On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 12:20 PM, Nicholas Merrill <[email protected]> wrote: > > I am very happy to report to the list that apparently, Google is now > challenging a National Security Letter issued by the FBI
This is stunning. I did not expect "the identity network" to take a move like this. I don't expect Google to do anything on this scale for purely altruistic reasons, although it's nice when they happen to serve those ends. (Just to prove I am not the anti-Evgeny...:) I wonder what motivated them? I am reluctant to look a gift horse in the mouth ungraciously, and Google is not exactly monolithic, but this is considerably larger than some Google lawyer's 20% project. Let's follow the money. Are they concerned with the level of government inquiry into their records with this mechanism? Is the government going after a favored client? (This is to say, they can't say who an NSL is going after but they can resist when the government goes after a major stream of revenue for them). I'll note that the privacy czar at Google just turned over to US hands. I wonder if that had anything to do with this. I should look more closely perhaps at Mr. You. Of course, to be really cynical, NSLs allow the government to arbitrarily shield inquiries that would later be revealed by FOIA requests to govt embarassment, and Google can't even charge them for the inconvenience. It has to rankle them. They should at least get paid and not just bullied for being informants. It's directly counter their business model. Curiouser and curiouser. yrs, -- Shava Nerad [email protected]
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