tippytop

These are some of the biggest corporations in the world, with resources to push back on behalf of their users---if they wanted to. Heck, at least Yahoo did something. At some point the PRISM collaborators took a calculated risk that their users would not find out, or if they did, it would be of no consequence to their business. Maybe it was the classified assurances, or maybe the whole "direct access" line for deniability. I may not have any say in NSA programs or secret courts, but I'm still a consumer and techie and can vote with my money and time. I'm gonna do my best not to support companies that actively build a surveillance state.

I don't think the intention is to create a moat around the conference. Things have been getting quite cozy between these two [1]; I'm sure recent revelations don't play well with this conference's attendee base.

[1] https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9229756/NSA_chief_as...

I use the Wikipedia auto-suggest url [1], it works great for my needs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=opensearch&search=...

There is something these companies allowed that went beyond others, Twitter is not listed for example. As Snowden pointed out [1], these companies need to make some kind of technical assurances for privacy, otherwise customers (and potential employees) should look elsewhere.

[1] "The [telcom] companies should write enforceable clauses into their terms, guaranteeing their clients that they are not being spied on. And they should include technical guarantees. If you could move even a single company to do such a thing, it would improve the security of global communications. And when this appears to not be feasible, you should consider starting one such company yourself."

I'm sure Ms. Meckfessel is a lovely person, but this is clearly a PR driven piece pumped out of Google for recruitment purposes.

Throughout this entire NSA scandal people lament there's nothing we can do, but these tech companies are vulnerable to talent shortages. A simple action for a conscientious hacker is to simply not work for PRISM collaborators. Apply your talents to companies willing to make privacy assurances.

Public systems have been gutted by the private schools.

He has a nice idea about a prospective path of resistance:

"The [telcom] companies should write enforceable clauses into their terms, guaranteeing their clients that they are not being spied on. And they should include technical guarantees. If you could move even a single company to do such a thing, it would improve the security of global communications. And when this appears to not be feasible, you should consider starting one such company yourself."

Google and Facebook don't seem to care, but the people here can create the kinds of companies that do. Let the PRISM collaborators starve of a talent storage.

You sound like a pretty boring dude. He's just a guy in the Internet writing stuff, and you're just a guy on the Internet talking about him.

As things are, this is one of the few points of contact for public feedback with the NSA. They describe themselves as apolitical tools for the administration, well, that's a pretty big hammer to give a future unknown with no public oversight.

According to this article [1], with Ecuador wavering, Snowden as applied for asylum to 15 different countries, Russia among them.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/world/europe/snowden-appl...

If there's one thing we've learned from all this it's that the tech companies should be viewed as collaborators and can not be relied upon to assert our privacy rights.

While I support this protest, in my opinion, this is a non-media savvy day to have it. "Regular folks" use the day off for family, friends, and bbqs. It's a holiday so no one will be working at the government buildings, and it's typically a lousy news day since the skeleton crews are on.

But hopefully this event will start getting people together to keep the pressure on as new revelations come out. Protesting matters, phone calls matter, emails matter---I've seen it. Generally the rule is for every one constituent (that's key) call there's 100 more who think that. Right now you can start to see the official line fraying a bit with various actors attempting to cover their own asses. Maybe they don't care about the big picture, but they care about legacy, career, and ego. And no one wants to be on the wrong side of history.

I think it will change things; I'm an American. Having your customers trust is important for business---now data stored offshore has just become a feature.