Comment by jmyeet | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jmyeet | Hacker News Reader

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> ... it’s not allowed to use immigration machinery as a pretext to punish political expression. That’s exactly what they are doing.

I agree: this is exactly what the administration is doing.

> I’m generally receptive to point the finger at Google’s intentions but in their defense, administrative subpoenas frequently include non disclosure orders.

Except immigration aren't allowed to put gag orders on administrative subpoenas [1]:

> First, any gag order in these subpoenas has no legal effect; you are free to publicize them and inform the target of the subpoena.

and

> The agency’s administrative subpoena power is limited, but ICE often uses the subpoenas to obtain more assistance than is legally required

This is the key problem. Companies like Google aren't making government agencies go to court to get a subpoena, they're not resisting that subpoena, they're not informing targets when they're legally allowed to and they're giving agencies more assistance than is legally required.

I don't think it's asking a lot to expect any platform to only provide the minimum legally required cooperation.

[1]: https://www.acluofnorthcarolina.org/app/uploads/drupal/sites...

> as a pretext to punish political expression

I sincerely don't understand why deportation is called a punishment in this discussion.

As in any country in the world, US immigration law operates on the principle that a foreigner is granted a PRIVILEGE to be in the US. Or this privilege is denied with no reason whatsoever. Just because it is a PRIVILEGE.

When someone is deported for participating in protests, they are still literally in a better position than the BILLIONS of people who want to be in the US but who are denied this privilege without any justification.

Why do we think this man was punished by the United States, at the same time thing that the BILLIONS of people the US arbitrarily bans from being in its territory were not punished? Compared to those billions, he rather have been granted the privilege of being on US territory (for a while).

Even assuming your incorrect framing of immigration as a privilege (You may as well say parents give their kids the privilege of going to play with their friends so grounding is not a punishment) consider the following.

It would be a privilege for me to give you a parachute for free. If you jump out of a plane with that privileged parachute, then it turns out to be a backpack with a sheet in it, what are your thoughts? Now you may not necessarily feel the word punishment fits in me giving you a backpack instead of a parachute, but you do see that I'd be the one in the wrong in that situation and that you are considerably worse off than before? I could wax lyrical about how thousands of people are in the air above the ground every day while jumping about, it doesn't change the fact that your position 3000ft in the air is a lot worse than those 2ft of the ground if you don't have the privilege of a free parachute you thought you had.

> I don't think it's asking a lot to expect any platform to only provide the minimum legally required cooperation.

It is asking a lot. They can do minimum legally required things for environment, users, communities, charities and so on. This would be considered very hostile behavior. And companies don't do that.

So why would they be doing minimum required cooperation with government just because some people do not like government or its actions.

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