that the average American had no problem learning what a pronoun was if it gave them the opportunity to be mean. Sigh.

          • nathanmills

            today at 8:05 PM

            [flagged]

      • quietsegfault

        today at 7:33 PM

        Which industry? Tech? Surveillance? Government? I know my father in law is a MAGA racist who believes whatever makes it easy to justify his own beliefs. I’m not sure you can ever reliably judge someone’s true motives in a professional setting.

      • hn_acc1

        today at 7:16 PM

        I'm seeing it in a lot of younger tech people. We had a NASA presentation at work about air quality and that forest fires are one of our biggest problems in CA. TWO separate people (from maybe 20-25 attending) brought up "do you think that if we managed our forests better, this could help?" (clearly talking about the crazy "raking the forests" Trump rhetoric). It blows my mind how "intelligent" people can be this stupid.

        • sam345

          today at 7:37 PM

          Is that really what you're concerned about that somebody would ask a soft ball question about proposed solutions? Why is questioning the buildup of brush a crazy idea? It's been a mainstream concern for years. I really don't think it's healthy for any inquiry to propose a particular mindset and shut down alternative thinking. It doesn't seem very scientific or intelligent to me.

          • gman83

            today at 8:21 PM

            The issue is that the rhetorical game being played is that by saying the risk is all due to the buildup of combustible materials, it shifts the blame to California's Democratic politicians and away from Republican fossil fuel donors. Clearly in a good faith discussion we'd suggest better forest management, as well as doing everything possible to combat fossil fuel emissions. The problem is that it's not a good faith discussion.

            • Dylan16807

              today at 8:32 PM

              Am I dumb to think that the main worry from fossil fuels right now is CO2, not air quality? (at least while environmental regulations are still mostly intact) It seems reasonable to me to ask about forest management for air quality.

              Maybe there was some other sign they didn't ask in good faith? But I have no idea what dumb thing trump said you're even talking about.

          • pessimizer

            today at 8:42 PM

            Notice how pro-free speech = pro-clearing brush buildup?

            It's so weird how people join these partisan factions that have a full package of beliefs that you have to be evil not to share. Woe to your job if you say that you think brush buildup should be cleared; you're obviously racist.

        • tokyobreakfast

          today at 7:40 PM

          > It blows my mind how "intelligent" people can be this stupid.

          Intelligent people don't post condescending, shallow dismissals.

        • ambicapter

          today at 8:18 PM

          Or maybe they're 20-25, aren't experts in forestry, and are asking generic questions b/c that's what you're told to do as a young scientist?

        • kelnos

          today at 7:26 PM

          > "do you think that if we managed our forests better, this could help?" (clearly talking about the crazy "raking the forests" Trump rhetoric)

          Were they clearly actually talking about that? If that was their question, word-for-word, it's a good question! We are not managing our forests all that well. No, we shouldn't be doing Trump's dumbass raking "idea", but we should be doing controlled burns, at minimum.

        • snickerbockers

          today at 7:45 PM

          >clearly talking about the crazy "raking the forests" Trump rhetoric

          Are you sure about that? I've been hearing for at least a decade that the solution to CA's forest fire problem is something along the lines of reducing the amount of potential fuel that is allowed to build up by either allowing smaller fires to run their course without intervention or alternatively aggressively executing controlled burns on a regular schedule.

          Not sure how viable that is as a solution but I do know the idea didn't originate with Trump because it predates his entire political career.

        • headsman771

          today at 7:26 PM

          I remember hearing about forest mismanagement long before Trump's presidential runs. It's curious how many people complaining about right wing talking points associate it solely with Trump.

        • vel0city

          today at 7:30 PM

          While Trump's "raking the forest" take is clearly uninformed and unintelligent, there's a substantial kernel of truth to longstanding forest management policies making some of these wildfires worse than what they could have been. We've been artificially suppressing fires far too long in a lot of these places, for example.

          Not that this is the only factor in play here on a lot of these fires, and once again I do agree Trump's take is idiotic and ultimately he's not helping but pouring gasoline on the issue. Just pointing out, we definitely aren't managing our forests well for a multitude of reasons.

          https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/12/12/twenty-year-study-confi...

          • dmoy

            today at 8:01 PM

            The federal vs state conflict over prescribed burns doesn't help much either. In states with a much lower % of national forest or blm land or whatever, you get a much larger amount of prescribed burns.

            In the west coast, the state vs federal friction reduces how much of that happens, and there's more uncontrolled growth happening. And there's not always a lot that e.g. CA government can do about it if it's federal land.

            For example, Minnesota (intentionally) burns like 50% more acreage than California on an annual basis, despite being like half the size. But CA also is like half federal land, MN is like 5% or something.

            • vel0city

              today at 8:16 PM

              I totally agree with you there. I'm in no way trying to suggest it was specifically a failure of certain states or individual administrations; its a mixed bag of failures at a lot of different levels with the federal government having a lot of the blame across a wide range of administrations that did nothing to really address the growing problems.

    • nancyminusone

      today at 7:18 PM

      Yes. A particular interest is that of freely insulting people they don't like.

      Allowing people they don't like to insult them? Not much of a priority.

      • redsocksfan45

        today at 7:23 PM

        [dead]

  • hgoel

    today at 7:09 PM

    I was definitely one of those useful idiots, not on here though

  • StanislavPetrov

    today at 8:15 PM

    >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 number of HNers (and people at large) who think that both corporate parties don't vehemently oppose free speech and privacy is disturbing. Right now, today, a massive number of Democrats who have spent years decrying Trump (and Republicans as a whole) as fascists are lining up to support a "clean" reauthorization of section 702 of FISA, which allows (despite the phony claims of its supporters) the warrantless and unconstituional surveillance of US citizens (and others). If our government was controlled fascists, why would anyone give them the power to spy on anyone without a warrant? Because it's all kabuki theater and everyone in DC is part of the same team, and you ain't on it.

    • hgoel

      today at 8:45 PM

      I don't think "both sides" works very well when one side has been supporting the murder of citizens for exercising their free speech, calling for denaturalization of citizens for expressing the wrong opinions and openly suppressing criticism by threatening to revoke broadcast licenses and barring reporters from DoD briefings for not taking sufficiently flattering photos.

      I don't think anyone posting here thinks that Democrats are pro-free speech and pro-privacy, but it's pretty clear that they are at least pretending to work within legal frameworks.

  • traderj0e

    today at 6:56 PM

    Democratic party is owned by Israel just as much, if not more.

    • smallmancontrov

      today at 6:58 PM

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

      • fwip

        today at 7:30 PM

        Not that far off from the truth. A number of college students who were protesting for Palestine had their college enrollment suspended, and lost their visas, effectively being deported. Which, yes, the university made that decision, but it didn't come without influence from the government.

        • FireBeyond

          today at 7:48 PM

          Which universities?

          With such a small sample size, you have a whole lot of confidence saying "well, the Dems encouraged them".

    • selectodude

      today at 6:58 PM

      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.

      • traderj0e

        today at 7:01 PM

        Both sides of Congress passed emergency weapons funding for Israel at the start of this war. Even if some Democrats are scoring political points complaining about it since it's during Trump's term and the war has become a stalemate, they're on board at the end of the day, like they were with Iraq (as some forget) before things unraveled. And during Biden's term, it was Gaza instead.

      • wredcoll

        today at 6:59 PM

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

        • smallmancontrov

          today at 7:08 PM

          If "led by the nose into bombing Iran" isn't being "owned by Israel," what is?

          • traderj0e

            today at 7:09 PM

            It totally is. Democrats got led into Israel's wars too. Interestingly the support was different, like Trump got money from the Adelsons and Biden from pro-Israel lobbies.

            • vel0city

              today at 7:37 PM

              > Democrats got led into Israel's wars too.

              Which ones?

              • traderj0e

                today at 8:30 PM

                Syria, Gaza, and even Iran.

              • jlarocco

                today at 8:10 PM

                Have people already forgot about Gaza?

                • vel0city

                  today at 8:12 PM

                  The US was involved in Gaza? The United States was actively spending billions dropping munitions there? When? Under which administration was the US directly involved in bombing Gaza?

                  Can you further clarify how the US was involved in the war in Gaza, and how that was the Democrats getting involved? And do you really feel that involvement was anywhere near what is happening or comparable with Iran at the moment?

                  • jlarocco

                    today at 8:18 PM

                    [flagged]

                    • vel0city

                      today at 8:24 PM

                      Its not US servicemembers pulling the trigger, its not US commanders deciding on targets, its not the POTUS starting the war. Pretty radically different things in my book.

                      How many US servicemembers were injured or killed in the US's apparent major war with Gaza?

                      We've spent ~$20B in grants for weapons procurement on Israel's behalf over several years, with a lot of that being defensive missile systems. I'm not a fan of us spending so much of our money on another country's military, especially when we hear over and over how we can't afford to feed kids or provide transportation to our people. But, we've spent over double than that so far in Iran in less than two months, and that's ignoring the many billions it'll cost to fix things that were destroyed so far. We're looking at the actual US cost of this war potentially reaching one trillion dollars.

                      Its a scale that's so radically different. And also, one was in support of a country who we have defense agreements with who was attacked, and another was us deciding to go bomb a country seemingly unprovoked.

                      Who is spreading whataboutism again?

    • bdhe

      today at 7:02 PM

      What facts would you point to, to argue that the Democratic party is "owned by Israel" more than the Republican party?

      • traderj0e

        today at 7:04 PM

        https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary?cycle=All&ind... is one

  • ifyoubuildit

    today at 6:59 PM

    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.

    • daytonix

      today at 7:15 PM

      You should have been "all ears" during the election...

      • mothballed

        today at 7:21 PM

        Chase Oliver was the only non-writein person on my ticket that even bothered to put up much pretenses of running on a privacy and civil liberties ticket.

        • daytonix

          today at 7:33 PM

          I do get that. Both parties are clearly bad. But one in particular is and was yelling from the rooftops about how they were going to destroy civil liberties of certain groups, and are now doing exactly what they promised.

          Everyone must simultaneously fight for a better system and choose the least-worst option when it comes time for an election.

          • MiiMe19

            today at 8:15 PM

            The one that forced people into their homes, required proof of medical operation to shop at stores, and tries to abolish my second amendment rights? Or the one that god forbid is deporting people that shouldn't be here in the first place.

            • daytonix

              today at 8:32 PM

              also how do you reconcile your belief in second amendment rights with alex pretti's death at the hands of ice, an organization empowered by the current admin?

            • daytonix

              today at 8:23 PM

              lmao who was in office in 2020?

              • MiiMe19

                today at 8:24 PM

                The ones who started the covid mandates were mainly democrat governors. Not sure why some people only pay attention to the president lol.

                • daytonix

                  today at 8:27 PM

                  trump claimed ownership of vaccine development, deployment, and mandates when they were successful. i remember you guys booing him about that

    • smallmancontrov

      today at 7:02 PM

      Kamala was a lot less bad than Trump. It wasn't close.

      • drnick1

        today at 7:14 PM

        Kamala would have 100% failed to confront the Iranian problem head on.

        • kelnos

          today at 8:21 PM

          Good, there was nothing that needed confronting.

          Iran's regime sucked (still sucks), to be sure. This was frankly not all that much of an issue for the US. It was a big issue for other Arab nations in the area (not to mention for Israel), but I'm not sure why we should be doing their dirty work.

          If the end result of all this is a large weakening in Iran's regime, a reduction in Iran's influence in the region, and (otherwise) a return to the status quo, I guess that's something of a victory. But it's far from clear that we'll even come out that well, and meanwhile we've murdered civilians, and spent American lives and war materiel. Not great. We should have left well enough alone.

        • smallmancontrov

          today at 7:31 PM

          That's what they said about Obama, but he got Iran to give up their stockpile of enriched Uranium, give up enrichment beyond 4%, and submit to a severe inspection program. All for unfreezing less money than Trump has spent so far on the Iran War, let alone the $200B that he wants, let alone the economic damage from the Hormuz shutdown, let alone the $5T that happened last time a Republican asked to spend $200B on a quick little war.

          At the time, the Republicans whined incessantly about how soft Obama was. But they sure enjoyed dropping those Obama Bombs last year that he commissioned as a Plan B. Obama spoke softly, carried a big stick, and hammered out a brilliant deal. Trump bragged loudly, tore up the deal, swung the stick he inherited, missed, and fell in the oil. Sad.

          At the time, Israel whined incessantly about how Iran was going to secretly enrich anyway. But their own intelligence from compromising the enrichment program shows in hindsight that this was not the case and Iran was behaving themselves.

          That's why I base my expectations on track records, not on Republican whining.

          • CGMthrowaway

            today at 8:31 PM

            You're right about a lot above. I would clarify though that Obama's deal was made by paying $150B+ to Iran (releasing frozen assets), which was immediately used to fund terrorists and conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Iraq etc.

            US withdrew from JCPOA under Trump (which led to a certain chain of events), but Biden was not able to revive it during his term. Not clear why we think a different president would be able to, and under what terms/concessions.

            • smallmancontrov

              today at 8:45 PM

              It was $100B more like $50B once you subtract the obligations which unfroze with the assets. We are quarreling over a pittance compared to what we will spend at the pumps and on the war, though.

              I wonder what wonderful things all the Russian and Iranian (!) oil that Trump lifted sanctions on will fund! We will find out in time.

              Kamala had a better shot at reviving the deal for the same reason Trump thought he had a chance at regime change: Iran's situation has been deteriorating. I'm quite sure that if she had hammered out a deal comparable to the JCPOA, Republicans would be running around yapping about how Trump would have achieved peace in the middle east by just having the stones to bomb Iran. Lol.

          • kelnos

            today at 8:22 PM

            > Obama spoke softly, carried a big stick, and hammered out a brilliant deal. Trump bragged loudly, tore up the deal, swung the stick he inherited, missed, and fell in the oil.

            This is probably the best and most succinct -- and pithy -- take I've read as of yet.

          • ipython

            today at 8:13 PM

            I wish people would reply with rebuttals rather than downvoting you.

        • bigfudge

          today at 7:23 PM

          I'm not sure if you're joking and this is a backhanded compliment to Harris, or you're sincere in your belief that what Trump will negotiate is going to be better than the Obama deal he ditched in the first term.

          I hope you're joking!

  • FuriouslyAdrift

    today at 7:43 PM

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

    • delecti

      today at 7:56 PM

      It does if those consequences are imposed by the government.

  • Nuzzerino

    today at 7:22 PM

    If it helps you feel better, I voted for free speech and feel that the administration did not hold up their end of the deal. The FTC’s recent “debanking” letter to the payment processors is just theater until something changes. I’ll leave it at that.

    • daytonix

      today at 7:37 PM

      Ok but why? They did not campaign on freedom of speech or expression, they actively campaigned against both...

      IMO there are no surprises from this admin, they are doing what they promised.

    • miltonlost

      today at 7:29 PM

      You found that after the first administration, in the end, he had earned your vote for Free Speech?

      • daveguy

        today at 7:38 PM

        Some people weren't paying much attention to "politics" until Dumpty started going full crazy. Still unclear exactly when that started.

        • nancyminusone

          today at 7:45 PM

          I don't really think he's even gotten that much crazier than his admittedly high 2016 baseline. He has gotten a lot better at execution of said craziness, especially after realizing consequences would be slow and few.

    • vel0city

      today at 7:34 PM

      > the administration did not hold up their end of the deal

      Trump? Not holding up his end of the deal? Who could have seen that coming!

      • fragmede

        today at 7:42 PM

        The Art of the Deal!

• valeriozen

  today at 8:12 PM

  [dead]

• sam345

  today at 7:21 PM

  Knowing that Google will do what changes your calculation? Abide by the law? I would be surprised if Google's so-Called promise to notify the subject of the inquiry was not couched in terms of being subject to legal requirements. Companies are not activists, and they shouldn't be expected to act like activists.

  • traderj0e

    today at 8:48 PM

    Google is acting like an activist here. They were also very eager to supply weapons to Israel when the Gaza war started, far more eager than they ever were to supply weapons to our own country!

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

• PaulKeeble

  today at 6:30 PM

  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.

  • pwg

    today at 7:00 PM

    "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.

    • tgma

      today at 8:17 PM

      Couldn't be more simplistic. Of course a three trillion dollar Google would behave differently than a 2008 Google with or without DoubleClick.

      Even today, I would argue an average sample of Googlers will likely think slightly differently about these things than an average sample of Facebook employees; but of course both will have to respond to influence from the external world: i.e. customer, society, govt.

  • matt_kantor

    today at 6:53 PM

    While this is a common quip that I find pretty funny, it's not really true. What actually happened was that while updating their code of conduct[0], Google changed it to only say "don't be evil" in one place instead of multiple[1].

    Google was also sued by former employees who claim they were fired because they tried to prevent Google from doing evil[2], in accordance with the code of conduct they agreed to. Sadly that lawsuit ended with a secret settlement, so we'll never know what a jury thinks. Since "don't be evil" is still in there I suppose it could come up again.

    [0]: https://abc.xyz/investor/board-and-governance/google-code-of...

    [1]: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-dont-be-evil/2540...

    [2]: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/29/1059821677/google-dont-be-evi...

  • john_strinlai

    today at 7:01 PM

    this is a fun story, but... its a story.

    here is the google code of conduct: https://abc.xyz/investor/board-and-governance/google-code-of...

    scroll down to the bottom, and you will see:

    "And remember... don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!"

  • GolfPopper

    today at 6:41 PM

    And we all ought to have dropped them, then. (Most of us, myself included, did not.)

    • Jensson

      today at 7:10 PM

      No other big american company says "don't be evil", if you aren't dropping Apple and Microsoft then you it doesn't make sense to drop Google.

• traderj0e

  today at 6:45 PM

  Honestly this slogan was always a joke. Obviously an evil company would say that.

  • smallmancontrov

    today at 6:51 PM

    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

    • traderj0e

      today at 7:08 PM

      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.

    • jll29

      today at 7:26 PM

      Such a wise observation from a paper published in the now-defunct journal "Computer Networks and ISDN Systems" after being rejected for the SIGIR conference...

      ...then BackRub turned Gogool mis-spelled, and the rest is history.

Promises are broken, policies are changed and political regimes vary. You need to make sure that you consider the future and not just now. And that means NEVER handing your data over in the first place.

He disrupted a career fair because it had defense contractors.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/05/palest...

• dwaltrip

  today at 8:26 PM

  Not simply because it had defense contractors…

  You made an editorial choice to leave out the part about selling weapons to Israel to use against Gaza.

  Once can agree or disagree with the action to disrupt the career.

  Either way, I find your omission a bit glaring.

• sleazebreeze

  today at 8:22 PM

  Should he be harassed and deported for this?

It's insane to trust a company in the way you trust a person. Companies can change their terms of service, their policies, or even their entire ownership or leadership at any time. We have seen over and over again that companies are seldom held accountable for even explicit breaches of prior agreements unless there's either collective action or someone very powerful affected. The only way to trust a company not to leak your data is for them not to have it. The only way to trust a company not to break their product or exploit you with it is for this not to be possible.

Has Apple done this? Trying to figure out a safe place to store photos in the cloud without having to self host.

Obama set the record for deportation. I wonder if ICE used similar methods when he was president. There might be a roadmap for digital invasion of privacy going back that far.

This is why E2E encryption is important

We could and should have better privacy laws, though foreigners will always be subject to less protection.

That said, a lot of this comes down to a failure in education around privacy and the cultural norm around folks thinking they have nothing to hide. The intuition most people have around privacy, and security, is incredibly poor.

• tdb7893

  today at 7:25 PM

  One thing to note when talking about "foreigners" is that many rights in the constitution specify "persons". So citizens and non-citizens theoretically have equal rights from that standpoint. So I agree in general but it's worth noting that he was supposed to have constitutional rights to speech and against unreasonable searches.

• Tangurena2

  today at 6:38 PM

  I think the issue is deeper than that. In the US, data about you belongs to the company that owns the hardware that the data is stored on. In the EU, data about you belongs to you.

Every time this happens the debate goes the same way — trust Google or don't, switch to Proton, self-host everything. But the real issue I believe isn't whether we trust Google. It's that the data existed somewhere it could be taken from in the first place.

I've been thinking about this a lot while working on a side project. I ended up making it work entirely offline — no server, no account, no network calls. Not out of paranoia, just because I couldn't come up with a good reason to ask users to trust me with their data. Turns out the best privacy policy is just not having anyone's data.

• EarthAmbassador

  today at 6:52 PM

  What’s your project by the way. Would be curious to know more, if you’re up for sharing now. Later is fine too.

  • woodydesign

    today at 7:06 PM

    No monetization plan — it's all local, no server, near-zero cost to run. Free and open source. I believe good tools should be accessible to everyone. Open source first, monetization will figure itself out down the road.

    It's called Hodor — prompt launcher for macOS.

• EarthAmbassador

  today at 6:52 PM

  Outstanding, and ethical too. So tell us, did you forgo monetization forever, or do you have a plan for revenue? Perhaps it’s not an issue for you, but knowing what you have up might help others conceive of a shift of the Overton window such that it’s no longer a given that that must be harvested.

• woodydesign

  today at 7:24 PM

  [dead]

> That notice is meant to provide a chance to challenge the request.

That's the author's interpretation. The promise doesn't indicate anything of the sort (as of this writing). And users cannot challenge these requests -- users don't own the data (in the US). The promise is very clear that Google will provide the data, if the request is compliant.

Now the text of the notification was past tense, that the information was provided, whereas the promise is crystal clear that Google will notify before providing the info, but to me that could amount to a simplification of "we have verified that the request is legally compliant and will be providing the info to them in 250 ms".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not on Google's side. I'm a huge privacy nut. But the fix is to not give your info to Google, not trust that they will abide by any policy. Especially in a case like this where your freedom is at risk. Most people are completely unaware and unthinking but this guy seems that he was fully aware and placed his trust in Google.

"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" - Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt - chanting to each other after a round of ayahuasca.

The fact that they complied with an administrative subpoena makes it so much worse. "Administrative" anything essentially has about as much value as toilet paper unless it goes to court and the judge agrees with whatever agency wrote it.

Does anyone remember when western nations were freaking out that Huawei would handle everybody personal data to the Chinese government?

Now, please tell me that American companies are better at privacy than the Chinese ones.

Btw, some alternative email providers in truly democratic countries:

* ProtonMail (Switzerland)

* TutaMail, Posteo, Mailbox.org and Eclipso (Germany)

* Runbox (Norway)

* Mailfence (Belgium)

• jll29

  today at 7:30 PM

  Personally, I would not trust anyone (e.g. ProtonMail) more than Google.

  If you have sensitive things in your emails, host your own mail, use GPG encryption or a one-time pad, or even avoid electronic networked machines altogether (depending on the level of security that you require).

  Switzerland-hosted services are no safer than others, recall that Crypto AG, who promised to sell secure encryption machines, were just a cover by foreign intelligence services (jointly US/DE-owned/operated by the CIA & BND).

  • dylan604

    today at 7:54 PM

    > host your own mail

    This is such a myopic view of the situation. Are you going to only exchange emails with people you host as well? Otherwise, anyone you exchange emails with will go through other email providers.

• eaf7e281

  today at 6:44 PM

  American companies give data to the U.S.

  Chinese companies give data to China.

  I don't trust either of them, but if I had to choose, I would use Chinese products in the U.S. and vice versa.

• j2kun

  today at 6:43 PM

  In that case, the US was worried about espionage, not violation of civil liberties.

• traderj0e

  today at 6:47 PM

  None of those countries are interested in free speech, not even this particular kind of speech, especially Germany.

  • notrealyme123

    today at 7:07 PM

    They don't sack you from the street and put you in a Camp. At least not anymore.

    Say what you want about especially Germany, but there you don't get sued by the president for billions if he doesn't like your opinion.

    • ExpertAdvisor01

      today at 8:02 PM

      It's worse in Germany. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwachkopf-Aff%C3%A4re

    • traderj0e

      today at 7:11 PM

      Germany will literally fine you for viewpoints, including criticism of Israel. What happens if you don't pay?

      • ExpertAdvisor01

        today at 8:03 PM

        Also you can't insult anyone especially politicians (which Americans like to do ) in Germany as it is a crime . https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwachkopf-Aff%C3%A4re

    • 948382828528

      today at 7:12 PM

      You just get a gestapo raid if you call out the German regime for its lies.

Honestly, I think the author is expecting too much from companies that are under jurisdiction of the US Government, especially in the situation as of 2026. It is telling that when they say "federal government" in the article, they implicitly mean the US Federal Government and not those of the UK or Trinidad and Tobago.

The author (in my opinion) needs to raise this with their own governments (UK is probably the one where they can get better action) to push for data sovereignty laws so that it's at least UK or Trinidad and Tobago that are the governments involved in investigating their data, via appropriate international warrants.

• wasabi991011

  today at 7:05 PM

  I don't see how your opinion matches the article.

  Expecting a company to hold its own promise (of notifying the user before it happens) sounds like a pretty minimal expectation, hard for me to imagine it being "too much".

  Furthermore, how would data sovereignty affect whether Google holds its promise on notifying users?

  • quadrifoliate

    today at 7:26 PM

    My opinion doesn't match the article. I do think the user has a legitimate grievance; I am merely suggesting a different avenue for fixing it.

    > Expecting a company to hold its own promise (of notifying the user before it happens) sounds like a pretty minimal expectation, hard for me to imagine it being "too much".

    I am saying that this expectation is unrealistic for a British/Trinbagonian citizen, given the political situation in the US right now. For a US citizen having the same issue (Google gave their data to the government without a safeguard), it would be realistic.

    > Furthermore, how would data sovereignty affect whether Google holds its promise on notifying users?

    The user could file a lawsuit in the UK about Google handing over their data without notification and proper jurisdiction. If Google UK employees were involved in handing over this data, they could be prosecuted and fined by the UK government.

    Overall what I am hinting at is that this would incentivize Google to put in proper safeguards for non-US citizens. Currently they seem to be treated as a separate, non-protected category.

    • 13415

      today at 8:13 PM

      You're essentially saying "Don't trust Google at all and ask your local government to put pressure on Google" and I agree with that but you frame it in a needlessly apologist way. If a company makes a promise and breaks it, that should always be a reason for concern, and the article is right for pointing that out.

  • marcosdumay

    today at 7:23 PM

    It's not anything close to minimal. Expecting a company to hold their promise against an authoritarian government is an extremely strong expectation.

    It's even harder than people doing the same, because at the end of the day companies are a bunch of stuff that can be taken over and controlled by other people.

This is a good reminder that you should assume there's no privacy on the internet whatsoever, unless you really go to extensive lengths to cover your tracks. And even then, you have to be really careful.

The author not say whether the subpoena prevented advance notification.

The Google policy he linked to says:

> We won’t give notice when legally prohibited under the terms of the request. We’ll provide notice after a legal prohibition is lifted.

• ethan_smith

  today at 7:06 PM

  This is the key detail everyone is glossing over. NSLs and subpoenas with non-disclosure orders are extremely common in these cases - Google literally cannot notify you without being in contempt. The EFF article frames this as Google "breaking a promise" but if there was a gag order attached, they had no legal choice.

• anonymousiam

  today at 7:59 PM

  This EFF article does not announce any legal action they are taking as a result of Google complying with the government's request. I'm not really sure what the purpose of the article is. If you object to the NSL non-disclosure requirements, sue the US Government. Google is probably blameless here.

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 everyone criminals.

• dylan604

  today at 7:52 PM

  If you're being followed/tracked by a drone, you are clearly not in a place where you expect privacy. How are we confusing being out in public and expectation of privacy issues?

• 1234letshaveatw

  today at 7:56 PM

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

Huh, I don't think anyone expect Google to maintain privacy for them, Google deliberately leak 500K user info to various governments, every year [1].

https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview

• tosti

  today at 6:33 PM

  The stats are per half a year, so even more than that.

  And we don't even know what the guy is really wanted for. I think EFF was just waiting for this to happen to make a political statement. That's what they do, if course, but how the hell can they be sure they're aren't vouching for a criminal?

an 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 scheduled for late Wednesday night. The vote would clear the way for House approval of a bill extending a major section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. The law is set to expire on April 20.

The statute, known as Section 702, permits the government to collect the messages of foreigners abroad without a warrant from American companies like Google — even if the targets are communicating with Americans.

It must really really suck to be a data-holder, that every single government out there views as some piggy bank, sitting there waiting to smash & grab.

It's certainly been quite the turn recently. But being between the people and the governments that seemingly inevitably will turn into arch fascist pricks & go to war against the citizens is not an enviable position. Hopefully many jurisdictions start enacting laws that insist companies build unbreakable backdoorless crypto. Hopefully we see legislation that is the exact opposite of chat control mandatory backdoors. It's clear the legal firewalls are ephemeral, can crumble, given circumstances and time. We need a more resolute force to protect the people: we need the mathematicians/cryptographers!

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• dkural

  today at 7:08 PM

  One of the attractions of a country for scientists and scholars, and visitors generally, is an atmosphere of freedom. The right to protest is a constitutionally protected right. He was well within his rights. The current administration is purposefully curtailing freedoms to intimidate ordinary people to keep quiet as they plunder the country. Google is now going along with it. Your advice is to just study and enjoy the experience, which is what most people do. Luckily there are others who can be loud for those who can no longer speak, their cities bombed and families killed; with the hope that the world will eventually notice and listen. Civic engagement, and a free press is one of the most important tools at our disposal to fight those who seek to exploit the weak - that is why every wanna-be dictator and corrupt politician is so keen to curtail these rights.

• soganess

  today at 6:38 PM

  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.

  • WalterBright

    today at 6:58 PM

    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.

    • soganess

      today at 7:08 PM

      A country is not a house. Conflating the legal framework of a nation-state with the etiquette of a private living room is a category error. As John Locke demonstrated when refuting the patriarchal theory of government, political power is fundamentally distinct from household authority. A private home is governed by the unilateral property rights of an owner; a republic operates via constitutional law and public rights.

      Pretending the rules of a private domicile apply to a jurisdiction by analogy is a sleight of hand. It operates like arguing that because memory safety is a strict requirement in system architecture, we must ensure human memories remain uncorrupted. The domains function under entirely different mechanics. A non-citizen in a public space is constrained by statutory law (and our statutory law is based on our understanding of inherent freedoms), not the etiquette of a houseguest.

      • WalterBright

        today at 7:16 PM

        Analogies are never perfect.

        The point remains, however. If you're here on a visa, the visa can be revoked, and you can be ejected. Revoking a visa is not a criminal sanction and not a violation of your rights, as there is no right to a visa. Your citizenship cannot be revoked.

        • wahern

          today at 7:46 PM

          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 there's no intent for them to be applied beyond the original purpose. For practical and procedural reasons courts typically only safeguard this principle by looking to whether the law nominally grants a power to do something, rather than if the power is rightfully exercised under a more wholistic and detailed interpretation of the laws, but the principle is still enshrined in US organic law, and in jurisprudence generally. Courts often do scrutinize exercises of state power to determine whether they violate this principle, but which applications are scrutinized tend to be a function of contemporary political debates and a courts ideological makeup.

          These deportations are an interesting study in how this plays out, because historically immigration and, especially, deportations is an area of law where the usual rule pertains. But free speech is the complete opposite, where for the past 100 years courts are much more scrutinizing; indeed, precedent in free speech case law requires explicit, deliberate, and fine-grained application of varying levels of scrutiny in each, individual case, a process which is quite exceptional even in cases involving constitutional powers and rights.

          It's worth pointing out that prior to the modern legal era, free speech law was quite different, both nationally and at the state level. Regulations and applications of regulations that incidentally impinged upon speech, but which otherwise clearly derived from legitimate state powers, received very light of any scrutiny. Regulation of commercial activity, for example, usually would not be considered to violate free speech rights even if it prohibited certain speech outright, so long as enforcement was nominally directed at commercial activity per se.

          • WalterBright

            today at 8:15 PM

            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 not charged with anything.

            BTW, I'd be spooked, too, if federal agents arrived at my door to question me.

        • pseudalopex

          today at 8:29 PM

          > Analogies are never perfect.

          This was a fallacious excuse for a fallacious analogy.

          > Revoking a visa is not a criminal sanction and not a violation of your rights, as there is no right to a visa.

          They mentioned inherent freedoms. They believed rights and laws are different seemingly.

          > Your citizenship cannot be revoked.

          Your citizenship cannot be revoked possibly. Others can.[2]

          [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47537839

          [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denaturalization

    • dkural

      today at 7:17 PM

      Different rules apply to members of the military stationed on a treaty-based foreign military base.

      However, as a thought experiment, let's go with your flawed analogy: Even then, this person was acting like a guest -- it is a long-cherished American tradition to exercise our constitutionally-protected right to free speech, assemble, and yes, protest. Nothing's more American than speaking against Government oppression and overreach.

      The government is not your owner. The government is not your father. You are a participant in the affairs of your country, and take responsibility in its direction. Civic engagement and right to protest are important tools to make our government accountable. These are fundamental American values. And you're welcome to bring friends. It's legal.

      • WalterBright

        today at 7:56 PM

        > Different rules apply to members of the military stationed on a treaty-based foreign military base.

        Members of the military and their families stationed in a foreign country are required to behave as guests of the host country. This is not a joke and is not taken lightly by the command. Also, an officer who cannot control the behavior of his family is not fit to be an officer.

        Maybe things have changed since I was a boy, but I hope not.

        • dkural

          today at 8:47 PM

          I agree with you - I was saying that members of the military & their families have treaty-defined standards of being in the country & thus required to behave a certain way, whereas a regular visitor or student visa comes with a different set of rules and not regulated by a military cooperation treaty.

        • LtWorf

          today at 8:40 PM

          > This is not a joke and is not taken lightly by the command.

          You can murder 20 people and not even go to jail if you are in the US army in an european base.

          https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incidente_della_funivia_del_Ce...

    • marcosdumay

      today at 7:30 PM

      Restricting the protest rights of non-citizens is an extremely heavy-handed policy.

      Yes, I know it's widespread, but it should really apply to non-residents. People that live and work in a country should have the right to protest.

      • WalterBright

        today at 7:49 PM

        They have a right to protest. They don't have a right to a visa. The State Department has broad authority to revoke visas.

        • marcosdumay

          today at 8:44 PM

          Democratic governments don't have the right to do things just because they want.

          It's part of what makes it a democracy.

  • keeda

    today at 7:05 PM

    I think this is common sense advice rather than a philosophical stance about free speech, said advice being generalized as "When in a foreign country, avoid trouble." As an example, if you visit China and start FA about Tibet, you will FO pretty soon, no matter how right you are about free speech.

    Yes, this case is a travesty, but that does not change the soundness of the advice.

  • avazhi

    today at 6:44 PM

    I find the idea of a non citizen protesting and causing social unrest diabolical. Most international students, (whether studying in the US or Europe or Australia or Malaysia or indeed anywhere else) understand that their visa does not grant them the same substantive rights that citizens of a country get. That’s as it should be.

    I couldn’t care less about a non citizen’s non existent free speech rights, nor would I expect to be provided rights exclusively afforded to citizens of a country in which I was visiting. Some of you guys have clearly never travelled outside your home countries.

    • pesus

      today at 7:12 PM

      There is nothing in the constitution limiting the 1st amendment to only citizens.

      • avazhi

        today at 7:52 PM

        The US Constitution limits the legislature's ability to pass laws restricting speech. The Executive revoking a noncitizen's student visa does not breach that Constitutional protection.

    • soganess

      today at 6:52 PM

      [dead]

  • izacus

    today at 7:20 PM

    You can follow the ideal of your forefathers by changing those abusive evil laws. Instead of demanding that foreigners risk their head in protest.

  • nailer

    today at 6:56 PM

    I could imagine someone arriving after independence and advocating against the new government, insisting that they return to King George, would indeed Find Out.

• traderj0e

  today at 6:49 PM

  Yes, US companies need to comply with US laws, but there wasn't any legal demand here to hand over the data.

  • tantalor

    today at 7:27 PM

    There was an administrative subpoena, which was not signed off by a judge, but does carry significant legal weight.

    The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and Stored Communications Act (SCA) requires service providers to disclose certain types of data (IP addresses, physical address, other identifiers, and session times and durations) in response to an administrative subpoena. The actual content of communications is excluded.

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2703

• lm411

  today at 7:41 PM

  > the idea of attending public protests/riots, particularly any directed against the governments that issued me my student visas, sounds like possibly the stupidest move

  You'd get a real kick out some of the protests in Canada then.

[flagged]

• microtonal

  today at 6:46 PM

  I think Trump and his ICE stormtroopers, aside from having already killed several people, are in violation of the US constitution. In particular warrantless search and seizure. Probably some more.

  What is the constitution worth if it is not or only selectively enforced?

  It's like an overthrow of a democracy and total inaction against it

  That is 100% it. If the people do not revolt against this (general strike), nothing will stop it. Democracy needs to be actively protected.

[flagged]

This is so wrong. What's the solution? Google class action lawsuit?

• jmward01

  today at 6:20 PM

  Start actively divesting of Google where possible. There are a lot of 'Switching to 100% European cloud' stories hitting HN lately. The more things like this happen the more stories like that will be there. Google and US tech are becoming toxic at many levels and an appropriate response is to mitigate risk by going to other providers.

  • free652

    today at 6:39 PM

    >Switching to 100% European cloud'

    Yea, they are even worse. They would sell out in a sec once goverment is going after them.

    • epistasis

      today at 6:44 PM

      What is the basis for this claim?

      • izacus

        today at 7:19 PM

        The law of their respective country most likely.

• izacus

  today at 7:18 PM

  You're going to sue Google for following the law of the land they're incorporated in? And demand that they - as a mega corporation - just ignore laws?

  How about making sure that your laws don't authorize ICE data requests? How about that?

• mothballed

  today at 6:37 PM

  Realistically? Treating visiting or studying the USA as visiting or studying in North Korea. Would you stand in Kim Jong square and protest their foreign policy? If you would I salute you. If something terrible happens, I will not blame you, the victim. But if you surprise pikachu at the results, you are a moron. Foreigners will end up making a choice -- study or protest -- but don't expect they'll be able to manage both.

  The powers that be in the USA have signalled they won't tolerate foreigners protesting state department policy on their soil. This is obviously unconstitutional. But it won't be changed through lawfare.

Sorry guys, but what’s the story here?

Google not protecting users data? Seriously?

• traderj0e

  today at 6:52 PM

  There really is a first here, they not only failed to notify the user but also handed over data they weren't legally obligated to.

• niam

  today at 6:37 PM

  I incline myself to be more annoyed at the problem than the folks reporting that the problem still exists.

• drowntoge

  today at 6:25 PM

  Yes.

• MallocVoidstar

  today at 7:02 PM

  Google publicly promises not to do exactly what they did here. Why would this not be a story?

  • dekhn

    today at 7:13 PM

    Where does Google publicly promise they don't do this?

    For example, there's https://policies.google.com/terms/information-requests?hl=en...

    """When we receive a request from a government agency, we send an email to the user account before disclosing information. If the account is managed by an organization, we’ll give notice to the account administrator.

    We won’t give notice when legally prohibited under the terms of the request. We’ll provide notice after a legal prohibition is lifted, such as when a statutory or court-ordered gag period has expired.

    We might not give notice if the account has been disabled or hijacked. And we might not give notice in the case of emergencies, such as threats to a child’s safety or threats to someone’s life, in which case we’ll provide notice if we learn that the emergency has passed."""

• paoliniluis

  today at 6:26 PM

  Agree. Google can't go against the all-mighty state. Just look at what Anthropic did and the effect of that action. There are billions of dollars at stake on government contracts that they can't afford to lose. Reminds me of Mullvad's ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPzvUW8qaWY

  • applfanboysbgon

    today at 6:39 PM

    Google is a multi-trillion dollar company that brings in $50b+ a year from Youtube alone, its government contracts are a pittance and it could absolutely do without them. There is no defense for complying in advance with a wannabe-fascist regime, especially when said regime is operating illegally.

    • andyjohnson0

      today at 6:53 PM

      I completely agree. But this argument would be incomprehensible to the class of people who own Google and similar corporations.

  • izacus

    today at 7:22 PM

    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.

    • applfanboysbgon

      today at 7:32 PM

      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.

I feel bad for both sides in this. Google can be put under so much pressure by the government, they are basically forced to do what they says; yes they can fight it, but if the government wants something badly, they will get it, they have powers (especially under the very broad definition of 'national security') to just get automatic compliance, using the same powers they can silence the companies from publishing anything about it too.

I of course feel bad for the student here too, he should not be targeted for exercising his rights to peaceful protest.

But Google is not the enemy here, I would bet good money their hand is forced to comply and their mouth is silenced. The enermy here is the overreaching government and ICE

• jmward01

  today at 6:44 PM

  I do not feel bad for Google here and they are at fault. If they are in a tight bind now it is only because they have eroded the privacy safety buffer so thin over the past few decades that they are finally having a hard time walking the line. If they had been fighting for strong, clear, boundaries then this wouldn't be an issue. Instead they have pushed automatic TOS changes that let them do what they want when they want and ignoring privacy settings and selling info to anyone with no consequences. Yes, they are likely in a 'tight bind' right now but it is one that they set up for themselves.

• microtonal

  today at 6:42 PM

  I feel bad for both sides in this. Google can be put under so much pressure by the government, they are basically forced to do what they says; yes they can fight it, but if the government wants something badly, they will get it, they have powers

  Or they could implement end-to-end encryption for many of their products and they wouldn't be able to give the government the data, even if they wanted to. But that would hamper them to analyze data for ad targeting.

• lm411

  today at 7:38 PM

  How does one feel bad for a corporation, especially of this size? Double so for one that quite literally removed "Don't be Evil" as its motto and from its code of conduct.

  The corporation has no feelings and I don't imagine the board members or shareholders are feeling bad about this.

  • Ardren

    today at 8:16 PM

    > removed "Don't be Evil" as its motto and from its code of conduct

    It's still in the code of conduct

    https://abc.xyz/investor/board-and-governance/google-code-of...

    And it still doesn't mean a damn thing.

• wat10000

  today at 8:01 PM

  I don't! For one thing, Google is not a person and has no feelings. Individuals within Google decided to comply. And none of those individuals would face any significant consequences for not complying. The US government, even now, has an extremely good track record of treating companies separate from their employees.

  The US is not in a full blown authoritarian regime. Big companies aren't failing to resist because they fear dire consequences. They're doing it because they don't care. If they think caving to the administration will result in $1 in additional profit compared to fighting it, that's what they'll do.

  Big corporations are paperclip maximizers but for money. Treat them like you'd treat an AI that's single-mindedly focused on making number go up.

• convolvatron

  today at 6:39 PM

  Google's sin here is not in obeying a warrant, it's by pressuring a strategy of extreme concentration of power and intermediation. Google wants to know who you talk to, where you are, where you work, how much money you make, what kind of jobs you are interested in, whether or not you've searched for recipes to make controlled substances, etc. etc. We can be happy that they failed, or at least are only weakly succeeding. They almost completely dominate email services, which were supposed to be distributed and run by whomever. This is hugely anticompetitive practice, right in the middle of our relatively new ubiquitous information infrastructure. One side effect of this is that they are one-stop shop for governments to get extremely detailed profiles of..to be honest, almost of all of us. But that's just one of the unfortunate side effects.

Such are the times that he feels he must say that he only attended the protest "for all of five minutes" and that he was protesting "what we saw as genocide".

He is almost ashamed of his views because of the current climate but he didn't do anything wrong, apparently.