Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist Credit Card Number

https://theintercept.com/2026/02/10/google-ice-subpoena-student-journalist/

by lehi • 5 months ago

798 299 5 months ago

jmclnx• 5 months ago

I left google search for duckduckgo a few years ago due to all the marketing drivel returned. I guess there is yet another, better reason, to avoid google.

As for gmail, it joined my old yahoo mail as a dumping ground. If some site wants an email, they get my gmail address, which I never go to these days.

But how did google get this person's info ? Are they spying on their emails, or worse yet, are they scraping data for apps you installed on your android phone ?

Forgeties79• 5 months ago

Just wish I could get off gcal. Too many friends/family on it

ceejayoz5• 5 months ago

Google Calendar is pretty cross-compatible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar

JoshTriplett2• 5 months ago

Fastmail's calendar works reasonably well. My two complaints with it:

- There isn't a convenient calendar widget; Google's calendar widget only works with Google's calendar. I'd like something exactly like Google's calendar widget but working with Fastmail's calendar.

- Sites that integrate with Google Calendar but not with arbitrary CalDAV servers.

I could live without the latter, but the former is a dealbreaker; I'd switch given a functional widget that is fully self-contained and doesn't require some separate sync app.

bl4kers• 5 months ago

Huh? There is little to no lock-in

starik36• 5 months ago

What do you think is going to happen when DDG or Fastmail gets a FISA warrant? You think they will stand their ground and go to prison to protect your info?

History (like the PRISM project) says no.

ceejayoz5• 5 months ago

The article indicates even Meta pushed back on some of these:

Unlike Thomas-Johnson, users in that case were given the chance to fight the subpoena because they were made aware of it before Meta complied.

yborg• 5 months ago

Fastmail is Australian, though?

nobody9999• 5 months ago

What do you think is going to happen when DDG or Fastmail gets a FISA warrant? You think they will stand their ground and go to prison to protect your info?

I don't know about Fastmail, but according to DuckDuckGo[0]:

   Does DuckDuckGo share my search and browsing history with governments?

   No. Per our strict Privacy Policy[1]:

   "Critically, it's not possible for us to provide search or browsing histories 
   linked to you in response to legal requests because we don't have them."

   "We don’t save or share your search or browsing history when you search on 
   DuckDuckGo or use our apps and extensions."

[0] https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/misconceptions/...

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/privacy

hsuduebc23• 5 months ago

[flagged]

Anonbrit2• 5 months ago

Several companies have resisted these court orders successfully. Google can afford a lawyer to go over the order with a fine tooth comb if they wanted to - it's just easier to roll over and let the government rub their belly.

Trump has also repeatedly used government apparatus to illegally retaliate against companies and individuals for not going hos way, with no consequence, so it is hard to entirely blame corporations for behaving that way

agilob4• 5 months ago

They changed the motto to "do the right thing", because, apparently "evil" is too ambiguous. "Do the right thing" is more suitable motto for a company whos CEO was a buddy of Epstein. Tech CEOs helped get Trump elected and strengthen ICE regime to protect the billionaires, they were all involved.

hsuduebc23• 5 months ago

That was really their argument?

Quite contrary, the "right thing" is the ambiguous one. I think that most people agree what is evil. Certainly much more than what is right.

Filligree• 5 months ago

Were they legally required to?

jmyeet• 5 months ago

According to the ACLU, they are not [1]. So Google voluntarily handed over user information. It requires a court order to enforce it and that requires a judge to sign off on it.

This is somewhat analogous to ICE's use of administrative warrants, which really have no legal standing. They certainly don't allow ICE to enter a private abode. You need a judicial warrant for that. That too requires a judge to sign off on it.

[1] https://www.aclu.org/documents/know-your-rights-ice-administ...

ceejayoz5• 5 months ago

They certainly don't allow ICE to enter a private abode.

I'd just note that ICE is (falsely) claiming otherwise these days.

https://apnews.com/article/ice-arrests-warrants-minneapolis-...

"Federal immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by The Associated Press, marking a sharp reversal of longstanding guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches."

legitster6• 5 months ago

This is more aimed at individuals or smaller actors that may be getting subpoenas from ICE.

There is actually a legal standing for DHS to issue these administrative warrants on corporations in this way.

legitster6• 5 months ago

For a normal subpoena from a court, yes.

For an "administrative" subpoena from an agency, they take a risk in court.

Judicial review is deferred. If Google thinks the subpoena is egregious, they can go to court and argue. But in the meantime they can either carry it out or risk being held in contempt if they don't and lose in court.

linkregister4• 5 months ago

According to this article, it is treated as a request and often denied by the company. The target of the warrant did go to court to quash it, but that was already after Google declined to share the information.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/02/03/hom...

edit: it appears that either 1. the Washington Post is printing misinformation, or 2. I have made a grave misinterpretation.

dathinab2• 5 months ago

the only way to legally search a house, car or force companies to hand anything over is with a judge signing it off

the article isn't clear about it but it implies that this was not approved by a judge but DHS alone, this is also indicated but the fact that the supona contained a gag order but Google still informed the affected person that _some_ information was hanged over

now some level of cooperation with law enforcement even without a judge is normal to reduce friction and if you love in a proper state of law there is no problem Keith it.

Also companies are to some degree required to cooperate.

What makes this case so problematic is the amount of information shared without a judge order, that ICE tried to gag Google, that Google did delay compliance to give the affected person a chance to take legal action even through they could, and last but but least that this information seems to have been requested for retaliation against protestor which is a big no go for a state of law

dmix2• 5 months ago

Apparently around 300 students have been deported over pro-Palestine activism, similar to the person in the article who self-deported

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/04/05/visa-immigrati...

Legally, the answer is murky, one expert told The Washington Post — at least when it comes to combing through Supreme Court decisions for answers. The court has been clear that First Amendment protections from criminal or civil penalties for speech apply to citizens and noncitizens alike. What’s less settled, however, is how those protections apply in the immigration context, where the executive branch has broad discretion to detain or deport.

hsuduebc23• 5 months ago

Just out of curiosity. Are there any companies today that are seen the way Google used to be seen, as a generally “good” corporation/companies that are also a important player? Maybe Mozilla Foundation?

agilob4• 5 months ago

Blizzard, Microsoft come to mind

saubeidl• 5 months ago

Blizzard is a bunch of sex pests and Microsoft is the guys with the AI upsells on every inch of their OS...

passwordoops• 5 months ago

How far back do you have to go for Microsoft to be seen as "good" the way Google was?

AlexandrB3• 5 months ago

Blizzard ~10 years ago, maybe. Microslop has always been one of the worst. I don't understand why anyone would have a positive disposition towards Microslop.

govideo• 5 months ago

yep re blizzard. they've gotten lots better since the msft acquisition, based on my (limited) experiences with the newer employees there.

InitialLastName2• 5 months ago

Anthropic seems to be chasing that angle (c.f. their run of "AI that doesn't advertise to you" commercials).

nickthegreek• 5 months ago

They have contracts with Palantir.

skeptic_ai2• 5 months ago

Come back in 2-3 years. I bet will be one of the worst if still around

AlexandrB3• 5 months ago

Maybe Valve?

moogly• 5 months ago

Degenerate gambling company.

SlightlyLeftPad2• 5 months ago

Agreed. Nvidia too maybe? That said, Nvidia is highly competitive and has built a walled garden via their software so I have mixed feelings.

skeptic_ai2• 5 months ago

Maybe proton, but even that… is not great.

rchaud• 5 months ago

There are no good mega-corporations, only a honeymoon period where they haven't grown large enough to start horse-trading for favorable treatment from the state.

jeffbee2• 5 months ago

There are exactly zero organizations that will refuse to comply with subpoenas and warrants. It isn't up to business to fix the national government.

jeffbee2• 5 months ago

By the way, perhaps your point of view on Google has evolved but on the question of the way Google is seen today by American consumers it is still right up there with Kleenex and Jesus. Furthermore, pretty much everyone, in America and abroad, views business as both more ethical and more effective than governments and non-governmental organizations.

danans• 5 months ago

Furthermore, pretty much everyone, in America and abroad, views business as both more ethical and more effective than governments and non-governmental organizations.

"Transnational oligarchic mega-corporations" !== "business".

People don't like the former. They like businesses that operate at closer to human and community scale.

diego_moita• 5 months ago

Does anyone still remember when Western countries were scared of Huawei because the Chinese would use their hardware to spy on people?

Well, guess what? The U.S. also has their own Huawei. But, at least, they're "democratic" and follow "the rule of the law" (for whatever these words mean nowadays).

daveidol• 5 months ago

Didn’t we all learn this with the Snowden files? Nothing new unfortunately

jacquesm• 5 months ago

Both are wrong.

loeg• 5 months ago

It's actually materially better that Google's regulator is the USG and not the CCP. These aren't the same thing.

x1ph0z• 5 months ago

What are some ways users can insulate themselves from something like this?

Anonbrit2• 5 months ago

Don't use products from large US tech companies?

Apple has a slightly better track record than Google of fighting this stuff, but ultimately if you're using a product from a US tech company then it's likely ICE can get their grubby little mitts on everything that company knows about you

pixl97• 5 months ago

I'm guessing your constraint is impossible as living in the US pretty much requires banking and working with companies that will gladly give government agencies your information. I severely doubt that tech is the only group doing this.

panarky• 5 months ago

Is there any evidence that Apple fights administrative subpoenas issued by US federal agencies?

Or is Google just more transparent than Apple about the government orders it complies with?

For example, after the Department of Justice demanded app stores remove apps that people use to track ICE deployments, Apple was the first to comply, followed later by Google.

pear012• 5 months ago

Are they going to stop because a company fights a subpoena? Or perhaps in the case of some touted alternatives, even if a subpoena were acted upon, no data would be intelligible?

Maybe they'll just show up to your house next time. I'm not sure why people complain about US companies complying with US government subpoenas. Isn't that how it is supposed to work? Imagine if the opposite were routine, would you like that?

People want to stop using Gmail to feel agency in a situation where the real problem is their own government. The real answer thus lies in deeply reforming a federal government that really both sides of the aisle (in their own way) agree has gotten too powerful and out of control.

Nextgrid2• 5 months ago

Alternatively, use them pseudonymously? There's little reason any of these companies need to know your real identity. This will both reduce the likelihood of ICE finding your account from a real-life interaction, as well as reduce the likelihood of ICE finding your real-life identity if they do get your account data (they'd at least need to dig through it more than just going by first/last name on the account itself).

crazygringo2• 5 months ago

Don't use products from large US tech companies?

What does large have to do with it? Why do you think smaller companies are any more likely to resist? If anything, they have even less resources to go to court.

And why do you think other countries are any better? If you use a French provider, and they get a French judicial requisition or letters rogatory, then do you think the outcome is going to be any different?

I mean sure if you're avoiding ICE specifically, then using anything non-American is a start. But similarly, in you're in France and want to protect yourself, then using products from American companies without a presence in France is similarly a good strategy.

PlatoIsADisease• 5 months ago

Wild guess: You like Apple more than Google.

I only guessed that because that is a strange conclusion to draw when Apple was involved in PRISM, they worked with China to black pro- democracy hong kong apps, and I believe they turned over data to China and Russia.

Apple's PR/marketing is best in class, so I can also see this just being a knowledge level error rather than bias.

sneak6• 5 months ago

No they do not. Apple intentionally preserves backdoors in the e2ee of iMessage (via iCloud Backup) to aid the FBI.

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusive-apple-droppe...

(the opt-in e2ee for iCloud Backups is irrelevant - approximately nobody turns it on, so everyone you talk to is leaking all of your chats.)

dismalaf• 5 months ago

Be outside the US and/or don't use products from US companies?

Believe it or not, tech companies must comply with the authorities of countries they operate in. They're also not required to tell you, sometimes they're compelled to not tell you.

The idea that a tech company can outright oppose the state is pure fantasy... They still must operate within laws.

AzzyHN• 5 months ago

As a rule: don't bother with trying to "opt out" of data collection. Reject the collection entirely either by forcefully blocking it (ublock Origin for instance) or straight up not using the service.

drnick12• 5 months ago

QFT

digiown• 5 months ago

I don't really understand the point in these cases specifically. If not Google, the government can always ask a bunch of other companies like utilities or stores about your details. It's a fool's errand to protect your payment info, ID, etc from the government, since it's issued or authorized by them in the first place.

With regard to more important info, treat Google and any other company's software as government-accessible. Don't put anything that could be even suspicious, since even if you can win in court, your time gets wasted by government employees getting paid for it. People keep forgetting it, but the cloud is just someone else's computer.

solid_fuel• 5 months ago

Vote for politicians who support checks and bounds, demand accountability from those in power, and participate in civics.

xyst3• 5 months ago

how naive to think this current administration will play by the rules in the next general election

drnick12• 5 months ago

Privacy crash course (non exhaustive):

- Do not use social media

- Install Linux on your PC/laptop, buy a phone compatible with GrapheneOS

- Self-host any cloud services you may need (file sharing etc.)

- Communicate over Signal or self-hosted Matrix/XMPP

- Use throwaway SIM cards and phone numbers where they make sense

- Unplug the cellular modem in your car (if applicable)

- Pay with cash or crypto

- Use fake identities for anything that isn't government related (paying taxes)

- Use Tor, VPNs, and ad blockers

xyst3• 5 months ago

don't use centralized services, especially ones located in USA.

also self hosting (mail, contacts, storage, ...)

AlexandrB3• 5 months ago

Why the hell did Google even have his bank account numbers? I wish there was more information on which Google service(s) this data was pulled from.

ceejayoz5• 5 months ago

You can setup ACH for a number of Google services; Cloud, Workspace, the Play Store.

legitster6• 5 months ago

So I don't think I actually have a problem with businesses handing over their customer data if there is a valid warrant or subpoena. That's the system working as intended.

The main crux of the problem here is that the DHS has been granted a wide berth by congress to issue administrative subpoenas - i.e. not reviewed by a real judge and not directed at criminals. In "good" times this made investigations run smoothly. But the reality now is that ICE is doing wide dragnets to make arrests without any judicial oversight and often hostile to habeas corpus.

(Also, my understanding is that when banking is involved, it may also fall under the Banking Secrecy Act and Know Your Customer Rules - a whole other privacy nightmare.)

I know we instinctively want to frame this as a privacy problem, but the real problem we need congress to act on is abolishing these "shadow" justice systems that agencies have been able to set up.

crooked-v• 5 months ago

"Administrative subpoenas" have always been bullshit that mostly rely on there being no penalty for companies that hand over user information to anyone with a badge and then justify it with a five-hundred-page TOS document.

linkregister4• 5 months ago

Google, among most other tech companies, deny portions of administrative warrants. Here's a story about someone who was stressed out about their notification by Google (spoiler, Google decided to deny the government's request)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/02/03/hom...

edit: It appears that this outcome is an outlier and most admin warrants are honored. It is unfortunate to see the Washington Post decline in reliability like this.

legitster6• 5 months ago

There is a case to be made that administrative subpoenas can be good. They save taxpayers money, they speed up investigations, and they free up the court for more important matters.

As with all things though, these agencies should not be self-regulated without civilian and judicial oversight.

b00ty4breakfast• 5 months ago

There will always be the opportunity for the foibles of humans to affect the procedures of the law. Trying to play "guess if the shadowy government agency is doing the right thing this week" is a losing game. They always take the proverbial mile, they are not ever going to be satisfied with the inch.

Retric2• 5 months ago

There’s definitely been variability in how far government agencies have been pushing under this administration.

It’s going to get interesting if the next Democrat in the white house takes similar steps based on current precedent. That would hopefully result in long term reforms, but we might just be heading to civil war regardless.

slg3• 5 months ago

Trying to play "guess if the shadowy government agency is doing the right thing this week" is a losing game.

Which is why the best strategy is to bring things out of the shadows and have the government operate in the open whether that is more literal by making their actions part of the public record or just figuratively by requiring a lot of disparate parts of the government to coordinate on something like this so it can only go wrong with truly widespread corruption.

Playing a cat and mouse game with the government via technology is also a losing game. They'll always have more money, people, and expertise on their side. When the heart of the problem is the humans involved, the solution is inherently politics.

LtWorf• 5 months ago

In "good" times this made investigations run smoothly.

These times never existed.

mindslight8• 5 months ago

I'm getting tired of these comments that normalize being in the middle of the slippery slope as if it is merely the same as being at the top of the slippery slope was. They may not have been "good" times, but they were certainly better times when government agencies at least aimed to carry out their roles in good faith rather than minmaxing the rules to cause the most damage to enemies of the Party. Applying judgement while exercising delegated authority is exactly why these agencies were given wide leeway in the first place. And while we can say this was naive, it is even more naive to normalize the current behavior.

beepbooptheory• 5 months ago

Isn't that why the scare quotes are there?

sam345• 5 months ago

I'm not an expert in fourth amendment but I do know that assuming a subpoena without judicial oversight violates the fourth amendment is not correct. All the fourth amendment guarantees is unreasonable search and seizure. In some circumstances a judicial subpoena may be necessary and others not. An administrative subpoena implies that there has been a legal procedure and the administrative agencies are not exactly run like the wild west.

cyberax3• 5 months ago

DHS/ICE is in a weird constitutional spot. Most immigration violations in the US are _civil_ violations. So the Fourth Amendment is less applicable. It's also why detained immigrants don't automatically get the right to be represented by a lawyer.

ICE/DHS technically are just acting as marshals, merely ensuring that defendants appear at court proceedings and then enforcing court decisions (deportations).

teachrdan• 5 months ago

An administrative subpoena implies that there has been a legal procedure and the administrative agencies are not exactly run like the wild west

Hard disagree. The fact that a government agency "reviewed" its own subpoena before enforcing it does not follow the spirit of the Fourth Amendment, which is to prevent government overreach in taking your belongings and information.

In fact, to take your definition of what's not unreasonable to its logical conclusion, by definition any process an agency came up with would be acceptable, as long as they followed it.

I think a better definition of a reasonable search and seizure would be one where a subpoena goes before a judge, the target of the subpoena is notified and has the opportunity to fight it, and where there are significant consequences for government agents who lie or otherwise abuse the process of getting a subpoena.

dylan604• 5 months ago

All the fourth amendment guarantees is unreasonable search and seizure.

Are you saying that by the existence of the fourth that unreasonable search/seizures are guaranteed to happen? It can't guarantee protection from them either.

rolph• 5 months ago

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

>no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation<<

that means there must be affirmation of probable cause to an overseeing body [i.e. judiciary]

administrative warrants are a process of "i know im right i dont need someone else to look things over"

MikeNotThePope• 5 months ago

If the party on the receiving end of a search needs to be a lawyer to simply understand the legality of a warrant, I’d argue the search is unreasonable.

shevy-java2• 5 months ago

I don't see how what has been described here as "the system works as intended".

A free state should not be able to sniff after people for made up reasons.

philipallstar6• 5 months ago

In the sense that all reasons are made up, I suppose that might be true. But while deporting illegal immigrants for no other reason is totally fine, deporting the ones that also have a criminal conviction is definitely not made up reasons.

reddozen2• 5 months ago

You can't write rules against bad actors. There will always be some legal loophole a bad president can invent to exploit. if not for administrative warrants we would see some other creative (read: illegal) use of executive power.

The only option is to not elect someone that doesn't respect rule of law. And since I know some enlightened "centrist" will play the both sides game: What's 1 thing any previous president has done equivalent to violating posse comitatus.

wombat-man• 5 months ago

The archive link isn't working for me atm.

But tech companies should be complying with subpoenas from governments in countries they would like to operate in. I don't like what is happening in the US either, but to me this feels like a problem with the electorate. Maybe it's possible for Google to provide some of these services without actually having access to the data under subpoena, but I don't know enough about what services they were using or how they work.

MetaWhirledPeas• 5 months ago

Re-read the first few sentences of his post.

if there is a valid warrant or subpoena

lenerdenator2• 5 months ago

Ultimately, whether or not people are able to do anything involves consequences for their actions.

There's the "three" boxes of liberty that are meant to give a framework for how humans in a society are to introduce consequences to state actors who abuse rights: the soap box, the ballot box, and the jury box.

So we need to start using at least those three to prevent human rights abuses with regard to search warrants.

ModernMech2• 5 months ago

A free state should not be able to sniff after people for made up reasons.

Right, exactly -- a free state should not do that, yet the system is working as intended, therefore we do not live in a free state. It's time to accept that.

direwolf208• 5 months ago

All systems work as intended — usually phrased as "the purpose of a system is what it does"

If this wasn't the intention they would have changed it by now.

moate3• 5 months ago

No, this is absolutely the system working as intended: The State exists to protect large monied interests and their power, and those entities in exchange will sell out individuals to the State that seek to undermine their power. The State will never not do this.

Like, I realize I'm the rambling anarchist up in here, but show me ANY government ever that didn't Murder and Pillage, two things that we all hate when perpetrated by individuals. There's no amount of democracy that can be injected into a hierarchy responsible for controlling hundreds of millions of people that will inhibit authoritarianism, the best people can hope for (and what many white/middle class citizens thought they had for the last few decades) is not being the target of that authoritarianism.

Cat's out of the bag now and we're doing that thing we do every few decades where we weaponize the State against the citizens.

arcanemachiner• 5 months ago

I'm having trouble imagining a way to describe a post-Patriot Act USA as a free state.

atoav2• 5 months ago

So what about the Amsterdam government handing over the records to the new Nazi government in the past century? Under the back then new laws this was legal and lead to the genocide of countless people who happened to have the wrong belief listed in that data.

Please never make the mistake to confuse something being legal for something being fair or ethical.

direwolf208• 5 months ago

I wouldn't give any power at all to Hitler. I wouldn't name him head of state. I wouldn't even let him vote in a town hall meeting about fixing a water main leak. By the principles you have stated, then, I shouldn't let anyone be head of state, and I shouldn't let anyone vote to fix water main leaks?

godelski• 5 months ago

  > I know we instinctively want to frame this as a privacy problem

I think it is, but I think this is a more fundamental level of privacy than most people are thinking of when they think of privacy

  > In "good" times this made investigations run smoothly.

Privacy people often talk about a concept called "Turnkey Tyranny". Really a reference to Jefferson's "elective despotism". The concept is that because any democracy can vote themselves into an autocracy (elective despotism) that the danger is the creation of that power in the first place. That you don't give Mr Rogers (or some other benevolent leader) any power that you wouldn't give to Hitler (or any horrifying leader).

Or as Jefferson put it

  The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.

  > but the real problem we need congress to act

So no, that is not the "real problem". They should be involved but there are more fundamental issues at hand. Power creeps. Power creeps with good intention[0]. But there is a strong bias for power to increase and not decrease. And just like power creep in a movie or videogame it doesn't go away and can ruin everything.

Jefferson himself writes a lot about this tbh. It is why we have a system of checks and balances. Where the government treats itself adversarially. But this is also frustrating and makes things slow. So... power creeps.

So the real problem we need to solve is educating the populous. They need to understand these complexities and nuances. If they do not, they will unknowingly trade their freedom to quench their fears.

And this is why it is a privacy problem. Because we the people should always treat our government adversarially. Even in the "good times". Especially in the "good times". The founders of the US constitution wrote extensively about this, much like the privacy advocates write today. I think they would be more likely to take the position of "why collect this information in the first place?" than "under what conditions should this information be collected?". Both are important questions, but the latter should only come after the former. Both are about privacy. Privacy of what is created vs privacy of what is accessed.

[0] You mentioned banking, so a recent example might be the changes in when transactions of a certain level trigger a bank report. The number has changed over time, usually decreasing. It's with good intention, to catch people skirting the laws. You'll never get 100% of people so if this is the excuse it an be a race to reporting all transactions. Maybe you're fine with Mr Rogers having that data, but Hitler? You have to balance these things and it isn't so easy as the environment moves. You solve a major part of the problem with the first move but then the Overton window changes as you've now become accustomed to a different rate of that kind of fraud (and/or as adversaries have adapted to it). A cat and mouse game always presents a slippery slope and unless you consider these implicit conditions it'll be a race to the bottom.

SR2Z• 5 months ago

A large part of why the government has slowly accumulated these powers is because Congress has been abdicating its power to the President under both Republican and Democratic administrations since the early 1900s.

The first change I would make with a majority in Congress is to change apportionment so that there is 1 representative per 50,000 people. All it needs is a simple majority, and it would neuter the rural-area advantage in the electoral college while also forcing the legislature to streamline its processes.

Texas will undoubtably try to gerrymander itself into a pretzel, but it's not nearly as easy to draw 582 stable districts that produce a huge Republican advantage - a minor demographic shift could easily lead to a backfiring blowout at the polls. With 6,835 seats in the House, Congress would be forced to streamline its procedures (goodbye, filibuster and reconciliation) and it would be significantly harder for the executive branch to ignore public disapproval.

Of course, this represents a ~15x dilution in the power of each current representative (who would then have to run in a new district) so I'm skeptical. Hopefully enough Democrats have woken up and realized that the country won't survive if it keeps going on like this and deep reforms are needed.

fc417fc8024• 5 months ago

In "good" times this made investigations run smoothly.

In good times they were still a blatant form of government abuse however the majority were completely unaffected and so didn't get riled up about it.

Similar to how a vigorous defense of freedom of speech is somehow consistently less popular among constituents of whichever party happens to be in power, as well as when applied to "objectionable" political views.

h4kunamata2• 5 months ago

"So I don't think I actually have a problem with businesses handing over their customer data if there is a valid warrant or subpoena. That's the system working as intended."

This person right here is the problem in our society. Things never and will never get isolated to "valid warrant".

Look around us, social after social media in order to "protect the kids", you must provide your personal information to them. Many people see nothing wrong with that and yet, service after service, business after business are being breached left and right.

Discord will mandate ID verification, just recently they have been breached.

Back to the article, if Google can do that for an immigrant, what make you think that Google won't do the same with your data as citizen whenever for whatever reason??

Don't agree with things you don't fully understand its consequences.

hodgehog11• 5 months ago

Maybe it is to a child or average citizen, but I don't believe that "not understanding the consequences" is the case here on HN. This is just a difference in philosophy, the old "freedom vs. security" tradeoff that everyone falls down on a little differently. Giving up your data to a company (and therefore the government) in exchange for services is a trust exercise, and there are ways to avoid making it, but they have significant unavoidable costs. It's an easier decision when you don't fear your own government, but where you fall on the spectrum rapidly changes when your government makes you the target. Of course you can say "the government is always going to turn on you, so you should never trust them!", but you'll sound like a loon to many native citizens of a Western nation that have had little to fear for decades.

The US is just experiencing a little more of what the citizens of communist and fascist nations have experienced. Over time, that might lead to rapid societal change, or maybe it's too late.

singleshot_2• 5 months ago

administrative subpoenas - i.e. not reviewed by a real judge

I have some bad news for you about magistrates.

monocasa2• 5 months ago

And yet ICE can't be bothered to reach even that low bar.

jauntywundrkind• 5 months ago

It's kind of sort of glorious how Google and ICE are both setting their reputation on fire like this at the same time.

The cloud has such a long legacy of being the safe easy convenient place that you just don't have to think about. Nations have somewhat kept their fingers out of the cookie jar.

But now it's just wanton unchecked madness, with no real process, with no judicial review. Google giving in to ICE so quickly is absolutely existentially destructive to Google's business model, of the cloud being a default place you can put your stuff & rely on.

The cloud never deserved this reputation, and there was a certain freight train of inevitability that was coming crashing in from the future, that nations would make the cloud untenable & hostile a space. That felt inevitable. But this is so much harder worser faster dumber than could be expected.

46493168• 5 months ago

I know we instinctively want to frame this as a privacy problem, but the real problem

Both can be true at the same time.

asdfman123• 5 months ago

It's a privacy problem because permitting things like this can lead to abuses.

paulddraper• 5 months ago

Or the FBI’s FISA system which was abused to gather intel. [1]

Government agencies are prone to abuse.

[1] https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/fisa-investigation

ycombinatrix• 5 months ago

In "good" times this made investigations run smoothly.

Yeah no. This was always bad and is often abused by law enforcement (& people pretending to be law enforcement)

https://gizmodo.com/fake-cops-stole-user-data-from-meta-and-...

DetroitThrow• 5 months ago

I know we instinctively want to frame this as a privacy problem

How is that not also a privacy problem?

cyphar• 5 months ago

So I don't think I actually have a problem with businesses handing over their customer data if there is a valid warrant or subpoena. That's the system working as intended.

I disagree -- the third party doctrine that allows for governments to avoid serving/addressing warrants to the people whose data is actually being subpoenaed directly leads to things like the FISA warrant-rubber-stamp courts in the US. If the data stored on third-party servers on behalf of someone is not considered "papers and effects" of that person then it is entirely justified to subpoena every email stored on mail.google.com because it's just morally equivalent to a subpoena for "all of Foomatic's business records between 2020-2025".

It seems bonkers to me that things that are essentially implementation details (such as the way that MTAs work and the lack of crypto-obfuscation in email) should allow for a legal interpretation of the 4th amendment that effectively neuters it. Letters sent via snail-mail are handled by several third parties in a very analogous way to emails but (mostly due to historical reasons, such as the fact that letters existed during the drafting of the bill of rights) we do not apply the third-party doctrine to letters.

Of course, the US government has spent decades chipping away at the privacy of snail mail, so eventually we may end up in a world where snail mail and email are treated the same way (just not in a good way).

dataflow• 5 months ago

Could you explain/cite what you mean by letters not working the same way? You're saying government agencies can't give give the same sort of subpoena to said third parties? Or that if they did, it wouldn't work?

antonvs4• 5 months ago

I know we instinctively want to frame this as a privacy problem

It absolutely is a privacy problem. If that information was in your house, the 4th amendment would apply and they'd have to show up with a real judicial warrant, so you'd know what was happening.

Even if that's the "system working as intended" (intended by who exactly? I'm sure Peter Thiel loves it), anyone who cares at all about their own privacy should be using providers outside of US jurisdiction, because the US government does not, in practice, protect its citizens against unreasonable search and seizure as described in the Constitution.

lasgawe• 5 months ago

I remember someone saying that there is no privacy in large companies because they make money by selling or sharing users' personal data :/

lingrush4• 5 months ago

Google ought to rethink its policy of disclosing government subpoenas to users. Every time this happens, the media uses it to attack Google. They'd be better off leaving users in the dark about these legally required data disclosures. Even if most users don't go crying to the media when it happens, it's still not worth it.

jajuuka• 5 months ago

Ultimately it's better for the public and users to be informed about this occurring though. If Google wanted to they could salvage it and explain their legal duties and how that applies to these situations. I don't think Google is worried though. They have multiple captive markets and have seen continued growth so it's obviously not affecting the bottom line.

It's a good contrast to Apple where any bit of bad news that makes headlines becomes priority one to fix. Which just creates a privileged class of users and makes the brand look fragile.

Hizonner• 5 months ago

Ever occur to you that it's good for Google if there's some public visibility of what Google is being forced to do?

JohnTHaller• 5 months ago

Biggest thing to note is that this was a so-called "administrative" warrant, not a real judicial warrant. Google did this voluntary.

philipallstar6• 5 months ago

They're both real.

RickJWagner• 5 months ago

When I was a student, I could never have gone to such lengths to avoid government scrutiny.

He must have plenty of money.

yomansat• 5 months ago

What's the insinuation here? He has willpower towards injustice.

mike_bob• 5 months ago

Remember "Don't be evil"? It's crazy anyone would trust a corporation with anything these days.

tjwebbnorfolk• 5 months ago

It's crazy that "corporations = bad" passes as insightful comment on HN these days.

Upvoter33• 5 months ago

I don't think it's as simple as "corps. = bad". It's more that naive slogans like "don't be evil" used to be taken seriously. Companies exist to make money. This is ok! It generally works well in a capitalistic system. But to expect more than that people are realizing is a pipe dream... which is why you need good rules in place (i.e., regulations, laws) to direct companies and their behaviors.

FrankBooth• 5 months ago

Not really. HN had its Eternal September moment years ago.

pedroma• 5 months ago

I don't know why I still lurk on what is essentially r/politicsandtech.

tunapizza• 5 months ago

https://archive.ph/e4DY7

cvhc3• 5 months ago

Google discloses stats about government requests via FISA / National Security Letters: https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/us-national-...

I was in one of these published NSLs issued by FBI a few years ago. I was notified by Google after the nondisclosure period.

garyfirestorm• 5 months ago

care to explain how you got added to it? what happened then? did you fight it?

cvhc3• 5 months ago

See the other comment.

did you fight it?

I talked to university lawyers (and LLMs) regarding another issue with DHS. For the sake of national security, they have the legal authority. There isn't much I can do. Unless I can prove they discriminated against me due to my race, national origin, etc. -- which may be the case but how can I prove that. I requested FOIA from DOS/DHS. What I got was basically no more than the original applications I submitted.

edm0nd• 5 months ago

What did you get the NSL for?

Did it result in you being raided?

Were you ever indicted or convicted of anything?

cvhc3• 5 months ago

I dunno. Maybe because I used to do research at a Chinese lab when I was a student? That was my impression when I was once questioned for many hours by DHS at the airport. It's impossible to get an answer. They are granted broad legal authority to screen foreign nationals.

No indictment. Nothing physical. But a lot of headaches like delays in visa/immigrant application :shrug:

FpUser• 5 months ago

[flagged]

tomhow3• 5 months ago

Please don't fulminate or advocate violence here. HN is not the place for this kind of rhetoric. You may not owe federal government agents better, but you owe the HN community better if you want to participate here. We've had to ask you many times to observe the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

deaux5• 5 months ago

Then what place is? Genuine question. It seems like not a single such place remains, intentionally, as the owners of all these places decided in their group Whatsapp chat when it turned out the majority of the population rightly understood the United Healthcare case was a net positive to society.

While of course turning a blind eye to the exact same rhetoric when "ICE Agent" is ctrl+r'ed by "Russian soldier".

dmix2• 5 months ago

For more context see the Cornell article from last year

The first email, sent on May 8 from Cornell International Services, stated that his immigration status had been terminated by the federal government. The second email, sent from Google on the same day, notified him that his personal email account had been subject to a subpoena by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on March 31.

https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/11/immigration-autho...

Basically he was a British national with a student visa who was going to be deported for pro-palestian activism (under Trumps executive order mandating immigration authorities to do so), so he self-deported. Other's mention in the thread it's not clear if Google handed over any information.

fourseventy• 5 months ago

[flagged]

philipallstar6• 5 months ago

Well, yes.

tamimio• 5 months ago

on tech companies to resist similar subpoenas in the future from DHS without court intervention.

Haha nice one, these tech companies are willing to have a deal with devil to get those lucrative Gov contracts, and since it’s the the wild west now in the US, the only action users can do is abandoning all these tech companies and look for alternatives.

jsrozner• 5 months ago

"full extent of the information...including any IP masking services"

This suggests that Google aggregates derived information based on how a user uses Google (i.e. VPN info). The fact that derived info was also potentially passed along is particularly upsetting to me.

Aside from the fact that I don't think companies should be able to collect user data at all (if you disagree, I think there's a good chance you're at least a little bit fascist), this amounts to Google providing free surveillance services to the government.

If you squint, it's minority-report-esque: eventually Google will tell the govt who it thinks is likely to commit crimes based on how they interact with its AIs. Almost certainly coming to a society near you soon.

dev_l1x_be• 5 months ago

Centralised bank system, centralised internet, centralised power. What could possibly go wrong?

urbandw311er• 5 months ago

The title should be Google handed _over_ these things. Otherwise it reads as though they were handed _to_ Google.

mmooss• 5 months ago

It's both: The user handed them to Google, Google handed them to the government.

direwolf208• 5 months ago

I couldn't figure out what an ICE student journalist was.

TacticalCoder• 5 months ago

executive orders targeting students who protested in support of Palestinians, Thomas-Johnson and his friend Momodou Taal went into hiding

Ah. They went into hiding. That explains why there are very few pro-Iran protests: for a second I thought there were double-standards when it came to protesting and that that was why we had non-stop pro-Gaza protests but hardly any protests to criticize the tens of thousands of victims the islamist iranian regime made in a few days.

“As a journalist, what’s weird is that you’re so used to seeing things from the outside,” said Thomas-Johnson, whose work has appeared in outlets including Al Jazeera and The Guardian.

Where can I read the entirety of her work: that is, including her coverage of the tens of thousands of civilians executed by the islamist iranian regime?

For you're not telling she's not covering those because the islamist iranian regime happens to be pro-Hamas and anti-jews right? (btw I'm not jewish)

Right?

earthtograndma• 5 months ago

Why change the title?

"Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist’s Bank and Credit Card Numbers"

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

xyst3• 5 months ago

Just a thought, maybe the poster was using original title but source later updated it.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260210171513/https://theinterc... -- "GOOGLE HANDED ICE STUDENT JOURNALIST’S BANK AND CREDIT CARD NUMBERS"

relaxing• 5 months ago

Agreed. The way it’s written now sound weird.

heraldgeezer• 5 months ago

[flagged]

tomhow3• 5 months ago

Please don't post low-substance comments like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

kmfrk• 5 months ago

What I'm curious about is whether this payment information is from spending money or from YouTube's requirement of doing a symbolic credit card payment to authenticate that you're an adult - and other potential checks for YouTube partners.

Basically YouTube's form of age verification that takes place such as when they can't figure out whether to serve you mature videos or not.

cebert• 5 months ago

Please don’t forget to upload your driver’s license and ID for validations to keep the children safe!

tntxtnt• 5 months ago

Very much this. We need to keep children safe from those predators that the government are trying their best to protect!!!

iAMkenough• 5 months ago

What are the prediction markets putting on a 6-3 SCOTUS ruling that the First Amendment only protects the freedom of speech, not the freedom of reach.

quantum_state• 5 months ago

[flagged]

jimt1234• 5 months ago

We, the America-hating liberals, have been warning about these "administrative subpoenas" for years, but we've always been blocked with "So, we're all gonna have wait for a judge to sign a warrant before we can stop the next 9/11?!"

mlmonkey• 5 months ago

In the subpoena, ICE requests that Google not “disclose the existence of this summons for indefinite period of time.”

And they expect Google to pass it on to these people?

xannabxlle• 5 months ago

Glad to know Google is doing this. I am switching from brave search to Google from now on.

EchoReflection• 5 months ago

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-intercept/

"These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward liberal causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using an appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports, and omit information that may damage liberal causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy.

Overall, we rate The Intercept progressive Left Biased based on story selection that routinely favors the left. We also rate them as Mostly Factual in reporting rather than High due to previous fabricated work and censorship of writers."

https://profrjstarr.com/the-psychology-of-us/the-need-to-be-...

https://theconversation.com/outrage-culture-is-a-big-toxic-p...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/12/social-...

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-atlantic/

↑ "These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appeals to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information but may require further investigation.

Overall, we rate The Atlantic Left-Center Biased due to editorial positions and High for factual reporting based on excellent sourcing of information and a clean fact check record."

NYT headline: "lowest murder rate in 100 years, nobody really knows why"

https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/01/23/murder-rates-plummete...

"But the outrage of blaming conservatives and Trump for all the problems that society has makes me, personally, feel so good about how 'smart' and 'civilized' I am compared to all those 'Nazi' Republicans!!! No, I'm not addicted to outage and feelings of moral superiority, I just trust that the 'mainstream media' is trying to reveal 'the truth™'!"

https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/11/26/assassins-creed-break...

partomniscient• 5 months ago

The USA, land of the free^H^H^H^H surveilled.

Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist Credit Card Number

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