Posted by Brajeshwar 2 hours ago
>We won’t give notice when legally prohibited under the terms of the request.
The post states that his lawyer has reviewed the subpoena, but doesn't mention whether or not it contained a non-disclosure order. That's an important detail to address if the claim is that Google acted against its own policy.
> This document explains two key ways that recipients can resist immigration administrative subpoenas: First, any gag order in these subpoenas has no legal effect; you are free to publicize them and inform the target of the subpoena. Second, you do not have to comply with the subpoena at all, unless ICE goes to court—where you can raise a number of possible objections—and the court orders compliance.
[1]: https://www.acluofnorthcarolina.org/app/uploads/drupal/sites...
Never used Gmail other than as a throwaway account.
Went many years before I had a Youtube account. Finally made one to upload some videos. I am normally not logged in.
(OK, OK - I was more concerned with them suddenly charging for a "free" service, as well as selling data to commercial enterprises than with them giving to the government).
(OK, OK - I do use Android).
First I signed up with Proton Mail and added my own domain, they fit the bill for me, YMMV.
Then I did a search in my password manager and went through those accounts.
Then I just let the old account sit there for a year. Each time I got an email from something I cared about I'd log in and change mail.
It's been a year now, and I'm about to terminate the old account. All I get there now is occasional spam.
I really dreaded this, but all in all quite painless. And next time it should be easier since I now own the email domain.
edit: Forgot to mention I use Thunderbird, so old email I archived to local folders. That's part if why I ended with Proton, their IMAP bridge allows me to keep using Thunderbird.
For general security, I also use a yubikey for all services that support it, froze credit with all agencies, and added phone support passwords to all my financial institutions.
The failure modes of that are fire/natural disaster, and thieves. Do that, but also have a geographically redundant backup scheme. Either encrypted eg Backblaze or a relatives house in another state.
Overall it’s been an acceptable trade off and I’m glad years ago I switched to a custom domain for email so I can have portability.
I honestly assumed that everyone had a rotten time with Gmail spam filtering but I guess it’s just a me problem. I suppose that means I’m up for an interesting time dealing with it as I move to a custom domain somewhere else.
Anyone have any recommendations for providers that have exceptionally good spam filtering? Hell I’d even just settle for ones that honor “mark as spam,” because Gmail absolutely does not.
Fair point. However...the parent's comment is also fair because the article does a poor job of raising this material fact. You have to click through a sub-article.
It's almost like this article should be tagged (2025) because it's basically a replay of the author's account from 2025.[0]
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/05/palest...
I didn't mention it in op but I also moved to graphene os which tbh feels much better than android has recently.
The request came in April 2025, and the user was notified the following month. That's next to a year for them to hear about it internally and then quit and setup self-hosting prior to today.
This just proves my point to discount what you say. You're basically admitting to being a pest.
For all I know this could be somebody's OpenClaw spouting bullshit. The default credibility of all throwaways is zero and that was even true before 2023.
If you let it influence your opinion in any way you're a fool.
The account is from 2013 but given that profile, I can't give it any credibility. After all, it could be somebody's OpenClaw having been granted control of the account.
Sounds like Google stopped caring.
But... Why on earth do the people filing an administrative subpoena not have to notify the interested parties too? Why is it Google's responsibility? If they didn't tell you, would you ever find out?
The problem is they tell user that they'll inform you right away and give them a chance to challenge the subpoena.
A quick search shows that they've done in the past and people have been able to get the subpoena's withdrawn.
https://thefulcrum.us/rule-of-law/us-administrative-subpoena...
KYC laws mean that his carrier has his name and email address and the feds probably got that without anyone informing the customer.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/05/palest...
[2]: https://panthernow.com/2026/03/03/international-students-sel...
That desire is gone so they are going all out.
Unfortunately Trump is doing whatever he wants at this point and ignoring anyone that says otherwise.
Willing, optional compliance with the administration is the core problem here.
[1]: https://www.acluofnorthcarolina.org/app/uploads/drupal/sites...
I lived in Austin TX during this time and there was never a single anti-ICE or anti-deportation protest until Cheeto won.
Obama had kids in cages. Obama deported people. But he is a (D) so it's no big deal.
"Free thinking liberals" are wildly subject to what CNN , AP News and Reddit says.
b) I also lived in Austin during that time, and the scale and militarization of current ICE action is on another level to what it was in the early 10's
https://www.wlrn.org/immigration/2026-01-23/politifact-fl-im...
https://tracreports.org/tracatwork/detail/A6019.html
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO00/20200109/110349/HHRG...
The author isn't American.
Edit - wait until y'all find out other countries also have borders and laws...
Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Note in Heller and elsewhere it was determined "the people" are those who belong to the political class (which is a bit vague, refer to next sentence, but not same as voting class). Generally this is not those on non-immigrant visas or illegal aliens (though circuits are split on this). If you don't have the right to bear arms, clearly you are not "the people" since people by definition have the right to bear arms, which means you wouldn't have the right of "the people" to protest either, no? So it appears since they are not people, they don't have the right to assemble in protest, though they may have other first amendment rights since it's protest specifically that was narrowed to "the people" rather than many of the other parts of the first amendment which are worded without that narrowing.
For instance, speech without assembly isn't narrowed to just "the people." Perhaps this was done intentionally since allowing non-people to stage protests was seen as less desirable than merely allowing them to otherwise speak freely.
Note: Personally I do think non-immigrants are people, but trying to apply the same "people" two different ways with the exact same wording makes no sense. If they can't bear arms they necessarily are not "the people" and thus are not afforded the right to "assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
I thought it was settled constitutional law that it doesn't? Moreover, during the war on terror, it was established that the president can freely order the murder of non Americans outside the US.
Everywhere you go, if your phone is in your pocket, you are being tracked and stored, and available to the government.
Everywhere your car goes, is tracked and stored and available to the government.
BTW, the J6 protesters were all tracked and identified by their cell phone data.
Many of the insurrectionists were also caught on camera in congress after they broke down the doors and stormed the building. Some even took selfies in the offices of various senators and house reps.
If it's not your computer, it's not your data.
There’s been some pushback since then, but nothing to give any confidence that CODENAMEY, CODENAMEZ, and many others have have sprung up.
What exactly did the request for information say from DHS? What exactly was the reason for them to look for you specifically (certainly there are many others protesting)? Following up on that, how do others avoid something like this? What red flags should be avoided and how?
There may or may not be a solid answer for any of this. But this article feels like it's made for awareness, when it could also be made for action, with the right details included.
People may be tired of seeing stories like this appear on HN, but getting this story exposure to this group is exactly why they need to hit the homepage.
I am not tired of that at all. But you have people be tired of tons of things, on reddit too. That should not distract discussions. If technology is involved I think it perfectly fits HN and in this regard, the state uses technology to sniff after people - without a real legal, objective cause. It's almost as if the current administration attempts to inflate court cases to weaken the system, e. g. until judges say "no, that's too much work, I just auto-convict via this AI tool the government gave me".
> the administration’s rhetoric about cracking down on students protesting what we saw as genocide forced me into hiding for three months. Federal agents came to my home looking for me. A friend was detained at an airport in Tampa and interrogated about my whereabouts.
Do you think any of them were sincere?
On a side note, it was interesting after Trump was elected where some of my co-workers wanted to use old pronouns after some laws changed _in meetings_ and I realized the only thing stopping them was the awkwardness it would have been for _them_ in that situation
Of course, it turned out that the average American had no problem learning what a pronoun was if it gave them the opportunity to be mean. Sigh.
Maybe there was some other sign they didn't ask in good faith? But I have no idea what dumb thing trump said you're even talking about.
Intelligent people don't post condescending, shallow dismissals.
Were they clearly actually talking about that? If that was their question, word-for-word, it's a good question! We are not managing our forests all that well. No, we shouldn't be doing Trump's dumbass raking "idea", but we should be doing controlled burns, at minimum.
Are you sure about that? I've been hearing for at least a decade that the solution to CA's forest fire problem is something along the lines of reducing the amount of potential fuel that is allowed to build up by either allowing smaller fires to run their course without intervention or alternatively aggressively executing controlled burns on a regular schedule.
Not sure how viable that is as a solution but I do know the idea didn't originate with Trump because it predates his entire political career.
Not that this is the only factor in play here on a lot of these fires, and once again I do agree Trump's take is idiotic and ultimately he's not helping but pouring gasoline on the issue. Just pointing out, we definitely aren't managing our forests well for a multitude of reasons.
https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/12/12/twenty-year-study-confi...
In the west coast, the state vs federal friction reduces how much of that happens, and there's more uncontrolled growth happening. And there's not always a lot that e.g. CA government can do about it if it's federal land.
For example, Minnesota (intentionally) burns like 50% more acreage than California on an annual basis, despite being like half the size. But CA also is like half federal land, MN is like 5% or something.
Allowing people they don't like to insult them? Not much of a priority.
The number of HNers (and people at large) who think that both corporate parties don't vehemently oppose free speech and privacy is disturbing. Right now, today, a massive number of Democrats who have spent years decrying Trump (and Republicans as a whole) as fascists are lining up to support a "clean" reauthorization of section 702 of FISA, which allows (despite the phony claims of its supporters) the warrantless and unconstituional surveillance of US citizens (and others). If our government was controlled fascists, why would anyone give them the power to spy on anyone without a warrant? Because it's all kabuki theater and everyone in DC is part of the same team, and you ain't on it.
With such a small sample size, you have a whole lot of confidence saying "well, the Dems encouraged them".
Which ones?
Can you further clarify how the US was involved in the war in Gaza, and how that was the Democrats getting involved? And do you really feel that involvement was anywhere near what is happening or comparable with Iran at the moment?
How many US servicemembers were injured or killed in the US's apparent major war with Gaza?
We've spent ~$20B in grants for weapons procurement on Israel's behalf over several years, with a lot of that being defensive missile systems. We've spent over double more than that so far in Iran in less than two months, and that's ignoring the many billions it'll cost to fix things that were destroyed so far.
Who is spreading whataboutism again?
Everyone must simultaneously fight for a better system and choose the least-worst option when it comes time for an election.
Iran's regime sucked (still sucks), to be sure. This was frankly not all that much of an issue for the US. It was a big issue for other Arab nations in the area (not to mention for Israel), but I'm not sure why we should be doing their dirty work.
If the end result of all this is a large weakening in Iran's regime, a reduction in Iran's influence in the region, and (otherwise) a return to the status quo, I guess that's something of a victory. But it's far from clear that we'll even come out that well, and meanwhile we've murdered civilians, and spent American lives and war materiel. Not great. We should have left well enough alone.
At the time, the Republicans whined incessantly about how soft Obama was. But they sure enjoyed dropping those Obama Bombs last year that he commissioned as a Plan B. Obama spoke softly, carried a big stick, and hammered out a brilliant deal. Trump bragged loudly, tore up the deal, swung the stick he inherited, missed, and fell in the oil. Sad.
At the time, Israel whined incessantly about how Iran was going to secretly enrich anyway. But their own intelligence from compromising the enrichment program shows in hindsight that this was not the case and Iran was behaving themselves.
That's why I base my expectations on track records, not on Republican whining.
US withdrew from JCPOA under Trump (which led to a certain chain of events), but Biden was not able to revive it during his term. Not clear why we think a different president would be able to, and under what terms/concessions.
This is probably the best and most succinct -- and pithy -- take I've read as of yet.
I hope you're joking!
IMO there are no surprises from this admin, they are doing what they promised.
Trump? Not holding up his end of the deal? Who could have seen that coming!
What is called "Google" today is actually the old, fully evil, advertising firm "DoubleClick" pretending to be "Google" to make use of the goodwill the "Google" brand name used to have attached to it.
Even today, I would argue an average sample of Googlers will likely think slightly differently about these things than an average sample of Facebook employees; but of course both will have to respond to influence from the external world: i.e. customer, society, govt.
Google was also sued by former employees who claim they were fired because they tried to prevent Google from doing evil[2], in accordance with the code of conduct they agreed to. Sadly that lawsuit ended with a secret settlement, so we'll never know what a jury thinks. Since "don't be evil" is still in there I suppose it could come up again.
[0]: https://abc.xyz/investor/board-and-governance/google-code-of...
[1]: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-dont-be-evil/2540...
[2]: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/29/1059821677/google-dont-be-evi...
here is the google code of conduct: https://abc.xyz/investor/board-and-governance/google-code-of...
scroll down to the bottom, and you will see:
"And remember... don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!"
> The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users.
- Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, 1998
...then BackRub turned Gogool mis-spelled, and the rest is history.