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
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.
Here's a question: Is making a reporting system around that, for the purpose of/approaches/is realtime tracking, also protected? Maybe related to "non-permanence"?
(references welcome)
Less clear than it used to be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Guevara_(journalist)
He was here on a work permit when the police arrested him for filming a protest. Journalism isn't a crime so all the charges connected to his arrest were dropped, but ICE placed a detainer on him to keep him locked up anyway. A judge granted him bond so that he could be released but ICE fought that too and continued to keep him locked up. Finally they reopened the 2012 case and used that to kick him out of the country.
What is not protected is actual interference or obstruction, and first amendment protections can be lost if the system’s design, stated purpose, or predictable use crosses from observation and reporting into intimidation or operational coordination that materially interferes or obstructs.
Given how these systems are already being used, and the likely intent behind building one, that's a real risk if you're not careful.
FYI this is beyond trivial and automated to the nth degree. There is so much more to go off of than some form fields to uniquely identify a person.
I’m not trying to be condescending here, but I’m just asking what someone thinks is happening here and what they can do with information scanned on your network.
Suppose the data is retained in association with your pseudonymous account. So now in addition to my IP they have, what, the internal IPs and device names from my LAN? How does that lead directly to me without significant additional effort? I think their best option is still hitting up my ISP to get the billing info and service address of the account.
They all require phone numbers, and they almost all require phone numbers tied to ID-based names. They require CC even when you aren’t buying stuff. It’s very difficult even for experts to achieve truly pseudonymous use.
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.
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.
Take this, for example: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102630
You can trivially disable web access to your data; at that point, Apple literally does not have the keys to your end-to-end encrypted data and cannot read or disclose it.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/04/10/apple-makes-it-re...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42014588
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.
Just look at the situation as the founders would. It's amazing a society that came from a generation that engineered their own form of government is now trapped by their forebears' invention. They told us explicitly they were merely men, not gods. When America was founded it was a weak, newborn power of 3 million people who were forced to make awkward compromises mostly to protect the country from being recolonized by European domination. And yet our system of government has remained mostly unchanged from the founding.
Any of you Americans out there worried about a European armada? Or the British burning down the White House again?
America's sister republic - the French - has gone through many more iterations. Your problem is you have no imagination. Regardless of what you think of Trump, he does. He is an avatar for a group of people that understand correctly that what had been the prevailing system was no longer responsive to the times, so they are essentially remaking it on the fly. What is your answer to that, that isn't just lets rewind the clock? You tried that with Biden and the disease became worse.
Do it a second time and I fear the future will bring you someone who makes Trump look like a saint.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Immigration_and_...
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.)
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.
- 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
also self hosting (mail, contacts, storage, ...)
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.
The article describes Thomas-Johnson as a "student activist and journalist" and "whose work has appeared in outlets including Al Jazeera and The Guardian".
Are you saying that there is evidence elsewhere that he is part of some terrorist organisation? Hey wait a sec, perhaps you are confusing "Al Jazeera" with "Al Qaeda". You know Google is your friend - oh wait...
I am not part of the law enforcement operation. I don't have all of the details about what the person in the article did or did not do. Regardless of lacking that knowledge I can provide advice to avoid law enforcement.
How is your advice supposed to actually pertain to insulating against federal mistreatment, then? Contextually it reads like a series of accusations, which the parent is calling you out on.