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by greenyoda 3549 days ago
"It's not a hard question to answer. You either are or are not searching all emails in realtime at the behest of the NSA."

It's easy to answer if you're not. If you are, you can't answer (at least not truthfully).
1 comments
AnimalMuppet 3549 days ago
How much trouble would someone like Google be in if they gave a "warrant canary" style answer? "I'm sorry, we are unable to answer your question" would speak volumes without actually saying anything.

But I suppose that the order forbids "disclosure", and that statement is arguably disclosure...

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greenyoda 3549 days ago
The article says:

"Alphabet Inc's Google and Microsoft Corp, two major U.S. email service providers, did not respond to requests for comment."

Isn't that pretty much saying "I'm sorry, we are unable to answer your question"? If they weren't doing the same thing as Yahoo, they could say so.

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bduerst 3549 days ago
No, it means Microsoft and Alphabet are not commenting on evidence implicating Yahoo!'s surveillance with the NSA.

It's basic PR for big brands to avoid getting quoted in the messes their competitor gets into.

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vkou 3549 days ago
They might be doing something different, that they still can't speak about.
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