Hacker News Reader

Comment by smtddr | Hacker News Reader

I don't blame the companies; they're about as much a victim of USgov as we are IMHO. That being said, if all the online-storage/cloud-server/email-providers/social-whatever companies in US start going out of business because nobody trusts them I strongly suspect something will have to change. It's just too bad we have to do a "scorched earth"[1] to bring about change.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth

View on HN

> I don't blame the companies; they're as much a victim of USgov as we are IMHO.

While it's true that they are victims, they are in a far better place to demand change or to defend themselves. Money buys the ears of lawyers that the average person couldn't even afford to speak to.

This is where I disagree. I do blame companies like Google for not fighting this more. At the very least they make users aware that these laws exist, even if they cannot detail specifics related to their surveillance involvement.

See this comment : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6182179

Fighting the USgov isn't a decision to take lightly regardless of how much money & resources you have. I cannot condemn a company that backs down from that battle. It could hurt an employee(s) significantly, or the whole company. While I agree they have the most resources to fight it, they're not immune to harm from USgov.

Do you remember google asking for your telephone number? They knew what they were doing.

You can't convincingly make that argument since you don't know what lawyers have been doing behind the closed doors of secret court rooms nor do you have knowledge of their relevant lobbying, you're just assuming things. No to forget that Google was the first to publish a transparency report in which it publishes the number of NSLs, so there is that - it's not correct to use "Google" as a shorthand for "US tech companies".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com