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?
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.