The situation in the US is not without valid criticism , but it is not even close to comparable with the legal environment in China. The US has a judicial branch that frequently operates at odds against its own executive branch, by design.

>The US has a judicial branch that frequently operates at odds against its own executive branch, by design.

Maybe if you are from US, if you are not from US you have no rights, US gov can spy on you, or even kill you without any legal consequences because it will be legal from US POV

I'm mostly referring to the rights of private companies operating under US law to dispute executive action. Apple, for example, refuses to unlock phones regardless of the citizenship status of user.

Apple unlock drama was over "all writs act" where FBI compelled Apple to write new software to access user hardware versus using alleged (non)existing capabilities. FBI ended up using third party solutions, but after US gov decided to simply cirvumvent user layer via CLOUD act to simply legistate that manufactures have to make such remote access capabilities available, aka adopting PRC requirements. Seems to me, functionally US is not substantively different than PRC in having legal framework to gather any user cloud data. And with respect to Apple, for reference Apple maintain they didn't have capability to give user data to any government including PRC. They also handed icloud keys to PRC control a few months after Cloud Act, so technically Apple was "compromised" in US before PRC. At end of the day, US domestic lawfares achieves it's nationals security goals.

Do we know any case where Apple or Google defended the privacy of a non US person ignoring the laws that force them to give access? I want to see this case and understand what happened. The reality is that if you are not an US citizens you don't have rights, and corporation would defend you only if there is profit in it otherwise they will defend you rights only on PR articles( like company X supports LGBT then same day CEO shakes hand with politicians that just stoned some person to death because there is money to be made)

I'm not defending the CLOUD act, but it is definitely a substantively different type of a situation than having your company completely nationalized as it was with GCBD.

GCBD didn't nationalize Apple in PRC, it's data soverignty requirement same way TikTok was coerced/pressured to moved US data to Oracle US servers. Legal minutiae matterse less and less when outcomes consistently comparable. In terms of differing market environment, TikTok/Bytedance was one Trump EO away from being force sold to US companies (actual nationalization), which is more aggregious than PRC joint venture scheme that's at least upfront about requirements foreign companies operating in PRC. Apple didn't have to take GCBD deal, they wanted cloud business in PRC to keep selling iproducts. Meanwhile TikTok is bending backwards to follow US laws and still subject to various shenanigans according to changing admin whims. Functionally, it's not substantively different, US have alleged "better" laws, but also better lawfare to circumvent said laws.

IMO this is just reality of mediating "strategic" foreign companies operating domestically, especially from "adversarial" countries. Set legal compliance onerously high and hope they leave. Western platforms left PRC because they couldn't stomach the filtering requriements that every PRC company has to shoulder. And when they finally adopted improve moderation due to requirements/pressure in their host country, they tried to get back into the PRC market. Meanwhile TikTok is sticking around US because Douyin survived burdens of PRC regulatory environment so what's another difficult market. Both markets are difficult, TikTok just better at playing ball in such enviroments. FB/Google can't even control their own employees from sabotaging their return to PRC.

GCBD is nationalized iCloud. It was founded by the Guizhou government and is wholly state owned and operated.

Apple "chose" to agree to this deal with a gun to their head, the only other "option" being that they would be banned from the Chinese market. This isn't just because they have a data sovereignty requirement, but also because they have requirements regarding the sovereignty of a company's corporate governance structure.

>TikTok/Bytedance was one Trump EO away from being force sold to US companies (actual nationalization)

I'm not defending that idea, but a forced sale is categorically not nationalization. The whole impetus for the idea was that Trump's "eye for an eye" approach regarding what he saw as unfair practices against other US companies that tried to operate there. And in the end, Bytedance challenged it, and it never came to fruition.

Is Trump EO not also a gun to bytedance head? Apple could choose to discontinue cloud services and setup backdoor to physical iDevices access which would have made their products not competitive, but they chose to play ball same way Bytedance did. It's both lawfare coercion. It's functionally the same - subborn domestic data within framework accessible by domestic legislation. As for defending either idea, I think it's fine, everyone watches out for their interest including putting guns to heads.

No, because EOs do not hold ultimate power in the US. Bytedance also had the (quite realistic) option to challenge the executive through the US's independent judiciary. Ultimately, they took this option and they were successful, and they maintain ownership of TikTok assets in the US to this day.

There aren't any functional counterparts to these checks on power in China that would have been relevant to Apple/GBCD. There's no independent judiciary or alternative ruling party.

Is Trump EO not also a gun to bytedance head? Apple could choose to discontinue cloud services and setup backdoor to physical iDevices access which would have made their products not competitive, but they chose to play ball same way Bytedance did. It's both lawfare coercion. It's functionally the same - subborn domestic data within framework accessible by domestic legislation. As for defending either idea, I think it's fine, everyone watches out for their interest including putting guns to heads.

For the people who end up with their data on a government database, this is a distinction without a difference.

The likelihood of that data being there and the way it is used varies greatly between the two systems.

The reason you don’t see stories like this [0] in China, is because of this [1]

0: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/apple-refuses-barr-request-t...

1: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351

> frequently

once every blue moon?

> by design

that sounds much bigger than it is, a little like inteligent design.

> not even close to comparable with the legal environment in China.

So, you are literally saying that you are not in a position to compare them. Or at least you are saying it's so out of this world, it may be on another planet, a parallel universe even.

Really, I have discovered a legitimate branch of legal research is in constitutional comparation (or whatever it's called). Sounds more promissing than it likely will be, surely a small field, but damn I'm intrigued.

I do concede that this thread should focus on less whataboutism.

Has the US Gov utilized data from private companies to aid in the targeting and internment of their own citizens ? https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/09/china-big-data-program-t...

> US Gov utilized data from private companies

Yes

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/19/us-immigrati...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-agencies-use-cellphone-...

https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/10/23065080/ice-surveillance...

1. Not citizens.

2. Not for imprisonment (although deportation is an ugly business no matter the context).

3. Not working with companies, working with shady third-party data brokers that companies themselves would like to see shut down.

Not yet.

The only way to make sure that it continues like this is if nobody can collect the data.

> Not yet.

So no, the answer is no. And there are laws in place that prevent such a change from occurring.

> nobody can collect the data.

It's unrealistic to think no one will be scraping data. You just need laws around who can do it, can for what reasons. And enforcement. (all of these things only possible in non-autocratic countries)

> laws in place that prevent such a change from occurring.

Haven't you learned anything from Snowden?

> You just need laws around who can do it, can for what reasons.

You just make illegal to use personal data for any other thing that is not the service being directly provided to the customer.

Personalized ads? Tracking cookies? Ad bids? Make all these illegal and the collection of data will stop being profitable. Stop making it profitable, and companies will no longer be interested in doing.

We are talking about private industry working together with governments. The US has no intention nor legal ability to force private industry to work with them, outside of when they choose to.

Unless a new patriot act comes along, which is highly unlikely to pass in 2022.

No. We are talking about companies with way too much power in their hands and that might use it for nefarious purposes {for,against,with,without,despite} the government.