Unfortunately, it is important that all collaborators be punished. Especially since the government is trying to expand its surveillance programs to include a wider range of companies, and per reports many companies are reluctant to sign up out of fear of public backlash. There needs to be that public backlash. There needs to be negative consequences for those companies that participate.
That being said, I'd like to clarify that I don't think all forms of cooperation with government investigations are inappropriate. Very narrow and specific requests in response to explicit subpoenas being an example of something I think must be tolerated. On the other hand, blanket requests and requests for data access that would enable government to independently explore the records of millions of American citizens is something that can't be tolerated. Efforts must be made to change such policies at the same time that efforts are made to penalize the companies that collaborate and make it possible.
It's also important to raise the awareness that our data isn't safe in Google's hands.
Google isn't the internet.
Dump gmail, FB and other spy holes. Use public key crypto. Take your own network back.
Or continue on as usual. Our choice.
The reason I recommend Bitmessage is because after overcoming the friction of installing it, it's frictionless. You don't have to remember passphrases or anything. It also has advantages over PGP-encrypted email like deniability, built-in spam minimization, broadcast messages (like Twitter), chan boards, etc.
My mother doesn't even know what the words "public key crypto" mean.
Your post is well written and presents an interesting viewpoint, but this is completely wrong. A handfull of the most powerful and wealthiest companies in the world standing up to the US government wouldn't achieve anything? What? It would make a HUGE difference. If the people involved won't stand up for what's right due to personal fear, that's understandable. Most people wouldn't. But they shouldn't pretend it's for any other reason. To do so is a huge insult to those who do have enough courage to do the right thing in the face of huge risk--much greater risk than is faced by these frightened SV millionaires and billionaires.
As it takes less resources to obtain information you can bet that there will be more efforts to obtain information. If you want to avoid much of this, you just require hand-delivered documents from accredited agents to accredited agents, manual review of these documents (and perhaps shipping them between corporate offices for such review). Get a review for being thorough, pushing back, and not hurrying. Make sure it takes time, that lawyers go through them one by one, and send to another lawyer (preferably somewhere else) to cross-check. stall for as long as you can on every order you can. You will get fewer.
Google is essentially claiming transparency, while ensuring that the transparency report is increasingly meaningless because it is easier and easier to get info in ways that won't get into it.
Within Google's denials is more or less a confirmation that what the NYT is saying is true.
This means Google (and the other American companies, too) has a problem of loyalty now, and I'd say a huge one. It's only a matter of time before such services arrive, and I'd like to believe people will start quitting it in droves.
I see it much like with the ISP situation in US. People don't really have a choice of ISP's, but they've grown to hate them so much over the years, that as soon as a decent competitor is around, they'll be switching. I believe (and hope) the same will happen to the American companies, including Google - at least until this mess is fixed, and the Patriot Act repealed.
So I do believe the Patriot Act, and the uncovering of what it can really be done with it has caused irreparable damage to US companies. I received a Chrome update yesterday, and now I have to wonder "is it just a coincidence? Or is it to remove some tracking technology they had it until now, so people don't find out about it when all the spotlights are on them now?".
Could be a genuine question, or maybe I'm just too paranoid, but the point is these unveilings made me feel this way (the Google "privacy issues" never bothered me before, and I was actually waiting for Google Glass - not anymore obviously), and I don't think anything Google and others say in the future will make me feel otherwise, until there are concrete steps done, wide in the open, to stop this kind of surveillance.
These are big companies and putting pressure on them like this is both practical (just pick your data-hosting European country carefully, though) and could create economic leverage on Congress, but I think it's kind of bullshit when these transparency reports mention receiving between "0-999" National Security Letters, and Eric Schmidt is telling people about the PATRIOT Act requiring them to hand over information, and now you're saying "what?? they're handing over data because of an order that doesn't require probable cause established in front of a judge?"
I don't want to come off as too harsh here, but, yes, this is what we've been banging the drum on for years about. Jewel v NSA[1] is very nearly 5 years old now, and the executive branch is trying to drag it out even longer. Welcome to the fight; let's try to make our country livable instead of dreaming about jumping ship but doing nothing in the meantime.
But the key thing is to not waste energy on the side issue...the grab for power should always be scrutinized, and it is not an issue as simple as "Vote in a new president and live like Richard Stallman" (though neither of those ideas are bad, either)
Call me jaded...but remember how angry and energized everyone was over Aaron Swartz's death? Just six months later and we hear nary a peep about it, not even a boilerplate response to the White House petition. This is the way it is with so many issues involving the law, people get bored or conflate the wrong things...a few months later, no one really remembers.
The responsible thing to do is to require a physical document, hand delivered to an appropriate corporate agent or officer, with a manual, hard copy review process.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-...;
Here are a few facts:
1. The New York Times article did not specifically cite PRISM, it only cited FISA, which was already largely known by the public. It is true that this could be because PRISM is allegedly justified under Section 702 of FISA, but they are not the same thing.[1] It would be most appropriate to say that one encompasses the other, but they have two separate protocols, and as of right now, only one was discussed by the Times.
2. Let's say the NYTimes article is about PRISM, and they simply didn't mention that acronym for whatever reason. If that is the case, the information leaked therein also makes it very clear that it is entirely possible for CEOs, chief officers, and other high ranking employees to be completely in the dark about it. The only people allowed to know about the requests for information are those who receive and analyze the requests. That's not a conspiracy theory - it's leaked right along with the rest of the information.[2] Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Dave Drummond, Yonaton Zunger, etc. might literally not know the extent of how far the government reaches in their companies.
3. It is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect the leaders of these named companies to stand together in righteous technological might against The Man. Nothing practical would be achieved by having Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Page penalized for what they said on record, in public against a government agency. Nothing would benefit the American people by having them put on trial or their companies sued for violating national security. The NSA designed a Catch-22 gag order that prevents those involved from even acknowledging the existence of government involvement or letter agencies, let alone detailing specific protocols or history.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Stop getting distracted from the real problem here. The threat to privacy is the NSA. The threat is our government(s). We have the power to fight it if we consolidate our focus with precision. We may feel wronged by the apparent lies of public figures but they had no choice, if they were even in the wrong. We cannot know what pressures were put upon them at this point in time.
Lay down your pitchforks and direct your anger and incredulity to your government, who ordered this - the public entity that made this legal and hidden and nearly impossible to speak out against. That is your real enemy.
[1]: http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/7/4407782/phone-spying-and-pr...
[2]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech-companies-...