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Comment by aodin | Hacker News Reader

Are you referring to the data center breaches exposed by the Snowden leaks? Because Google claimed that they were unaware of the breach and quickly took action to correct it [1]. Are you suggesting that Google was complicit?

[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/meet-muscular-nsa-accused-of-t...

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I don't think Google has given us any reason to believe that it was not complicit. For instance, why not include warrant canaries on gmail accounts?

There is not really any fundamental difference between abetting the data center breach and opting not to offer warrant canaries. Likely tens of thousands of Google users are searched every day due to easy FISC warrants and wide investigative nets.

The state sponsored attacks on Google would of course allow Google to plausibly deny cooperation, but obviously Google has every incentive to cooperate fully, as is evidenced by the lack of warrant canaries.

Warrant cannaries are of dubious legality and have yet to be seriously tested in court. It makes total sense that a large company would not adopt something potentially illegal.

A person on StackExchange put it well

> The distinction between revealing the existence of the subpoena by action, rather than by inaction, is a false one. It's exactly the kind of cutesy legal formality that non-lawyers love to rely on, but real judges ignore. If you tell someone: "Hey, you know John Smith's three sons, Joe, Ted, and Bill? Joe and Ted are good people; they have never molested any children. As for Bill--well, I don't have anything to say about Bill." If Bill is not a child molester, you have defamed him, and you are not going to convince a judge otherwise. [1]

Here's how the EFF puts it.

> Are there any cases upholding warrant canaries?

> Not yet. EFF believes that warrant canaries are legal, and the government should not be able to compel a lie. To borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill, no one can guarantee success in litigation, but only deserve it.

I'm also not sure how warrant canaries relate to your parents' point.

[1]: https://law.stackexchange.com/a/333

Your comment reinforces my point. Google would be extremely reluctant to utilize warrant canaries because of the uncertain legal consequences of doing so.

The same applies to declining to cooperate with government surveillance operations. We don't really know how the government likes it when a big company obstructs its surveillance goals.

On HN today was a headline about Apple reversing course on a business decision voluntarily, simply to please government.

> I'm also not sure how warrant canaries relate to your parents' point.

The points above I believe link the two business decisions.

I would just point out there is a very clear legal distinction between action and inaction. Further, all of this only applies to the issuance and proper service of an order compelling silence. I think the EFF’s common statement that if the canary requires affirmative action to not deploy the court is in a tough spot to compel that action. Also, I can say with a large amount of certainty, that no judge blatantly ignores procedural or semantic formalities out of hand. The judge in question may way the relevant factors and disagree with an argument, although some judges built caseloads of precedent on just such minor quibbles, but it is literally the judges job to at least consider a technical argument on its merits.

There were a bunch of Google engineers who worked through Christmas that year who sure we're pretty pissed off about the unexpected work and were furious at the NSA.

Of course. Most Google engineers would not be involved in it, and would of course be doing their best to keep Google's customers' data secure.

Yes, but security engineers know about "break ins". It's impossible to hide that kind of thing from the people who's job it is to investigate.

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