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That complicated? Really? The original Google blog post have a feel of being written by a lawyer. I guess a pass through an authorship identification tool can confirm it. So I guess the story of that post on Google blog was actually a pretty simple one and close to the following: "David Drummond wrote the text, Larry got it as an e-mail, added the subject "What the ...?" ;) and published it".

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What about the post reads like it came directly from a lawyer?

I don't disagree that a lawyer vetted it -- lawyers generally vet anything legal related that comes out of an organization. All of the major news stories on this topic have likely been vetted by lawyers.

When you get a FISA letter you aren't allowed to acknowledge that you got it, or tell anyone about it. So yes, there are very tricky laws to skirt around here which necessitate the use of a lawyer when responding to these.

Google has been a strong proponent of transparency around these requests, but they are bound by law to not talk about it, so there's only so much they can do.

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