I don't understand the tone of the comments here. I see lots of pitchforks out and pointed at these companies, but I don't get why. Yes, it appears that companies released data to the US government. That seriously sucks.
But as far as I can tell, the affected companies are the victims here. They were forced into doing this by the US government. There's no "cooperation" when the US government says "we are legally compelling you to do this".
If it wasn't by force, why would any of these companies do it? What's the upside for Microsoft of Twitter to send user data to the government? If it's cooperation, what do they get out of it?
I think this letter is a good thing because, even if the US government doesn't respond to it, it communicates that the companies involved are apparently releasing less information than people think. Why would they ask to show the numbers if they were large?
The companies here are asking to be more transparent. I can't see how anyone can argue that it isn't a step in the right direction.
People are upset with Google because they trusted an ever increasing amount of their personal data to a company who's mantra is, "Don't be evil", only to discover Google was facilitating snooping from a third party whistle blower. Google has asked its users to trust their good intentions. The revelation that nobody at Google was willing to speak out before Snowden can only be viewed as a deep failure of ethics on an organization-wide level.
Trust is necessary for Google's business model. This letter represents a truly minimal attempt at self-preservation. If you truly want to regain you users' trust then you need to be transparent. Who at Google failed to tell the truth until it served their own interests? Who decided to meekly comply rather than taking a stand? Name names. What is going on that we still don't know about? Silence is support.
>only to discover Google was facilitating snooping from a third party whistle blower.
This directly contradicts what he is mentioning above. When you are compelled to do something, it doesn't mean you are facilitating. It means you are being forced.
> Who at Google failed to tell the truth until it served their own interests?
Has anyone up until the last month when the press decided to take up the Snowden case 24x7 actually asked Google if this was going on? Books about this subject and the NSA goings on have been published for 5+ years now. Maybe no one cared enough to pay attention? Or it was known and ignored until now because no one thought it newsworthy? That doesn't mean Google was keeping it secret.
Could you please elaborate what it means to be "forced" in a democratic, free, law-abiding country?
Do you mean CEO of Google had a gun at their face? Do you mean they were treated to get electricity cut off? Internet cut off? Engineers thrown in jail without fair trial? Please kindly tell me what it means where a free democratic government is "forcing" you to comply with a secret unethical, most likely unlawful and surely unconstitutional request?
You can be compelled by the US government to do things you might not like to do. Google can either comply since they are a US based company, or not. The benefits of compliance outweigh the downsides of not complying.
>secret unethical, most likely unlawful and surely unconstitutional request?
There has been no evidence that what the NSA is doing is illegal. It has congressional oversight and approval.
What would be the likely result if Larry Page made a blog post detailing all the information they are petitioning the government to allow revealing, and then went directly to the media with the same information? It would be a bold act of civil disobedience, but obviously none of the CEOs of any of these companies have had the balls to do it.
I'm thinking that the US Government would have a much harder time prosecuting a high-profile, wealthy CEO over a systems administrator no one had heard of until a month ago. And the media attention would be harder to derail.
We know what happened in the case of QWest before 9/11.
They contacted the CEO/Chairman asking to wiretap all the
customers. After he consulted with Legal, he refused. As
a result, NSA canceled a bunch of unrelated billion dollar
contracts that QWest was the top bidder for. And then the
DoJ targeted him and prosecuted him and put him in prison
for insider trading -- on the theory that he knew of
anticipated income from secret programs that QWest was
planning for the government, while the public didn't
because it was classified and he couldn't legally tell
them, and then he bought or sold QWest stock
knowing those things.
This CEO's name is Joseph P. Nacchio and TODAY he's still
serving a trumped-up 6-year federal prison sentence today
for quietly refusing an NSA demand to massively wiretap
his customers.
Exactly my point. If Google does work with NSA in secret, then shame on Page and Brin for "doing evil". I cannot imagine how strong and adverse message gov would send out into the world shall they choose to harshly prosecute someone of a Google or Microsoft's CEO caliber.
> What would be the likely result if Larry Page made a blog post detailing all the information they are petitioning the government to allow revealing, and then went directly to the media with the same information?
He would go to jail. And then, instead of being a powerful executive in a strong position to push the government to do the right thing, he would be powerless.
Do you have any evidence, other than this PR letter, that he's pushing the government to do the right thing? Was he doing this before Edward Snowden leaked?
My issue is that they continued to tell people that they could be trusted. If you are being forced to do something, fine, but don't keep on telling others that you can be trusted.
Microsoft is an even worse offender here, with their recent marketing campaigns slamming Google for privacy while they themselves were apparently being 'forced' to disrespect their users privacy.
Don't claim something that you know that you cannot provide, even if you want to provide it.
>My issue is that they continued to tell people that they could be trusted. If you are being forced to do something, fine, but don't keep on telling others that you can be trusted.
Trusted...how? I guess we need to define trusted.
Google isn't selling your email history to the highest 3rd party bidder for extra money. They are complying with the law, handing over specific info for specific legal requests from the US government.
If I was being compelled to violate the 4th Amendment rights of my customers, I'd massively and securely erase any data that isn't vital to my service, or if that conflicted with the rights of my customers given being compelled by a secret court, I'd simply shut down my business.
That's what I'd expect any company which espouses a "do no evil" policy to do. Literally, if you are doing evil, especially if you are being compelled to do so, take whatever action is necessary to prevent further evil from being done.
As for the letter in the article, I find it completely insufficient. Asking for the ability to disclose how many secret compulsions are made against these companies isn't useful information for us. Further, it doesn't actually fix the problem. There shouldn't be secret requests being made. It should all be done under normal warrants, with exceptional cases that actually require secrecy decided by a judge, not the NSA. In this way, when your information is collected but isn't pertinent to national security, Google can actually inform you.
Oh please. I want the public to know about the massive, invasive, and very likely unconstitutional programs the Executive, Legislative and Judicial systems of my government have signed off on. We need to Fight the Good Fight.
But let's not be intentionally naive or ignorant. Google should have prefaced their "Don't Be Evil" mantra with a small-print "Unless a secretive Total Information Awareness-esque system of massive surveillance of raw and curated data is demanded of us in the form of a secretive judicial court in FISC whose base intentions were corrupted, that we are totally unable to challenge because the consortium of all 3 major branches of government are preventing us from seeking legal recourse"????
Right. As you were saying about models of trust and all that nebulous nonsense... Carry on.
> Who at Google failed to tell the truth until it served their own interests? Who decided to meekly comply rather than taking a stand?
Google didn't fail to tell the truth here, they (and others) were legally prohibited from doing so. You have to understand if Google were to simply put up a page saying, "We've complied with 1234 NSA requests", people will be thrown in prison.
These companies together spend tens of millions of dollars on political lobbying around the world. If they felt victimized by this situation, did they attempt to use their political influence to change the law?
And frankly, this entire scandal is in part these companies having their chickens come home to roost. Google and Facebook have for years been pushing the culture into accepting that private entities will store and analyze your personal information for profit. How many times has Eric Schmidt publicly said that people need to get over their ideas of personal privacy? Google has played a direct role in changing the expectation of privacy on the internet into one with which the present spying programs are legally defensible. We should demand the government stay out of our business while private corporations are using our data for their own gain and without transparency? You work for a mild-mannered spy agency.
I'll play the devil's advocate here. The tone of the comments is probably due to the fact that this letter is being written after it was out in the open what these companies were doing. It is due to the fact that it is coming after their vague language filled response letters to their customers over PRISM. The pushback from these companies should have started at the time they were "legally compelled to" to participate in the program.
And besides, if what you say is true, how do we know that these companies weren't legally compelled to write this letter to brainwash everyone? It's a drop in the bucket compared to what they were legally compelled to do before. How would we ever know if they will be legally compelled to report wrong numbers?
What was vague about the responses? Google issued something like three separate denials the day the news broke, with increasingly clear and strong language. They stated they had never heard of "PRISM", at least not by that name, and that there was no direct access or backdoors to their servers. They also acknowledged, I believe, that they get FISA requests for user data but that they weren't allowed to publish statistics about them. I honestly can't think of much else they could have said, short of releasing the exact numbers they're not allowed to, to clarify the situation.
Googles response do not answer any of the following questions:
Do Google allow NSA to run computer code on google's servers? More specific, do NSA supply database queries when demanding data? Do NSA ever provide Google with tracking code like JS or links to NSA webbugs (1px imgs) that Google later put in targeted ads? Do Google ever provide physical (or remote) access to servers, hard drives (like backups) or network devices to NSA?
Having NSA supplied querries running over all of googles databases are indirect full access to googles servers. That as bad as direct access/backdoor, and would likely be called as such by NSA. Same goes for trackers inside google's adnetwork, or if they got physical access to any backups.
> The tone of the comments is probably due to the fact that this letter is being written after it was out in the open what these companies were doing.
I could be wrong, but I believe Google has been pushing the government to be able to make this public since well before the PRISM story broke.
> It's a drop in the bucket compared to what they were legally compelled to do before.
Actually, we don't know if there is a bucket or not, which is precisely what Google and others are trying to remedy here. We simply have no data on the scope of what information the government is receiving.
It's not obvious that people feel betrayed on an extremely personal and professional level?
These companies allowed people with a perverted sense of morality and the law to root through the most private details of our personal lives and our company's. Then they release the most weaselly denial ever contrived, and now this weak excuse for action.
If one man can stand up to the US Gov. risking liberty and life, big businesses certainly can. Google stood by and let it happen. Too often does the world hinges on the actions of one man, in spite of the cowardice of the organised, resourceful and powerful.
As a result, I am disgusted by google, and the others. Yahoo tried, and still try. Why not the all mighty do no evil google?
Remember people, it only takes one man. One single, principled, brave, man. (I am reminded of the central message of Babylon 5)
What are the govt gonna do, throw Tim Cook, Eric Schmidt, Larry and Sergey into jail? Disappear them?
The absolute best lawyers in America available to them, massive public opinion likely to be on their side, unlimited funds to defend lengthy legal action. If THEY won't and don't feel able to say 'no this is wrong' and stand up to the NSA mission creep then that is a very scary thought and makes Snowden's actions even more brave.
I don't think that Google, or any of these other companies, can simply bail and go into hiding while continuing to do business from the unincorporated portion of a Russian airport.
Snowden, as of now, is not with his family, does not have a job, can't see his girlfriend, any number of things - so to argue he is doing something Google can't, namely to keep living his life from a Russian airport, makes no sense
If people can give up their lives or parts of it to do the right thing, why can't a company? (I would add that if you have a good reason for it, that's also a reason to re-think companies, and not to simply accept that they can't do the right thing because that's how they are)
I could see a CEO not wanting to see his employees out of a job, or being afraid of his shareholders caring more about the share value than what they see when they look in the mirror; but that doesn't automatically justify anything. Especially since even if Google "died", just for refusing and resisting a little (which I doubt, but I'm willing to assume it and argue from there anyway), something else would have to replace at least parts of it, and former Googlers would be the first hired for any and all of that.
But considering Erich Schmidt says stuff like "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.", it kinda seems like the issue sits deeper. It's not (just) cowardice, it's lack of awareness.
> They were forced into doing this by the US government
This is a convenient position to take, which clears Google of any responsibility.
There were companies, smaller than Google, that stood up against government requests to spy on their customers. Quest is one of them. But Google agreed to the terms, "signed papers", and has been cooperating ever since.
More so, Google et al. deliberately lied about commitment to user privacy, which all of the PRISM participants reiterated in their press-releases after Snowden revealed the program.
> I think this letter is a good thing
This letter is a good thing, but little more than good PR.
Releasing statistics on government requests has no implications on the PRISM program, which gives intelligence agencies unhindered access to our data.
I think it's a little unfair to pride oneself as a privacy activist, while spying on your users.
Google has ALWAYS pushed for more transparency in government data requests. The government only allowed reporting on NSL's earlier this year (and even then only in aggregate). FISA actions were and are still a harder fight.
Microsoft willingly developed backdoors into their systems for the NSA. They were actively developing ways to help the NSA.
Google, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook, etc. have lost trust because of this whole spying thing. To say that these companies were somehow "victims" is troubling to me. As far as I can tell the Constitution of the U.S.A is the law. Anything introduced to purposely subvert the constitution is illegal and should be challenged.
With companies like Google who have a lot of weight (money) to just hand over anything private to the NSA without actually calling them on it, is disturbing. These NSA programs have been going on for a very long time; collecting everyone's (american AND their allies) private communications. I'm sorry, but victim? No way. Instead of keeping to the "cloud" mentality there could have been more work on protecting users with proper encryption techniques. No body has done this. Yes, Yahoo may have lost in secret, but they also didn't fight the NSA's spying by creating technologies or build upon current technologies to protect their users.
I trusted Google to keep my gmail/youtube/etc. information private for me and those whom I talk to. Advertisements bothered me, yes, so I stopped communicating about confidential things to do with business, etc. I have been a Google user since a week after gmail was introduced.
I have deleted all my connections to Google thanks to these revelations.
In order for Google, Facebook or Microsoft to gain my trust again, there needs to be innovation in the encryption world where I can seamlessly encrypt ON THE CLIENT and decrypt ON THE CLIENT machine with out storing anything to do with the private keys on the cloud or trust Google with the private keys. Would this ever happen? Probably not. Google is an Ad company. Privacy isn't exactly their biggest strong point. Same goes for the others.
One reason why, is because the number of individuals, accounts, or devices for which information was requested under each authority is a red herring.
If I get to run a quarry on the Gmail servers, scanning through every personal email to find a subset of say 100 people, the statistic that Google want to publish will state that only a 100 peoples account was violated. In truth however, all customers was violated to create the list of the 100 people which account contents got sent over.
Second, Microsoft or Twitter do gain privilege by cooperate with governments. They become less likely a target for lawsuits directed at violations of competition laws. they also get a easier time lobbying politicians for lower taxes if they at the same time are helping out with spying at the local population.
"If it's cooperation, what do they get out of it?" I'm pretty sure that the US government could give something in exchange for the disturb, for example:
* a helping hand when foreign governments want to close loopholes that allow these companies to dodge local taxes
* useful information about foreign competitors that comes out of the snooping
How about supporting secure storage and communication instead? Why didn't these companies start working on that as soon as they were "compelled" to cooperate with a legally dubious program?
That's exactly what Apple has tried to do, and although it hasn't completed the job yet, is much further along than anyone else.
Google on the other hand makes it's money out of analyzing people's communication and online behavior. Why would you expect it to protect people's privacy from itself?
If Apple's claims about iMessage and FaceTime are true, Apple is to be commended. And far be it for me to be one of the naysayers. But it's a bit of a joke to store the messages in the clear in iCloud.
As for Google, I expect them to charge a fee to make up for lost ad revenue. I already pay for several Google services.
> But as far as I can tell, the affected companies are the victims here. They were forced into doing this by the US government. There's no "cooperation" when the US government says "we are legally compelling you to do this".
Think about other instances in which the U.S. government "forces" companies into doing things: say a new EPA reg or a new SEC reg. Every such activity is met with a flood of litigation from the companies affected. But here, apparently only Yahoo put up a fight.
It might seem like the DOJ is omnipotent, but really, it's a very budget-constrained and capacity-constrained entity (it's too busy fighting Nancy Reagan's drug war). People need to get their stories consistent on this point: if the government is owned by big evil corporations with lots of money, well the tech industry has plenty of those that can throw their weight and money around.
To be fair, I don't know all of the details, but my gut feeling is that if these companies had wanted to, they could have at least forced the DOJ to spend a lot of money and time getting their cooperation. As a practical matter, not doing so might have been the wrong move even from a business standpoint--each company possibly stands to lose a lot more than they would have had to spend on enough litigation to ruin the DOJ's day.
Think about other instances in which the U.S. government "forces" companies into doing things: say a new EPA reg or a new SEC reg. Every such activity is met with a flood of litigation from the companies affected. But here, apparently only Yahoo put up a fight.
It's really not comparable though... It took Yahoo six years to earn the right to communicate about one particular lawsuit[1]. We have no idea how many legal challenges Google, Apple, and others are involved in but prevented from talking about.
a) If a company is approached by any spooky three-letter agency, the higher-ups of that company could possibly interpret that as a validation that they've made it 'big' -- and furthermore, they could see in that offer a security that three-letter agencies then have an interest in seeing the company continue to scale up and succeed (because of limited funds, three-lettered agencies can't just go merrily creating tools that work properly with the 'next facebook' every other 9 months... and furthermore, there's no knowing if they'll come across resistance when they solicit 'direct access' to the next company. Also, NSA would have just loved it if China and Russia was a big user of Facebook... so I can even imagine them doing something subtle to try to make that a reality).
b) I have worked in the defense industry, but what I worked on was pretty unremarkable (and not at all weird). Most of my coworkers and bosses were pretty liberal. I remember once I asked my boss (with whom I was pretty close and friendly with) how he felt that he was working for the defense given his political beliefs... and he had a 'meh, gotta put food on the plate for my kids somehow' answer. Then he further reaffirmed that what we were doing wasn't anything special, it's the folks in the NSA who're doing crazy Stuxnet-type shit. If we weren't doing what we were doing, someone else would have. So, my point in saying this is, for all the rage you see on HN I really just can't help but wonder if these folks would deny an offer from a company who's working for the American defense. I really think the only reason there was a lot of commotion (finally) over this issue was that it had just the right PR elements: a good looking guy, leaving the country in a coolass way, humiliating the world power by escaping arrest, etc. I mean, anyone who knew anything about anything already knew about these programs -- this was the cover of Wired last year: http://i.imgur.com/3Rjh1la.jpg
Lastly, I think folks who're pretty made at the top leading will just acquiesce to requests from NSA for reasons mentioned in point a, and because folks at the top are usually the sort of people who care about succeeding and making a company profit as much as it can, they generally don't give a damn about anyone's privacy:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
A bit ridiculous, define 'by force' please. If they really think a letter is the right thing to do, why don't they write it earlier? Is that means they are not forced now? It's been years for god sake. And how do I know if this is the first program and the only one exists? The letter is only a part of rebuilding their public relations, nothing to do with "right direction", just like an animal hiding from it's enemy, that's how an animal react when it realizes danger. What these company can and will do is to stop PRISM and start another one with a brand new name, because the profile of current one is too high now. "There won't be another whistleblower in the future, at least for a few years, every user will consider that we are defending them and they will trust us again, so let's blow up this program with a letter and start a new one for the sake of our big data."
I'm sure the number of people like Snowden is much less than the number of programs like PRISM. I ask myself frequently, why did I trust these company in the first place, why did I trust them again and again. I guess Snowden is just a flag for "it's time for a change", but when I see your comment, I see no hope, 'cause guys like you, the potential whistleblowers, need these companies to be trusted. I wonder if you've known anything about these before Snowden reveals, if you have, why were you being quiet, if you haven't, how the hell can you trust your employer now?
I see the future, people are willing to sell themselves for a 'better life' based on their privacy. Why? Because some of us are selling it already. But I don't want to be one of them, even I ended up with starving to death.
on an only somewhat related note, I'm much more troubled by the fact that reporting these numbers is currently illegal, than by the fact it's occurring, and I'm surprised more people don't express a similar view.
that's because i can imagine situations (e.g., FBI identify a child trafficker) where i am okay with his privacy being compromised. but I can't for the life of me come up with a scenario where it benefits society to hide these statistics. for crying out loud, tell us how much data you're looking at!
But as far as I can tell, the affected companies are the victims here. They were forced into doing this by the US government. There's no "cooperation" when the US government says "we are legally compelling you to do this".
I totally agree this is (belatedly) a step in the right direction, and I'm pleased Google are getting together with other SV companies to question the right of government to extract data at will from their servers, but we don't really know if PRISM was a voluntary program or not at this point, or even what the extent of the surveillance is, because no-one is willing to tell us. So it's hard as a customer to decide where Google stands on this.
Are other companies like Twitter and Amazon cooperating with PRISM? As far as I understand it some companies are cooperating, and some are not, and some like Apple only agreed relatively recently, unlike say Microsoft, Yahoo or Google. The response to the news that they had been cooperating was also a bit odd because rather than siding with their customers and asking for more transparency at that point, the non-denial denials issued told us nothing about what exactly Google have been doing, but lots about what they're not doing in quite specific terms.
The real focus of people's anger should of course be the government which has insisted these companies take part, and refuses to allow any transparency on numbers and methods, but there are lingering suspicions about whether the practices are legal, and whether companies were actually obliged to take part on pain of sanctions, or just strongly encouraged to do so.
Well, because google lied and still lied. People looked the other way when google was caught wifi snooping on innocent people's data, customer and non-customer alike. People looked the other way when google was caught hacking into people's computers to still track them after they turned cookies off. People looked the other way when google changed the TOS out from under them, android users alike, to combine and correlate their data from the various devices and services to super-profile them.
Now google is still lying with a straight face it seems. Snowden's "hands were tied" and he still told the truth. Manning's "hands were tied" and he still told the truth.
Google is still lying through their teeth it seems and was among those parroting the standard line "no direct access" and "never heard of prism". No more trust until they at least come clean. Even now they push for a better way to spin the requests instead of just coming clean.
Geeks: "Uhm, there's some pretty big privacy concerns with you storing all our data for as long as you possibly can"
Google: "No, it's cool no one is actually looking at your data anyway"
...few years later...
Google: "Sorry guys, we've been handing you data over to the NSA all along, we are totally the victim here"
People are mad because google led people to believe their data is completely secure. Which was not true. They should have gotten out of the business of amassing personal information if they truly believed in 'dont be evil'.
Although they were forced to provide the data, were they also forced to not disclose that fact to their users/customers? If so, then that's another matter to discuss entirely.
Thank you, it's good to keep in mind that as far as the public has been told, the companies are claiming and the government is agreeing that all requests are legal requirements by the government on these companies. I don't understand the tone here either.
But there's a whole different discussion to be had around:
>If it's cooperation, what do they get out of it?
I'm just spit balling here, but tax breaks and favorable legislation are a reasonable first guess. Keep in mind that just like the legal justification for these user data requests, the meetings of the parties involved here (congressmen and company representatives) are not public knowledge. We don't know what benefits are or may be offered.
In fact, we don't know what benefits could be offered. Most of the public--HN included--can't even guess or imagine the benefits that a company would seek in an instance like this. Most of us simply don't have business knowledge at that level, let alone knowledge of the business interests and goals of an individual company as large as Facebook.
So the absence of any of us being able to give a good answer to 'what do they get out of it' is not a good reason to believe that they're not getting something out of it.
We all like to believe in the good of people. But it's our responsibility as the governed, in order to protect our liberty and the liberty of those who follow us, to challenge the actions of the government especially actions on this scale of importance--because we're effectively questioning if the government is already using telecommunications as telescreens.
In Google's case, it's because Google advocates (and often incentivizes) the disclosure into its care. Since Google has been participating in this spy program for at least 5 years, while continuing to encourage people to give it their data, it is directly complicit.
The problem I have with every company's response so far is that they deny very specific accusations using vague language, then tell us they "only provide data when required to by the law".
I don't care about "Section 215" and "Section 702" specifically. We've seen the government has had no problem with coming up with their own secret "interpretations" of these laws, what's stopping them from using other laws to secretly justify programs?
It's like a "blacklist" rather than a "whitelist" approach. I want companies to categorically state with no wiggle room the only circumstances under which they provide data to government/law enforcement before I even begin to think about trusting them again.
Keep in mind - this is a PR move. None of these companies did anything before their backdoors were revealed. They are only writing this extremely-public press notice because they are getting called on their shenanigans.
Yahoo received special commendations from the EFF for it's fights to secure your privacy. I wonder if it a business strategy. "We seem to be losing market share so lets fight strongly for our users privacy and when it comes out we're doing it it will convince people to switch." Or is it just a company morality. And why aren't other companies acting in our interests in a similar manner?
And I'm not actually sure about their market share since their stock is remarkably steady over 5 years and has been steadily climbing since the middle of 2012.
I know look at the max length of Yahoo's stock and yes, it seems they have dropped quite a bit at points. Dec 1999 being their highest at 108 and change (dot com bust I'd imagine came shortly after), and as high as 39 in 2006 up from a low of 4.45 in Sep 2001. Currently 29 though so they've been putting in work since they dropped to 11.51 in Nov 2008.
What "backdoors" were revealed, may I ask? It's been known for years that Google makes user data available to law enforcement agencies when there's a warrant. They've been up front about this with their transparency reports. The only revelation here is that there are additional secret FISA requests they can't include in the reports. That sucks and shouldn't be happening, but users privacy isn't being compromised any more than it already was.
I think this is an excellent example of a meme outside the scope of Internet pop culture jokes. The idea that back doors exist has such wide appeal, and is so easy to believe, that few people ask for evidence beyond allegations. Skeptical remarks are disregarded. The confidence people have in their own extrapolations from a few words in a single deck of PowerPoint slides[1] is astonishing.
If you were the EFF would you refrain from signing when the outcome aligns to an acceptable result? I believe that this is a PR move, but I also believe this is not the moment to dismiss the effort.
This letter basically sets out "it's ok to snoop on our customers, just as long as we can report it".
Why aren't these companies, and people in general, demanding that operations like PRISM are terminated entirely? Why are people prepared to accept this sort of intrusion into their private lives at all?
If a peeping tom kept bothering me I would not accept his presence as long as he called me up before he started watching my house.
The major issue here isn't the way the government snoops on its citizens, it's that it happens at all.
It's never a bad idea taking small steps with such changes. Once transparency is in place, it'll be much easier to argue for stopping the practice altogether.
As a sidenote, think about how efficient copyright advocates have been with this strategy: slowly pushing through seemingly innocent changes.
In principal I agree, transparency is essential to political and social debate.
However, in this case we are not dealing with business law or economic policy and such. We're dealing with something insidious and socially toxic. To me the correct course is to outright object to mass personal surveillance from the outset. We should not allow tyranny to edge its way into our society, it should be stamped out and named to be the rotten cancer that it is.
I don't think I can ever trust any of these companies again, sorry. It's sad. I really liked their products. In my case it only matters with regards to Google. Gmail, for instance, feels creepy when I log in.
On the other hand, competitors have a chance to catch up now. Which is great news for consumers.
It's a fine initiative, I guess. Except, how is it related to PRISM, which provides direct access to user data for the interested parties? There's no FISA request to be made. As I see it, they want to come out as privacy advocates while closely partnered with NSA.
My latest conspiracy theory about the relationship between Silicon Valley and the U.S. government:
Companies like Google, Apple, Facebook and others don't have time to do a lot of research and development unless it's directly related to the product they sell. So Google hires a lot of programmers who figure out how to deal with a lot of data, Apple hires a lot of software and hardware people who design beautiful integrated computing experiences...but their success depends on so much more than those narrow fields.
For example I read recently about some really high-tech networking switches that Google uses which allow their data centers to run that much more efficiently. Does Google have time to invent new kinds of networking equipment? Probably not. Maybe to build and deploy them... but not to invent. So they make a deal with DARPA, NSA or whoever. The government will trickle down any technological breakthroughs they've made using tax-payer money to the corporate sector, and the corporations will in exchange be VERY compliant and VERY quiet when it comes to feeding the NSA user data it hungers for.
Now shit's hit the fan, and the companies are attempting to simulate their dislike for the NSA.
> Does Google have time to invent new kinds of networking equipment? Probably not.
Hah. If they have time to invent self-driving cars, balloon powered internet, and wearable computing devices I'm pretty sure they can spare a few people to invent networking equipment that would save them millions.
The first one to add real encryption to their platform could make a lot of money... especially if they are in desperate need of a competitive advantage.
The first one to add real encryption to their platform will have a hard time explaining to their users why their platform is secure and their competitors are not.
The first one to add real encryption will have to figure out how to deal with the angry users who don't understand that if they lose their private key, all their encrypted data is completely gone, forever.
Okay, so who exactly are you going to trust, then? Basically all of the major companies most people use day-to-day have been caught. Are you now going to excise every one of them completely out of your life?
I mean, your morals and ethics are great, but if they lead you to not using any major product because of them, then how effective is that?
I understand sticking by your morals, but literally every big companies has turned over data to PRISM. Not using any of these products because of morals is silly.
Why was the title cropped here? If you're going to explicitly name companies don't you think all should be named? The title is implying other companies (i.e. Microsoft, Yahoo, Twitter, etc.) aren't a part of this. Maybe it should've been along the lines of "major tech companies including..."
The poster updated the title. I would agree with you but article's title named 5 companies and the poster's title named 3. Either copy the title in it's entirety or don't name any companies.
When I first read this I starting thinking this is a good start but I think these companies are just trying to save face. Now that these programs have been exposed in more light both sides, the government and the companies who participate, are just trying to minimize the impact without telling the full truth about other programs.
That's my problem too. They still seem to be trying to just spin the requests better and not addressing the basic over-reach assumption that everyone's info is up for grabs if there is a "51% confidence" you may be whatever their current rationalization is.
Does anyone seriously believe that this is anything other than PR? While these companies were prevented from disclosing details, they easily could have announced that they're fighting for rights. And that's the problem.
Although I won't agree with it, I can understand that Google (and crew) were prevented from DISCLOSING that they're being tapped. Fine, gun to the head and all that. But what prevented them from saying "we receive requests, we fight them", and even providing information on the process of fighting a request.
I don't understand the tone of the comments here. I see lots of pitchforks out and pointed at these companies, but I don't get why. Yes, it appears that companies released data to the US government. That seriously sucks.
But as far as I can tell, the affected companies are the victims here. They were forced into doing this by the US government. There's no "cooperation" when the US government says "we are legally compelling you to do this".
If it wasn't by force, why would any of these companies do it? What's the upside for Microsoft of Twitter to send user data to the government? If it's cooperation, what do they get out of it?
I think this letter is a good thing because, even if the US government doesn't respond to it, it communicates that the companies involved are apparently releasing less information than people think. Why would they ask to show the numbers if they were large?
The companies here are asking to be more transparent. I can't see how anyone can argue that it isn't a step in the right direction.