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Comment by coolj | Hacker News Reader

These companies are making themselves look really bad to anyone paying attention. Nobody is reporting that they joined a program to volunteer illegal access to user data, so these assurances are canards. What is being reported is that the NSA has been running a secret program to legally collect user data from these companies. If these companies want my respect, they need to admit that these reports are true, declare their opinion against the practice, and state their position on legal reform to make such practices illegal.

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What do you call the Google Transparency Report document then? They have been admitting it and documenting it, to the best of their ability (when not gagged). Google has been fighting these in court, they have declared their opinions against the practical, they have been lobbying against these laws. They've done everything they legally can do, unless Larry Page wants to risk being put into federal prison.

The PRISM leak started as this dramatic claim that NSA is hoovering up all of the person data of everyone in the cloud. Now this has been mostly retracted to tech companies sending them data on individual accounts as requested by lawful court order, which is what they've been doing, in public view, unclassified, for years, and admitting it -- that they respond to lawful requests on a case by case basis.

What more do you want? The denials are about as vehement as they can get. The NSA denies the "firehose feed" hypothesis as well.

  | they need to admit that these reports are true

Assume for a moment that the reports aren't true, or are exaggerated. Are they supposed to lie to you in a way the hurts them just to appease you?

Sincere question: was it not common knowledge that these companies would hand over user data if compelled to do so by the government? What exactly is new about this revelation?

I'm not sure how others feel, but for me the systematic nature and the scope of collection are what get my hackles up. Requesting specific information on a specific individual because of the suspicion that a crime has been committed is perfectly reasonable. Collecting information on everyone in order to search for illegal activity feels like a serious violation of privacy. We can debate about the kind of information they can get through NSLs only being "metadata", etc., but that's the crux of the issue for me.

There is no evidence they collect information on "everyone". Everyone has denied the firehose feed hypothesis, even the NSA. Verizon didn't deny it, proving that there's no gag order, nor did the NSA. So we have Verizon admitting a metadata firehose, but everyone else denying it, which seems to suggest the tech companies are telling the truth.

I hope so. But we have no insight into how much information was put in the "locked mailboxes." From what we do know, it's reasonable to assume the NSA has been gathering as much information on as many people as is/was legally permissible.

Spot on.

Exactly. This kind of technically correct, but utterly unhelpful resposnse reminds me of the Adolf Eichmann trial. Where have they been the last 10 years? Where are their values and spines at?

You see, if you don't stand up, you still get counted. "Little Brother is watching you, too"

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