
Dear Google: Do no evil, or comply with the Patriot Act? - sneak
http://sneak.datavibe.net/20110627/google-and-the-patriot-act/
======
bad_user
I don't think even Google has the power to fight the Patriot Act. This is one
instance where you can't blame it on them, unless you're saying that they
should pull out of the U.S. (which the author did).

But Google is an american company. They've got huge investments in their U.S.
facilities. Many of their developers live in the U.S. Many of their data-
centers are in the U.S. Pulling out of the U.S. would come with a huge price
for them and it isn't really feasible.

So instead of blaming Google, why not blame the government for extending /
prolonging the Patriot Act? Heck, why not blame it on Obama, since all his
preellection talks about civil liberties were clearly bullshit?

This reminds me of that South Park episode:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douche_and_Turd>

~~~
sneak
I'm not saying we shouldn't blame the government - but I'm somewhat tired of
hearing the "we're just complying with Federal Law" line from US-based service
providers. Godwin aside, it's the same dodge as "I was just following orders".

I'm the OP and author, and I personally pulled out of the US for this very
reason.

EDIT: I feel I might also add that I had the same attitude toward the
situation... for the first decade. After 10 solid years of PATRIOT Act abuses,
I've become convinced that the American people and the government simply
aren't going to do anything about it, and it's up to individuals and other
organizations (e.g. corporations such as Google and startups such as those
found on HN) to do something about it themselves.

~~~
mike_esspe
Can you share your experience with pulling out of US?

~~~
sneak
I miss my friends and family a lot - all the time. It's not something to be
undertaken lightly.

I frequently worry about my annual visa renewal, knowing that I'm not a
citizen in the place that I live and keep all my stuff. Should they ever
decide to say no, I have to pick up and leave.

I live in a rather wonderful place (Berlin), but I frequently miss my home and
native culture. I wish I could go back, but I have a general personal policy
now of not visiting countries that keep political prisoners. Being a hacker
and relative weirdo, I've seen too many cases of harassment of those who make
a point of themselves (within the confines of the law). Examples include
everyone from Sklyarov to Appelbaum.

I'm writing a rather lengthy paper about my reasons for leaving. It covers the
data points that spell out, in my opinion, why it's now lunacy for reasonable
people to continue living in the United States when they have the option of
getting on a plane and going somewhere else. Unfortunately my current project
workload means I probably won't have it edited down until at least winter, but
stay tuned.

~~~
pstack
Germany sounds delightful, but I enjoy playing video games. Including violent
ones.

Which, of course, goes to show the whole problem. Simply saying you're taking
your ball and going somewhere else doesn't really deal with the problem that
everywhere is pretty much under the same sort of absurd situations, in one
form or another.

~~~
sneak
The problems with the USA are the cops coming and killing or imprisoning you,
or harassing you or your employers, or stealing from you. The rule of law no
longer exists.

The problems with Germany are readily avoided by using strong crypto and
privacy software - it's a simple matter of "don't get caught". Free speech is
easy. The rest is pretty straightforward in a civilized society.

------
wccrawford
"Dear Google: If you want us to trust you to not be evil, why do you position
your company and our personal data in a place (the USA) where the ruling
regime can freely do all the evil they want, regardless of your organization’s
basic philosophy?"

Oh, I can answer that: Because they have to exist somewhere, and they haven't
yet started their own country.

When mankide moves into space and Google can claim an asteroid or planet all
of their own, they can make the rules and won't be subject to someone else's.
But on Earth, there is nowhere that fits that description.

Today's Utopia of freedom is tomorrow's den of villainy. I mean, prior to the
Patriot Act, the US -was- that place. If the US can't stop from going down
that route, why believe anyone else can?

~~~
gnosis
_"When mankide moves into space and Google can claim an asteroid or planet all
of their own, they can make the rules and won't be subject to someone
else's."_

This wouldn't necessarily be a good thing either. Not being subject to any
laws but their own could very well make them more "evil" than ever.

------
nextparadigms
I don't really blame Google here, though I could see how they could (should?)
take a similar stance to the one in China.

But let's not forget who is truly to blame here. It's the US Government who
keeps pushing for policies like these, and who is disregarding due process
whenever they think they can get away with it.

And finally, it's the US people who are at blame for being content living
under such policies, and not speaking out enough against them and trying to
stop them from materializing or trying to get them cancelled - allowing the
Patriot Act to continue, allowing the TSA to not only exist, but also expand
outside the airports, not speaking out against the Protect IP, and so on.

~~~
jbjohns
>And finally, it's the US people who are at blame

So you've just come full circle. The government will continue to do what
they're doing and the people will continue to not care. What good does it do
us to put responsibility on those who have proven they will do nothing?

------
biturd
If new startups in tech, businesses in general, google, and other large data
providers did decide one day to make a point, and move operations to a country
that was more free, and more aligned with the public's interest, what would be
the best current country?

Specifically, where issues like The Patriot ACT, DMCA, overbearing authority,
open and known corruption etc are the least problematic in comparison to the
USA.

So far, I am thinking that wherever The Pirate Bay is hosted would not be a
bad place. Perhaps Russia, as they seem to have allowed sites like allofmp3 to
exist a while back. I understand there will be no ideal place, but there are
degrees of idealism that could be located.

If companies the size of google even hinted at it, perhaps that would enact
change in the USA, and they would not end up needing to move. Twitter has been
largely dictating many conveniences in order for the city of SF to keep them
local, I seem to recall Netflix gets pretty nice deductions for propping up
the USPS in general, and specifically for keeping the local San Jose economy
in better shape.

I believe all these companies could enact change if they looked into moving
operations. Follow the money is often said, and that is what the US would do.
We can't afford to lose the one thing that is protecting out economic future.

------
Shenglong
I can't even begin to think how Google could pull out of the US. I can't begin
to imagine how the economy and markets would respond to that. Moreover, I
doubt anyone at Google even has the authority to make such a move. I believe
there's a clause somewhere that redistributes decision-making power, if the
head has gone insane. Pulling out of the US, I would imagine, would constitute
insanity to most shareholders.

On a second point, I don't even believe Google should have pulled out of
China. This is clearly a moral judgment on my part. Baidu has replaced Google
in China, and their censorship is just as bad, if not worse, than what Google
would've been subjected to. I've been told that _not doing anything, is just
as bad as doing something bad_ \- and I believe it. By pulling out, Google may
have absolved itself from immediate guilt, but what's the end result? If they
had stayed in, they could have at least had half a say in what was going on.

Lastly, there's a clear bias in sentiment towards the Patriot Act here, and in
the highly intellectual community. I need to remind everyone that while
sometimes it seems like we're the majority of the world, universities, start
ups, and high-end jobs account for a small percentage of the world we're
living in. Add to this, the fact that people remember disaster a thousand
times longer and intensely than peace and prosperity, and I think the reasons
for this act's existence comes into place. I don't particularly agree with the
Patriot Act either, but I doubt it's something that will go away any time
soon. Thus is the problem with short-term election democracy. Everyone's
wondering how they can be re-elected in the short term, and stop caring about
the long term.

~~~
corin_

      Baidu has replaced Google in China, and their censorship is just as bad, if not worse
    

I disagree with you on that point, that's not far off from the sort of logic
that it's not immoral to be a contract killer because if you weren't doing it,
someone else would be hired and the target would die either way. Your logic
isn't quite as basic, but you could extend to "if I let someone else be hired
for this murder they might do it in a less humane way".

And, obviously, don't think I'm comparing web censorship with murder on the
moral scale, just comparing the justification for being a part of something
you disagree with.

~~~
Shenglong
That's a moral-judgment argument that's landing on the side of a slippery
slope. I suppose, the best way to think about this is to address it by adding
to it: _If the market only has room for one contract killer, and you decide to
only take on 75% of the clients who come to you, would it be better for you to
stay in the business or let someone else take your place?_

Obviously, you face a moral dilemma either way. You don't want to kill, but
you can stop 25% of the people from dying, by continuing to kill. I see this
as more the situation that Google was in, rather than a flat out replacement
logic. Ultimately, I think which way we answer depends on how we see the
world, and what moral principles we use to govern our own lives; I doubt
everyone will agree on this.

~~~
corin_
True. Also worth remembering, however, is that you can't definitively say that
their replacement is doing more/worse than Google would have done - after all,
if Google weren't willing to walk away, that could ultimately mean complying
with the Chinese government just as much as any other company - we just didn't
see it get that bad because they did pull out before then.

------
Mavrik
The more important question is: What kind of political pressure is Google
providing to fight against complying the PATRIOT act?

If none... how is that do no evil?

~~~
sneak
Doing everything in one's power to speak out and draw attention to these
abuses is certainly a legitimate first step before giving up and running away,
and Google certainly has a bunch of resources in that regard - they've a
former VP (Al Gore) on their advisory board.

It seems to me that they're rather quiet on this topic.

------
krongoth
With regards to the idea of them pulling out, where would they go? I'd say
that the UK doesn't have such smothering laws, but then again I wasn't aware
the USA did until 3 minutes ago.

Is there anywhere that it would be possible for them to go to? And if so, what
(in)practicalities would be involved?

~~~
mahyarm
The UK is even worse.

~~~
krongoth
How so? Do I have to get even more cynical about where I live?

------
supersillyus
Nit pick for the title: It's "Don't be evil", not "Do no evil". Very different
meaning.

------
dumbphone
This is one of the reasons why I'm moving away from Gmail and starting to use
a European email provider.

------
icebraining
Of course, 'evil' is subjective and therefore meaningless. Who's to say the
Patriot Act is evil or not?

------
grimen
"Patriot Act" lol, what a joke.

------
geoffhill
People always talk about Google's "Do no evil" policy as being more
fundamental than their other business concerns, but they've demonstrated in
the past that it comes secondary.

<http://wonko.com/post/jsmin-isnt-welcome-on-google-code>

The "Do no evil" policy has no use if they can't accept it into their
legalese.

~~~
jholman
The JSMin license issue is not a case of "do no evil" coming secondary to
"business concerns". Google's action there was motivated entirely by a desire
to do no evil.

Crockford thought it would be hilarious to put a joke line in a license. The
joke line, lawyers apparently agree (at least IBM's and RedHat's), means that
the so-licensed code has unclear usage restrictions that make it non-free.
(IANAL, TINLA) JSMin-PHP inherited that license, even though the JSMin-PHP
author doesn't particularly like the joke line (but he believes he's legally
obliged to keep it).

Google's original policy when setting up google code was that it would only
allow free-licensed code. This policy was chosen in part in an effort to avoid
evil, INCLUDING the small-but-real evil of confusing license proliferation and
too many ways for two pieces of code to be legally incompatible. Crockford's
code, and derivative code, falls afoul of this reasonable policy.

You might disagree about the goodness/evilness of their approach, but saying
that this one was business over ethics is total bullshit. Business took a
backseat here.

------
rhizome31
When I learnt about the wireless sniffing, I started to have doubts about
them. When I found out about how they avoid paying taxes in Europe, I had no
more doubts.

~~~
sneak
Avoiding taxes whenever possible is one of the best steps individuals or
corporations can take to ensure the greatest amount of liberty for the
greatest number of people.

Starve the beast when and where you can.

~~~
rhizome31
It's quite the opposite actually. Taxes are crucial to fund health care,
education, law, police, army, etc. all things that make people's liberty. As
unexciting as it might sound, taxes are fundamental to any organized society
which provides the infrastructure for contractual business.

