| Are you suggesting they go out of business like Lavabit? That is the stand you're taking when you disobey orders to keep government requests secret. And, I'm not sure a large corporation has that option. How could shareholders accept a fine for which they're not permitted to know the details? Remember when Snowden first revealed the Prism program? All the tech companies issued similar statements saying they want to tell people more, but did not have permission from the US government. For example, Apple said, > Like several other companies, we have asked the U.S. government for permission to report how many requests we receive related to national security and how we handle them. We have been authorized to share some of that data, and we are providing it here in the interest of transparency. [1] Also, I'm sure Yahoo would've loved to rally support from its users when the government was threatening to fine them $250,000 per day for refusing to hand over data, but they were not allowed to tell anyone [2] I do believe the government was doing what they thought was right to protect public safety. However, they don't understand technology. Ted Lieu is about the only guy in Congress who does. We need a bit more representation there to have our voices heard, whether through electing Congressmen with CS backgrounds, independent lobbying like the EFF, or just better tech reporting and questioning in the White House daily briefs. The existence of the FISA courts is something we should be scrutinizing more. Former NSA Director Hayden pointed out in one interview that we're the only country who has such secret courts. With these courts, democracy is circumvented. Currently, the public is not able to participate in the discussion of what's right on some major issues that have far reaching impact. [1] http://www.apple.com/apples-commitment-to-customer-privacy/ [2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/11/yahoo-nsa-lawsu... |