Hacker News Reader

Comment by whatever1 | Hacker News Reader

Ultimately everyone reports to the CEO. They will just put enough Amazon CEOs to jail, until one grants access.

After tipping their hands too much over prosecuting and removing Joe Nacchio, the Qwest CEO who refused the NSA, I think that any company that does as much business with the federal government as Amazon or any telecom, gets pre-vetted.

This avoids any difficulties later.

On the list of the things I doubt nowadays, an Amazon or Amazon subsidiary CEO going to jail is way up at the top.

They’ll get a national security letter for sure, but no one’s going to jail.

Likely the first one will immediately fold to avoid jail.

But for context the head of the FED is currently investigated for criminal charges, governors, mayors, judges etc. Why is a CEO of a company so special? Within hours the board can appoint another one.

The one thing I’ve learned without it taking a stupid long time is that there’s no more things that are too ridiculous to imagine happening. The American regime is an irrational actor. They’ll do whatever.

You know that your president is about to put the head of the federal reserve in prison on trumped up charges?

The US is not s country with rule of law anymore. It is a country that is rules by power.

That still hasn't made its way through the courts.

You don't get to be the size of amazon and not be completely cooperative with the three letter agencies.

Thinking Amazon is going to be some sort of resistance is just incredibly naive. They are an extension of US power, not an independent entity.

Well I didn't say they wouldn't cooperate (very likely they would cave to any national security letter), I said there's no way they'd end up in jail. Politicians want their donations.

Yes let's talk about all the billionaire CEOs that get sent to prison.

Anyway, the entire structure and premise of this business is that they cannot do that. A court cannot put a CEO in jail just because partner businesses do not follow his orders. Do you think it is maybe remotely possible, that Amazons lawyers and architects understand this a little bit better than you do?

I'm thinking they checked it out, they checked it out a couple of times.

There are some details in this comment from the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46641592

MS lawyers could not do it (MS testified in France that they cannot). What make us believe that Amazon lawyers can?

Adding source for this:

Transcribed (not translated): https://www.senat.fr/compte-rendu-commissions/20250609/ce_co...

Video: https://videos.senat.fr/video.5460497_6847c70b82594

Reports by third parties:

https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/25/microsoft_admits_it_c...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2025/07/22/micro...

Edit/note: The main point AWS makes is indeed by whom/where this offering is operated. But, Microsoft stated that even though they made an environment so that the data lives entirely within the EU they may be compelled to transmit the data back.

This issue can be resolved on the European side by effectively making the transfer of EU->US data illegal and, if detected, nationalizing the entire EU subsidiary of the US company. Would this trigger a US-EU war? Certainly, but only the blind cannot see that relations are no longer those between two allies.

Not a lawyer but from what I understand the EU law makers are acting in response to US behavior. The US has laws intended to protect US citizens that do not apply to foreigners, a system where money buys access to anything and a lust for hoarding data. Meanwhile in the EU people use US tech for everything, probably for various not very good reasons. It's kinda sad really, it should have just been properly organized. US Tech companies should really have the customers and the EU the services.

> A court cannot put a CEO in jail just because partner businesses do not follow his orders.

In the US, rule of law does not matter any more in practice. That is the problem. You can't even say it's "rule by mob" - at least the mob had an honor codex, the current administration doesn't give a single flying fuck about anything any more. Might makes right.

> Do you think it is maybe remotely possible, that Amazons lawyers and architects understand this a little bit better than you do?

Or they just want to make lots of money

Reply on news.ycombinator.com