I don’t see them staging a protest. The issue is too mainstream to earn them any Internet points. However, this is the kind of issue that matters to many people and could affect adversely. Still I think it’s up to the Congress and people to push back on abuses like this.

As opposed to yelling into the void on an anonymous online forum?

I don't think they see this as an egregious abuse of power. Googlers trust Google to do a pretty decent job of securing private information almost all of the time; this isn't an area of moral concern for them.

(i.e. the question in their minds is "Is the data safer in the source repositories?" And it's probably not).

The problem is that Googlers (like far too many tech companies) view data as being secure if outsiders can't get access to it. They don't count access by themselves as a security issue, even though it objectively is.

Googler here. I don't speak for Google and obviously shouldn't and won't divulge internals, but this just makes me cringe so hard: unauthorized or illegitimate access by staff is OBVIOUSLY treated as a security issue. I'm kind of shocked that folks would think otherwise.

Just to clarify, I was not referring to unauthorized or illegitimate access. I was referring to company-sanctioned access.

Unlike other companies Google employees atleast protest. In many cases they win. No company is a saint. It's a bit rich asking everyone to leave their jobs. 99% of HN will work for the most money. Google still tries its best unlike Facebook or Oracle. None of the good things it does ever get attention.

I wonder what type of biometric and other monitoring of employees by employers that could happen under employment contracts or in the name of security or `Health and Safety`.

After all, many companies trial new ideas and technology in house.

So would be insightful into what companies like Google do inhouse.

Google's employees appear from their past behavior to protest when the issue at hand is one about which the far left cares. [0][1][2][3][4] This issue is rather bi-partisan, so I don't expect any significant protest.

[0]: https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-employees-protest-dont-...

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/16/20695964/google-protest-l...

[2]: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/01/tech/google-employees-protest...

[3]: https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/6/19/18691870/google-employe...

[4]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/1/18525473/google-employee-s...