Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not paid to do anything. By your logic — especially since you're posting as AC and thus hiding your identity! — you must be shilling for some agenda, no? Please also explain how Syria's actions can be defended.
I do find it amusing that anyone you disagree with must be "playing political games", and that you think I should have a "disclaimer" in my sig. That says what? "Warning — you may find ideas which run counter to yours difficult to swallow"?
I hope the amount of incorrect, ranting assumptions you've made about me and what you think I stand for made you feel better.
I don't discount any of the facts about individual incidents in your comment, nor would I ever be foolish or arrogant enough to say the US has never made a mistake — we have made plenty and will make plenty more — but let me ask you something:
Do you believe that the world and humanity would be better off if the US hadn't existed after, say, WWII? Not just from a geopolitical perspective, but from perspectives of technology, medicine, and similar?
Do you believe that someone like, say, China, or an amalgamation of warring mideast states, or perhaps even an old Soviet superstate would be a better global steward than the United States and the West?
If you can answer "Yes", or even "Perhaps", to either of those questions, we share no common ground from which to even have a discussion.
Now we're getting into semantics, but it's not necessarily malicious, nor murder, nor "illegal" to kill in war. It is possible for a killing, even in wartime, to be all of those things. This wasn't one of those times. It's also possible to kill civilians accidentally and still not have it be malicious or a crime. Yes, someone is still dead — but intent matters, even in war. This is not a new construct.
They're all SOMETHING, and differ in degree, but the US and the principles for which it stands, however imperfectly throughout history, can definitely not be generalized as "evil". I can't say the same for totalitarian states — throughout history, or now.
Saying it's all "just different kinds of evil" shamefully ignores the countless tens millions of people who have died under the repression, tyranny, and selfishness of totalitarian regimes.
Yes, be vigilant. Yes, identify injustice. Yes, call out abuse. But as soon as you start believing the US is "just as bad" (or some similar sentiment) as any other government, but "just in a different way", you have lost all perspective on the realities of history and the world in which we live.
Assange made no bones about his interests and intents — there has been ample discussion and news coverage from a variety of viewpoints which recognized that Wikileaks under Asssange for a time became almost exclusively focused on targeting the US.
The video was not "chilling" unless you expect war to be a happy affair — unless you mean the version which Wikileaks carefully and intentionally edited for maximum impact, with the specific purpose of attention-whoring, and labeling things that no ordinary person viewing the video would otherwise have even been able to discern (e.g., freezing a frame and pointing out what was thought by everyone involved at the time to be a weapon as actually being a camera, after the fact, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight).
The video showed no malicious intent, though Assange took went to great lengths to remove as much context as possible to make it appears so, and even many State Department insiders viewed "Cablegate" as nothing more than proof that the United States has a thoughtful, experienced, and dedicated foreign service that actually does its job.
Assange has not even tried to hide his disdain for the US, long before any "smear campaign" could even be alleged. Other Wikileaks collaborators even left the project because of Assange's single-minded anti-US agenda. Now that Assange is more or less sidelined, we're seeing Wikileaks return to its initially-stated mission and purpose.
The rich irony, of course, is that Assange is seeking asylum from one of the least free nations — in terms of speech, press, and liberty — in the hemisphere. Of course, all of Assange's supporters love people like Chavez, Castro, and Correa, and the Kremlin's Russia Today "news" outlet aired a conversation between Assange and Correa on the heels of Ecuador giving the lease on an air base long held by the United States to China.
See the problem, here?
There are interests in the world opposed to the ideals of freedom and liberal democracy that actually need to be countered. And that's what the US has endeavored to do since WWII, and from which Europe and the West has enjoyed the fruits for over a half-century.
Most of the commenters here will twist this story into how the US is somehow evil, and drone on (pun intended) about how the US and West governments and/or corporations and/or political systems are what's wrong with the world, when in reality, people are suffering and dying under actual tyranny and oppression.
Like in Syria.
It's about time Wikileaks lived up to its initial stated mission of "exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East," instead of becoming an anti-US pulpit for a self-righteous egomaniac who has openly said if he was asked to choose between "advocate"/"activist" and "journalist", he would choose "advocate", and who answered "I'm too busy ending two wars," in response to a reporter asking for clarity on an issue.
(And no, this doesn't mean the US and West are all-perfect or all-wise — what it means is that people need to get out of their bizarro world and get some perspective on things. A clue wouldn't hurt, either.)
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 clearly specifies that an properly adjudicated, individualized warrant from a court is required to collect, process, analyze, store, or disseminate the content of the communications of a US Person. While it seems to be common belief that you can just "call someone a terrorist and tap their phones," this is in fact false.
If you think the government will just ignore the law and do whatever it wants anyway, then any discussion of the law is moot.
Most people here will respond as if the United States is the greatest villain, not realizing that there actually is real tyranny and oppression in the world.
Please note that most seem to be construing this news as a cue to believe that Turing may have been murdered (by the British government, naturally), when in reality, Prof Jack Copeland, the foremost Turing scholar, and Turing's own mother thought it to be a careless accident rather than a suicide, with Copeland saying "the evidence should be taken at face value - that an accidental death is certainly consistent with all the currently known circumstances." The truth is that the initial inquest was so sloppy we will never know for certain, so those who are apt to believe in government conspiracies will no doubt believe he was assassinated (after he was already subject to humiliating chemical castration), even as the premier Turing expert believes it was more likely an accident.
It's not about a "right" to do anything trumping anything else. If there was no law against (target-)shooting in the area in which the shooters were, how do you suggest they be prevented from having done something that caused an accidental fire?
If your issue is with the fact they won't face punishment for something they couldn't have possibly predicted and didn't intend, how is the lack of punishment in any way related to the fact that thousands of people are now without homes?
If your issue is the fact that there is no framework of law to prohibit, e.g., shooting under certain conditions, in a similar manner as, say, open fires when weather conditions are not safe for fires, then I might begin to agree with you.
"Would you rather start at an Apple store for $11.91 an hour (average starting base pay, according to the linked article) and an employee discount, or at Tiffany for $15.60?"
I think the people who work at Apple Stores -- and others waiting for callbacks -- have already answered that.
What, supply and demand suddenly can't drive wages now?
But I imagine this, like any article on Foxconn (aka "Apple factory"; forget all other customers), will be another anti-Apple free-for-all, so have fun!
But the CONTENT of the communications of US Persons does require a warrant — that is the law, and that was made more even more explicit with the FISA Amendments Act of 2008: the acquisition, storage, analysis, dissemination, etc., of the content of the communications of US Persons anywhere on the globe requires an individual and properly adjudicated warrant from a court of competent jurisdiction. Before, communications outside the US, even of US Persons outside of the US, were sometimes in a gray area. That gray area no longer exists.
Some will say, "But the government will just ignore the law and do what it wants anyway!" If that's the assertion, there isn't really room for debate on exactly what the law should say...
I didn't say he was lying, and I didn't say he was misquoted. I didn't even imply that. I'm quite sure he believed Qwest's reluctance to participate was directly responsible for it losing contract dollars.
What I said was there is that even that isn't "proof" of anything; yes, we can certainly sit here and infer all day long, and I agree that there is a certain quid pro quo in all human interactions.
But if we're going to use government contract awards as the sole yardstick of "reward" for a business complying with government requests, AT&T surely should have received the most contracts?
If you want to use the Qwest CEO's comments as "proof" that not complying with government requests could have negative repercussions, then you also have to consider why AT&T, as the poster child for this relationship, wouldn't have received the most contracts.
Further, Google is clearly and explicitly saying its cooperation is voluntary. Now the true tinfoil hat crowd among us will say that Google wouldn't dare claim that it feels it has no choice but to respond to government requests or else it might be punished, because it wants to stay on the government's "good side"...ignoring for a moment that if that were really the case, it simply wouldn't report on these requests at all.
Meanwhile, there is actual tyranny and oppression elsewhere in the world.
This is Qwest claiming it was punished for not participating in an early iteration of the long-defunct TSP. If that's true, then would it not stand to reason that AT&T should have received the most government contracts in response? Except two other telecom operators were ahead of them.
Google is not claiming it was or will be punished; in fact, it is taking great pains to explain that its cooperation is voluntary. The Qwest CEO's claims do not mean that Google feels it is being pressured, and doesn't address the fact that such requests are neither unlawful nor unconstitutional.
Great reply — one of the increasingly few thoughtful responses I get on slashdot these days.
To address your points, there are many exceptions to the warrant requirement. For example, the metadata or "envelope" of communications has generally been considered by the courts to be exempt from warrant requirements.
In the literal sense of an envelope, a warrant is not required for government to look at the outside of an envelope (e.g., addresses written on the envelope, or its size and shape or other external characteristics).
In the case of phone conversations, Smith v. Maryland (1979) said that things like the list of phone calls received, or numbers called, or for how long, were part of phone company billing records and a warrant was not required.
In the context of the internet, a warrant is not required for communications metadata — IP addresses, DNS names, To: and From: addresses on an email message, and similar.
It is the CONTENT of communications that requires a warrant. The words written in a letter; the words spoken on a phone call; the words contained in an email message or VoIP call.
So, if these kind of non-content requests don't require a warrant, and have longstanding analogues in the non-digital realm upheld by the Supreme Court, what is wrong with making these requests in the digital realm?
Some might say that a much more complete picture of a person can be constructed from increasing activities in the digital realm, even without the benefit of the content of communications. Certainly I would agree. Does that automatically make it illegal, immoral, or wrong? It's definitely not illegal or unconstitutional (it isn't illegal until a law says it is, and it isn't unconstitutional unless a court of competent jurisdiction says so; and these examples above are explicitly held as constitutional), so is it immoral or wrong? If the government has legitimate interests here, and legitimate charges to execute the law, the real question is just how far that authority goes.
It would be ridiculous to assert that any contact with business by government in a free society be accompanied by force of law. It would be similarly ridiculous to allow for the provision of any and all information the government asked for without a warrant. So the balance is clearly somewhere between these two extremes. Currently the balance is a result of the fact that there are numerous and longstanding (i.e., not "post 9/11) exemptions to the requirement for a warrant for written (mail), voice (telephone), and digital (internet) communications.
Security and liberty are not at two ends of a zero-sum sliding scale. We can and should have a good measure of both.
It's the law to pay taxes in the United States — it's not a request.
There is no "law" that says that Google has to comply with a US government request (that is not accompanied by a court order or a warrant) in any particular way.
Are you saying that the government should NEVER be able to have any communications with any other business or entity in the US, or make any kind of request, unless it is accompanied by the force of law and criminal penalties for noncompliance?
Oh, I'm sorry — I thought you had some proof, but it's just the standard diversion to avoid confronting the fact that there is nothing illegal, unconstitutional, or immoral with a government in a free society asking a business for help, and nothing wrong with a business deciding to voluntarily provide that help.
This is a clever trick in this debate — to claim that Google is essentially "forced" to comply with "requests" or it may not receive favorable government treatment.
It's clever, because it means you don't have to confront the truth, which is that there is nothing wrong with a government in a free society asking a business for help, and nothing wrong with a business deciding to provide that help. It's not illegal, and doesn't run afoul of the Constitution.
Now, if you had any sort of proof that Google felt pressured by the US government to respond to such requests, something it isn't asserting in any way, then you might have a point. The beauty of your argument is you don't need "proof"; you can just say, "Hey, intuitively, I believe that Google 'has' to help or else the government would screw them; therefore this is 'wrong'," without having anything whatsoever to back up that argument.
I know some will say that not complying with such requests might have "consequences", the implication being that it really is a demand with which Google "must" comply; of course, this is an assertion with no proof, designed to deflect attention from the fact that it is in no way illegal or unconstitutional for the US government to make such requests. If you have a problem with a business responding to such a request, then your problem is with that business, not the government. The irony is that Google is telling you that it's doing this, while other businesses don't -- and they're under no obligation to do so, either.
If you were talking about a business in Russia, China, or Iran, you might have a point.
Seems far too often in the US that the Constitution is only a reminder and not the law.
It's neither illegal nor unconstitutional for the US government to make a request of business.*
Also, privacy and liberty are not at two ends of a zero-sum sliding scale: we can and should have a good measure of both.
* I know some will say that not complying with such requests might have "consequences"; of course, this is an assertion with no proof, designed to deflect attention from the fact that it is in no way illegal or unconstitutional for the US government to make such requests. If you have a problem with a business responding to such a request, then your problem is with that business, not the government. The irony is that Google is telling you that it's doing this, while other businesses don't -- and they're under no obligation to do so, either.
That's why the underside of the drone was completely concealed with banners, and why BOTH wings had clearly been reattached?
Your definition of "quite perfect" must be quite different from mine. Your reply also doesn't address why drone flights had gone on for three years prior and continued uninterrupted if Iran had such a capability. I guess they downed it with their UFO technology!
That's why it's called a "request". Words mean things.
So what's driving the requests?
There's far more information to request. Whether or not you agree with the notion of government requests for information, would you really expect requests to remain flat, or go down, when the pool from which information is being requested is getting dramatically larger? Yes, it's newsworthy -- that's why you're reading this story -- but it's not inappoprtiate.
It's a request -- it is not illegal for the the US government to make a request of a business. It has never been illegal, and this is not some kind of "post-9/11" construct as some will assert. Government has been able to ask business for assistance since the founding of our country, and it does not run counter to the letter or spirit of the Constitution. Government is part of our society, and it is lawful for it to communicate with other components of our society.
Government cannot compel a particular response without a warrant or court order: Google is not obligated to respond to the a request that is not accompanied by a warrant or court order in any particular way. Google may CHOOSE to comply with a request because there is nothing inappropriate about a business deciding to comply with a lawful request from a government agency. Fortunately, if you don't like Google's policy, you can choose not to use it.
In other words, if you have an issue with Google complying with a US government request, your problem isn't with the US government -- it's with Google.
Google policy analyst Dorothy Chou told me in an interview prior to the data’s release that one example of the requests might be for the IP addresses of users who log into their Google accounts, which law enforcement agents use to locate individuals involved in criminal cases such as kidnapping.
She says Google requires that the requests are submitted in a written form, come from the appropriate agency, cite a criminal case and are sufficiently narrow in their demands in terms of which users are affected and what time frame of data is requested. "The data can often be very critical to a case," says Chou. "We want to show that we're advocating on your behalf. But we also want to do right by the spirit and letter of the law."
[...]
"We noticed that government agencies from different countries would sometimes ask us to remove political content that our users had posted on our services. We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it’s not," reads the post from Google’s Chou. "Just like every other time before, we've been asked to take down political speech. It’s alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect—Western democracies not typically associated with censorship."
For example, in the second half of last year, Spanish regulators asked us to remove 270 search results that linked to blogs and articles in newspapers referencing individuals and public figures, including mayors and public prosecutors. In Poland, we received a request from a public institution to remove links to a site that criticized it. We didn’t comply with either of these requests.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not paid to do anything. By your logic — especially since you're posting as AC and thus hiding your identity! — you must be shilling for some agenda, no? Please also explain how Syria's actions can be defended.
I do find it amusing that anyone you disagree with must be "playing political games", and that you think I should have a "disclaimer" in my sig. That says what? "Warning — you may find ideas which run counter to yours difficult to swallow"?
Give me a break.
I hope the amount of incorrect, ranting assumptions you've made about me and what you think I stand for made you feel better.
I don't discount any of the facts about individual incidents in your comment, nor would I ever be foolish or arrogant enough to say the US has never made a mistake — we have made plenty and will make plenty more — but let me ask you something:
Do you believe that the world and humanity would be better off if the US hadn't existed after, say, WWII? Not just from a geopolitical perspective, but from perspectives of technology, medicine, and similar?
Do you believe that someone like, say, China, or an amalgamation of warring mideast states, or perhaps even an old Soviet superstate would be a better global steward than the United States and the West?
If you can answer "Yes", or even "Perhaps", to either of those questions, we share no common ground from which to even have a discussion.
*Sigh*
Now we're getting into semantics, but it's not necessarily malicious, nor murder, nor "illegal" to kill in war. It is possible for a killing, even in wartime, to be all of those things. This wasn't one of those times. It's also possible to kill civilians accidentally and still not have it be malicious or a crime. Yes, someone is still dead — but intent matters, even in war. This is not a new construct.
They're all SOMETHING, and differ in degree, but the US and the principles for which it stands, however imperfectly throughout history, can definitely not be generalized as "evil". I can't say the same for totalitarian states — throughout history, or now.
Saying it's all "just different kinds of evil" shamefully ignores the countless tens millions of people who have died under the repression, tyranny, and selfishness of totalitarian regimes.
Yes, be vigilant. Yes, identify injustice. Yes, call out abuse. But as soon as you start believing the US is "just as bad" (or some similar sentiment) as any other government, but "just in a different way", you have lost all perspective on the realities of history and the world in which we live.
Assange made no bones about his interests and intents — there has been ample discussion and news coverage from a variety of viewpoints which recognized that Wikileaks under Asssange for a time became almost exclusively focused on targeting the US.
The video was not "chilling" unless you expect war to be a happy affair — unless you mean the version which Wikileaks carefully and intentionally edited for maximum impact, with the specific purpose of attention-whoring, and labeling things that no ordinary person viewing the video would otherwise have even been able to discern (e.g., freezing a frame and pointing out what was thought by everyone involved at the time to be a weapon as actually being a camera, after the fact, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight).
The video showed no malicious intent, though Assange took went to great lengths to remove as much context as possible to make it appears so, and even many State Department insiders viewed "Cablegate" as nothing more than proof that the United States has a thoughtful, experienced, and dedicated foreign service that actually does its job.
Assange has not even tried to hide his disdain for the US, long before any "smear campaign" could even be alleged. Other Wikileaks collaborators even left the project because of Assange's single-minded anti-US agenda. Now that Assange is more or less sidelined, we're seeing Wikileaks return to its initially-stated mission and purpose.
The rich irony, of course, is that Assange is seeking asylum from one of the least free nations — in terms of speech, press, and liberty — in the hemisphere. Of course, all of Assange's supporters love people like Chavez, Castro, and Correa, and the Kremlin's Russia Today "news" outlet aired a conversation between Assange and Correa on the heels of Ecuador giving the lease on an air base long held by the United States to China.
See the problem, here?
There are interests in the world opposed to the ideals of freedom and liberal democracy that actually need to be countered. And that's what the US has endeavored to do since WWII, and from which Europe and the West has enjoyed the fruits for over a half-century.
Most of the commenters here will twist this story into how the US is somehow evil, and drone on (pun intended) about how the US and West governments and/or corporations and/or political systems are what's wrong with the world, when in reality, people are suffering and dying under actual tyranny and oppression.
Like in Syria.
It's about time Wikileaks lived up to its initial stated mission of "exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East," instead of becoming an anti-US pulpit for a self-righteous egomaniac who has openly said if he was asked to choose between "advocate"/"activist" and "journalist", he would choose "advocate", and who answered "I'm too busy ending two wars," in response to a reporter asking for clarity on an issue.
(And no, this doesn't mean the US and West are all-perfect or all-wise — what it means is that people need to get out of their bizarro world and get some perspective on things. A clue wouldn't hurt, either.)
...at a non-slashdotted link, no less:
http://www.space.com/16395-orion-space-capsule-nasa-unveiled.html
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 clearly specifies that an properly adjudicated, individualized warrant from a court is required to collect, process, analyze, store, or disseminate the content of the communications of a US Person. While it seems to be common belief that you can just "call someone a terrorist and tap their phones," this is in fact false.
If you think the government will just ignore the law and do whatever it wants anyway, then any discussion of the law is moot.
Most people here will respond as if the United States is the greatest villain, not realizing that there actually is real tyranny and oppression in the world.
Please note that most seem to be construing this news as a cue to believe that Turing may have been murdered (by the British government, naturally), when in reality, Prof Jack Copeland, the foremost Turing scholar, and Turing's own mother thought it to be a careless accident rather than a suicide, with Copeland saying "the evidence should be taken at face value - that an accidental death is certainly consistent with all the currently known circumstances." The truth is that the initial inquest was so sloppy we will never know for certain, so those who are apt to believe in government conspiracies will no doubt believe he was assassinated (after he was already subject to humiliating chemical castration), even as the premier Turing expert believes it was more likely an accident.
It's not about a "right" to do anything trumping anything else. If there was no law against (target-)shooting in the area in which the shooters were, how do you suggest they be prevented from having done something that caused an accidental fire?
If your issue is with the fact they won't face punishment for something they couldn't have possibly predicted and didn't intend, how is the lack of punishment in any way related to the fact that thousands of people are now without homes?
If your issue is the fact that there is no framework of law to prohibit, e.g., shooting under certain conditions, in a similar manner as, say, open fires when weather conditions are not safe for fires, then I might begin to agree with you.
"Would you rather start at an Apple store for $11.91 an hour (average starting base pay, according to the linked article) and an employee discount, or at Tiffany for $15.60?"
I think the people who work at Apple Stores -- and others waiting for callbacks -- have already answered that.
What, supply and demand suddenly can't drive wages now?
But I imagine this, like any article on Foxconn (aka "Apple factory"; forget all other customers), will be another anti-Apple free-for-all, so have fun!
But the CONTENT of the communications of US Persons does require a warrant — that is the law, and that was made more even more explicit with the FISA Amendments Act of 2008: the acquisition, storage, analysis, dissemination, etc., of the content of the communications of US Persons anywhere on the globe requires an individual and properly adjudicated warrant from a court of competent jurisdiction. Before, communications outside the US, even of US Persons outside of the US, were sometimes in a gray area. That gray area no longer exists.
Some will say, "But the government will just ignore the law and do what it wants anyway!" If that's the assertion, there isn't really room for debate on exactly what the law should say...
I didn't say he was lying, and I didn't say he was misquoted. I didn't even imply that. I'm quite sure he believed Qwest's reluctance to participate was directly responsible for it losing contract dollars.
What I said was there is that even that isn't "proof" of anything; yes, we can certainly sit here and infer all day long, and I agree that there is a certain quid pro quo in all human interactions.
But if we're going to use government contract awards as the sole yardstick of "reward" for a business complying with government requests, AT&T surely should have received the most contracts?
If you want to use the Qwest CEO's comments as "proof" that not complying with government requests could have negative repercussions, then you also have to consider why AT&T, as the poster child for this relationship, wouldn't have received the most contracts.
Further, Google is clearly and explicitly saying its cooperation is voluntary. Now the true tinfoil hat crowd among us will say that Google wouldn't dare claim that it feels it has no choice but to respond to government requests or else it might be punished, because it wants to stay on the government's "good side"...ignoring for a moment that if that were really the case, it simply wouldn't report on these requests at all.
Meanwhile, there is actual tyranny and oppression elsewhere in the world.
This is Qwest claiming it was punished for not participating in an early iteration of the long-defunct TSP. If that's true, then would it not stand to reason that AT&T should have received the most government contracts in response? Except two other telecom operators were ahead of them.
Google is not claiming it was or will be punished; in fact, it is taking great pains to explain that its cooperation is voluntary. The Qwest CEO's claims do not mean that Google feels it is being pressured, and doesn't address the fact that such requests are neither unlawful nor unconstitutional.
Except that's wrong, because a warrant already isn't required for many different types of non-content information, and not only in relation to the internet.
Great reply — one of the increasingly few thoughtful responses I get on slashdot these days.
To address your points, there are many exceptions to the warrant requirement. For example, the metadata or "envelope" of communications has generally been considered by the courts to be exempt from warrant requirements.
In the literal sense of an envelope, a warrant is not required for government to look at the outside of an envelope (e.g., addresses written on the envelope, or its size and shape or other external characteristics).
In the case of phone conversations, Smith v. Maryland (1979) said that things like the list of phone calls received, or numbers called, or for how long, were part of phone company billing records and a warrant was not required.
In the context of the internet, a warrant is not required for communications metadata — IP addresses, DNS names, To: and From: addresses on an email message, and similar.
It is the CONTENT of communications that requires a warrant. The words written in a letter; the words spoken on a phone call; the words contained in an email message or VoIP call.
So, if these kind of non-content requests don't require a warrant, and have longstanding analogues in the non-digital realm upheld by the Supreme Court, what is wrong with making these requests in the digital realm?
Some might say that a much more complete picture of a person can be constructed from increasing activities in the digital realm, even without the benefit of the content of communications. Certainly I would agree. Does that automatically make it illegal, immoral, or wrong? It's definitely not illegal or unconstitutional (it isn't illegal until a law says it is, and it isn't unconstitutional unless a court of competent jurisdiction says so; and these examples above are explicitly held as constitutional), so is it immoral or wrong? If the government has legitimate interests here, and legitimate charges to execute the law, the real question is just how far that authority goes.
It would be ridiculous to assert that any contact with business by government in a free society be accompanied by force of law. It would be similarly ridiculous to allow for the provision of any and all information the government asked for without a warrant. So the balance is clearly somewhere between these two extremes. Currently the balance is a result of the fact that there are numerous and longstanding (i.e., not "post 9/11) exemptions to the requirement for a warrant for written (mail), voice (telephone), and digital (internet) communications.
Security and liberty are not at two ends of a zero-sum sliding scale. We can and should have a good measure of both.
No, not "just like" that at all.
It's the law to pay taxes in the United States — it's not a request.
There is no "law" that says that Google has to comply with a US government request (that is not accompanied by a court order or a warrant) in any particular way.
Are you saying that the government should NEVER be able to have any communications with any other business or entity in the US, or make any kind of request, unless it is accompanied by the force of law and criminal penalties for noncompliance?
Oh, I'm sorry — I thought you had some proof, but it's just the standard diversion to avoid confronting the fact that there is nothing illegal, unconstitutional, or immoral with a government in a free society asking a business for help, and nothing wrong with a business deciding to voluntarily provide that help.
This is a clever trick in this debate — to claim that Google is essentially "forced" to comply with "requests" or it may not receive favorable government treatment.
It's clever, because it means you don't have to confront the truth, which is that there is nothing wrong with a government in a free society asking a business for help, and nothing wrong with a business deciding to provide that help. It's not illegal, and doesn't run afoul of the Constitution.
Now, if you had any sort of proof that Google felt pressured by the US government to respond to such requests, something it isn't asserting in any way, then you might have a point. The beauty of your argument is you don't need "proof"; you can just say, "Hey, intuitively, I believe that Google 'has' to help or else the government would screw them; therefore this is 'wrong'," without having anything whatsoever to back up that argument.
As I said in another comment:
I know some will say that not complying with such requests might have "consequences", the implication being that it really is a demand with which Google "must" comply; of course, this is an assertion with no proof, designed to deflect attention from the fact that it is in no way illegal or unconstitutional for the US government to make such requests. If you have a problem with a business responding to such a request, then your problem is with that business, not the government. The irony is that Google is telling you that it's doing this, while other businesses don't -- and they're under no obligation to do so, either.
If you were talking about a business in Russia, China, or Iran, you might have a point.
Seems far too often in the US that the Constitution is only a reminder and not the law.
It's neither illegal nor unconstitutional for the US government to make a request of business.*
Also, privacy and liberty are not at two ends of a zero-sum sliding scale: we can and should have a good measure of both.
* I know some will say that not complying with such requests might have "consequences"; of course, this is an assertion with no proof, designed to deflect attention from the fact that it is in no way illegal or unconstitutional for the US government to make such requests. If you have a problem with a business responding to such a request, then your problem is with that business, not the government. The irony is that Google is telling you that it's doing this, while other businesses don't -- and they're under no obligation to do so, either.
That's why the underside of the drone was completely concealed with banners, and why BOTH wings had clearly been reattached?
Your definition of "quite perfect" must be quite different from mine. Your reply also doesn't address why drone flights had gone on for three years prior and continued uninterrupted if Iran had such a capability. I guess they downed it with their UFO technology!
That's why it's called a "request". Words mean things.
So what's driving the requests?
There's far more information to request. Whether or not you agree with the notion of government requests for information, would you really expect requests to remain flat, or go down, when the pool from which information is being requested is getting dramatically larger? Yes, it's newsworthy -- that's why you're reading this story -- but it's not inappoprtiate.
It's a request -- it is not illegal for the the US government to make a request of a business. It has never been illegal, and this is not some kind of "post-9/11" construct as some will assert. Government has been able to ask business for assistance since the founding of our country, and it does not run counter to the letter or spirit of the Constitution. Government is part of our society, and it is lawful for it to communicate with other components of our society.
Government cannot compel a particular response without a warrant or court order: Google is not obligated to respond to the a request that is not accompanied by a warrant or court order in any particular way. Google may CHOOSE to comply with a request because there is nothing inappropriate about a business deciding to comply with a lawful request from a government agency. Fortunately, if you don't like Google's policy, you can choose not to use it.
In other words, if you have an issue with Google complying with a US government request, your problem isn't with the US government -- it's with Google.
See also Google's official blog post.
Actually, the Dragon capsule that just docked with ISS is the first cargo vehicle also designed to take things back from the station.