OK, in an alternate reality, what would a clear, flat-out denial look like? I mean, how could we tell such a thing differently than what was in the OP?
First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday...Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period. Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records.
"We would never do this, not because the government hasn't asked us to, but because it's morally abhorrent. It goes against everything we personally believe in and stand for. Even if we were legally required to cooperate, we would resist and suffer incarceration if necessary. We believe in freedom more strongly than we fear the consequences of not cooperating with an oppressive government."
So, you'd feel more comfortable if the company threw in some rhetoric about morals and freedom that are, as assertions, impossible to verify, but would make people feel more warm and fuzzy?
So, basically, what politicians put into their speeches?
Read over your statement again. There's very little of substance in there. For example, what does "this" in "We would never do 'this'" mean? And I'm not being pedantic, because exact language is important here. The question is, what could a non-PRISM-supporting Google say that would differ from what we see in the OP?
And this: It goes against everything we personally believe in and stand for.
OK...let's assume "It" has been properly defined. This hyperbole would be a lie, because....everything? Again, impossible.
"Even if we were legally required to cooperate, we would resist and suffer incarceration if necessary."
OK...cooperate in what? The statement you've proposed leaves room for other kinds of cooperation, if not technically the kind being alleged right now. So this statement doesn't resolve anything.
"We believe in freedom more strongly than we fear the consequences of not cooperating with an oppressive government"
OK, same objections as before. But -- and again, I'm referring to an alternate reality in which Google is standing up against the NSA and PRISM, which may or may not be the reality we are actually living -- if Page is telling the truth about knowing what PRISM stands for before yesterday, then the statement you've proposed is impossible for him to assert, because we still don't know everything about PRISM...and so how would Page know if PRISM is the act of an oppressive government? He literally would not know because PRISM was unknown to him until yesterday.
And if you're saying, well, he should just know, because obviously Google is taking part in the program...well, that's begging the question.
And if you're saying, well, he should just be able to make that statement because any reasonable person, upon reading the reports yesterday, would conclude that PRISM is the act of an oppressive government. OK, that's fine, but that's still not really an assertion of fact, it's just rhetoric.
> "So, you'd feel more comfortable if the company threw in some rhetoric about morals and freedom that are, as assertions, impossible to verify, but would make people feel more warm and fuzzy?"
If Google was actually taking a moral/ethical stance that being an accessory to unconstitutional warrantless searches is something that they find to be morally wrong, yes, I would be more comfortable. My reading of this was Larry saying, "I enjoy being a billionaire and will say whatever it takes to continue being one."
What does any of that have to do with your original assertion that it was a carefully worded non-denial denial? Your point now seems to be "I don't like Google, and this doesn't convince me otherwise." That's fine, but hardly relevant.
Maybe you and many others would be better off by paying attention to actions vs words, and notice which company was the first to push back on the government to provide transparency to national security letters when everyone else bowed down before the government. Being skeptical and not falling for feel good platitudes could help all of us.
> So, you'd feel more comfortable if the company threw in some rhetoric about morals and freedom that are, as assertions, impossible to verify, but would make people feel more warm and fuzzy?
But when their impossible-to-verify assertion is that they've done nothing wrong, you'll accept that just fine?
No. I'm not saying that Page's assertion is true, but I am saying that it is a concrete assertion.
There's a difference between these two things:
1. Issuing a vague non-denial so that when the truth is revealed, you can claim that you didn't technically lie ("Hey, I never said I didn't molested him, I just said I never slept with him")
2. Issuing a denial that is proven later to be false.
I'm not arguing with the GP that Page is telling the truth, but that, as much as we can tell, Page has issued a statement that can satisfiably be shown to be true or false.
The blog post concludes with "But the level of secrecy around the current legal procedures undermines the freedoms we all cherish." That's a clear statement criticizing overly broad secrecy provisions.
>...it's morally abhorrent...even if we were legally required to cooperate, we would resist and suffer incarceration... oppressive government.
That's subjective, and I think you have severely unrealistic expectations of how far companies should be willing to go in this matter.
I believe Google's response is satisfactory. We can't prove negatives, so it's pointless to second guess Larry's post as being an orchestrated ruse. It at leasts gives us an official position and stance from the other party.
I don't think that the ethics are so clear cut. Let's suppose that Google's servers contain data that the U.S. federal government could use to prevent an act of violence that would harm or kill innocent people. Is it more ethical to deny access to this data on privacy grounds, or to grant access to this data to prevent violence?
The typical response here on HN is that the threat of terrorism is greatly overstated. This is probably true, but I don't think it's reasonable to assert that the threat of terrorism is nonexistent. Given the amount of people who use Google's services, I think it's highly likely that such data does exist on Google's servers.
Why limit it to terrorism? With access to email, instant messages, social media streams, search terms and some damn fine data scientists Google could sniff out an awful lot of wrongdoing.
Should they be developing software to figure out who is beating their kids and notify the local police? Cheating on thier taxes and notify the IRS? Breaking their marriage vows and notify thier spouses?
That would be a lot stronger a statement, but at the end of the day... we'll never know. Anything he says could have been written with a govt. agent holding a gun to his head. I know, I know, total conspiracy theory territory. And I'm not saying that is the case, just pointing out that - at the end of the day - there's very little we can actually know for sure about their involvement or lack thereof.
Therefore, IMO, the best thing to do is assume that every single bit that hits a Google server, and every bit stored by Google, is available to the NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, MI6, Mossad, etc., etc... which means using strong crypto to protect your stuff if you really care about keeping it private.
Instead of enumerating what they don't do, which leads one to wonder what's left out, they could exhaustively enumerate the ways that they do cooperate. To a certain extent that's what they do with the transparency report. But I saw no strong claim that the report was complete, on the contrary the "whenever possible" language outright suggests the report is incomplete.
I'm sympathetic to being caught between a rock and a hard place, but given that this program only seems to involve US based companies, I would suggest that where ever possible people should prefer non-US software and services. Just as one prefers non-Chinese hardware for the exact same reason.
It's a good start for a response, especially since it has the CEO's imprimatur on it.
However with all the shady definitions the NSA is using (e.g
I can imagine some weasel claiming user data is only the content not the metadata) I would have liked an explicit example.
Something like, "For example, when one gmail user emails another gmail user the government is not, for the majority of users who are not the subject of a specific government order, made aware of this in any way including the contents of the email, metadata and even that an email was sent. Obviously, we have no control over emails, sent outside our network."
First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday...Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period. Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records.