Fwd: [ PFIR ] Lauren's Blog: "DOJ vs. Google: How Google Fights on Behalf of Its Users"

[Zenaan Harkness]

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From: "PFIR (People For Internet Responsibility) Announcement List"
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Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 15:47:11 -0700
Subject: [ PFIR ] Lauren's Blog: "DOJ vs. Google: How Google Fights on
Behalf of Its Users"
To: pfir-list at pfir.org


            DOJ vs. Google: How Google Fights on Behalf of Its Users

                   http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001110.html

One of the oft-repeated Big Lies -- still bandied about by Google
haters today -- is the false claim that Google enthusiastically turns
over user data to government agencies. This fallacy perhaps reached
its zenith a few years ago, when misleading PowerPoint slides from
Edward Snowden's stolen NSA documents cache were touted by various
commercial parties (with whom he had entrusted the data), in a
misleading, out-of-context manner, designed for maximum clickbait
potential. The slides were publicized by these parties with glaring
headlines suggesting that Google permitted NSA to freely rummage
around through Google data centers, grabbing goodies like a kid set
loose in a candy store.

Google immediately and forcefully denied these claims, and for anyone
familiar with the internal structure and dialogues inside Google,
these allegations were ludicrous on their face. (Full disclosure:
While I have consulted to Google in the relatively recent past, I am
not currently doing so.)

Even an attempt to enable such access for NSA or any other outside
party would have by necessity involved so many engineers and other
Google employees as to make impossible any ability to keep such an
effort secret.  And once known, there would have been very public,
mass resignations of Googlers -- for such an intrusion would strike
directly at the heart of Google philosophy, and the mere suggestion of
such a travesty would be utter anathema to Google engineers, policy
directors, lawyers, and pretty much everyone else at the firm.

Obviously, Google must obey valid laws, but that doesn't mean they're
a pushover -- exactly the opposite.

While some companies have long had a "nod and wink" relationship with
law enforcement and other parts of government -- willingly turning
over user data at mere requests without even attempting to require
warrants or subpoenas, it's widely known that Google has long pushed
back -- sometimes though multiple layers of courts and legal
processes -- against data requests from government that are not accompanied
by valid court orders or that Google views as being overly broad,
intrusive, or otherwise inappropriate.

Over the last few days the public has gained an unusually detailed
insight into how hard Google will fight to protect its users against
government overreaching, even when this involves only a single user's
data.

The case reaches back to the beginning of 2011, when the U.S.
Department of Justice tried to force Google to turn over more than a
year's worth of metadata for a user affiliated with WikiLeaks. While
these demands did not include the content of emails, they did include
records of this party's email correspondents, and IP addresses he had
used to login to his Gmail account.

Notably, DOJ didn't even seek a search warrant. They wanted Google to
turn over the data based on the lesser "reasonable grounds" standard
rather than the "probable cause" standard of a search warrant itself.
And most ominously, DOJ wanted a gag order to prevent Google from
informing this party that any of this was going on, which would make
it impossible for him to muster any kind of legal defense.

I'm no fan of WikiLeaks. While they've done some public good, they
also behave as mass data dumpers, making public various gigantic
troves of usually stolen data, without even taking basic steps to
protect innocent persons who through no fault of their own are put at
risk via these raw data dumps. WikiLeaks' irresponsible behavior in
this regard cannot be justified.

But that lack of responsibility doesn't affect the analysis of the
Gmail case under discussion here. That user deserved the same
protection from DOJ overreaching as would any other user.

The battle between Google and DOJ waged for several months, generating
a relatively enormous pile of associated filings from both sides.
Ultimately, Google lost the case and their appeal.

This was still back in 2011. The gag order continued and outside
knowledge of the case was buried by government orders until April of
2015 -- this year! -- when DOJ agreed to unseal some of the court
records -- though haphazardly (and in some cases rather hilariously)
redacted. These were finally turned over to the targeted Gmail user in
mid-May -- triggering his public amazement at the depth and likely
expense of Google fighting so voraciously on his behalf.

Why did DOJ play such hardball in this case, particularly involving
the gag order? There's evidence in the (now public) documents that the
government wanted to avoid negative publicity of the sort they assert
occurred with an earlier case involving Twitter, and DOJ was willing
to pull out all the stops to prevent Google from even notifying the
user of the government's actions.

You don't need to take my word on any of this. If you have some time
on your hands, the over 300 pages of related filings are now available
for your direct inspection:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5L6chr0QvNzbTJNMXpiQWllNG8/view?usp=sharing

So the next time someone tries to make the false claim that Google
doesn't fight for its users, you can print out that pile of pages and
plop it down right in front of them. Or save the trees and just send
them the URL.

Either way, the truth is in the reading.

Be seeing you.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren at vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Founder:
 - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
 - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com

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