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Comment by mh- | Hacker News Reader

especially since revelations that Google allowed the NSA a backdoor into every system

sorry, what?

Please don't ask me to summarise the revelations of the last few months. Reading the Guardian reports on the issue would be a good starting point.

Tl;dr: Google allowed the NSA unrestricted access to every Google service. No legal challenges were made.

Google allowed the NSA unrestricted access to every Google service

citation, please

http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-says-nsa-has-direct-a...

(Full disclosure: I'm a Google employee.) Personally I think Edward Snowden is a whistleblower, not a traitor. However, I consider the leaks to be insufficient evidence for the conclusions you're drawing from them. Here was Google CEO Larry Page's response: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html

What makes you believe one report over the other?

Snowden has no reason to lie; he wouldn't have spoken out and ruined his life without strong moral convictions.

Larry Page has every reason to lie; probably enforced by the US government. The fact Google are operating within the law doesn't mean anything when such open-ended laws as the patriot act exist.

I'm afraid I'd have to agree with the other person. Even IF Larry Page knew about the full extent of the NSA goings on inside Google (and he may very well not know), he is legally obliged to lie to us, and you, about them.

So, Googler, Tell me why you are convinced that Gmail is highly secure and my email is not being snarfed by the NSA?

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