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Comment by pyre | Hacker News Reader

I noticed that no where in the article is there any mention of the actual reason that Google came out with this announcement (i.e. they were (cyber) attacked by sources that were presumably linked with the Chinese government). It seems to only be talking about censorship and comparing China to other Western countries.

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If I were a Chinese citizen I'd avoid mentioning my government at all costs.

We (Chinese) have already tried that for what, 2000 years.

The problem with Chinese authorities through out history is, you don't look for troubles, but troubles look for you.

To be fair, the author perhaps does allude indirectly to the attacks by trying to point out a perceived hypocrisy of Google being willing to operate under the patriot act:

To combat terrorism after the "9/11" terrorist attack, the U.S. has permitted police to search civilian emails and even monitor their communications without permission

A related post in the side-links does opine on the attacks directly though: Google probes inside job in hackings.

I'm not quite sure what it means to say the U.S. has "permitted police to monitor communications without permission". Was it permitted or not?

This is why logic is taught in China only when you are learning how to write an essay in GRE.

It's the author's way of explaining the Patriot act, that the FBI are allowed to monitor communications without seeking the permission of a court.

Google didn't explicitly say this is the reason. They talked about censorship and doing business in China.

I don't think they needed to say it. Everyone knew who they were talking about.

Perhaps, but you can't blame "The Chinese" responding to what they said at face value.

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