[eurleif]

The linked Google policy states:

>We won’t give notice when legally prohibited under the terms of the request.

The post states that his lawyer has reviewed the subpoena, but doesn't mention whether or not it contained a non-disclosure order. That's an important detail to address if the claim is that Google acted against its own policy.

[jgkelley]

EFF's letter offers more details and says that the subpoena did not contain a gag order: https://www.eff.org/files/2026/04/13/eff_letter_re_google_no...

[inkysigma]

Well it did contain a request to not notify according to that same letter. I suppose that brings up several questions.

1. Does that mean the same thing in the ToS?

2. How valid are these requests?

[nightpool]

Google acknowledges that they should have given notice per their own policy and that they violated it. In this case, they said that they violated it because they had failed to respond to the subpoena within ICE's 10-day deadline:

> On November 20, 2025, Google, through outside counsel, explained to the undersigned why Google did not give Thomas-Johnson advanced notice as promised. Google’s explanation shows the problem is systematic: Sometimes when Google does not fulfill a subpoena by the government’s artificial deadline, Google fulfills the subpoena and provides notice to a user on the same day to minimize delay for an overdue production. Google calls this “simultaneous notice.” But this kind of simultaneous notice strips users of their ability to challenge the validity of the subpoena before it is fulfilled.

[hedora]

At what point does Google’s incompetence imply organizations that use its services are liable for negligence?

What if this were a bogus subpoena for a lawyer’s privileged conversations with a client? A doctor’s communications about reproductive health with a patient? A political consultant working for the democrats?

[hluska]

A gag order would be from a judge. There would be severe penalties if a party breaks a gag order. A request not to notify is just a request; it has zero legal standing and there would be zero repercussions to ignoring it.

[crazygringo]

I'm very curious about this.

Google knows users care about their privacy, and it made the promise in its terms precisely for that reason. People pay attention to this stuff, as the popularity of this story shows.

Therefore, it's generally not going to be in Google's interest to break its own terms.

So what's going on? Did a Google employee simply mess up? Is the reporting not accurate or missing key details, e.g. Google truly is legally prohibited? Or is there some evidence that the Trump administration was putting pressure on Google, e.g. threatening to withhold some contract if this particular person were notified, or if Google continued notifying users belonging to some particular category of subpoenas?

Because Google isn't breaking its own terms just for funsies. There's more to this story, but unfortunately it's not clear what.

[pyrale]

> Therefore, it's generally not going to be in Google's interest to break its own terms.

It is also not in Google’s interest to resist this administration. I would not be surprised if they decided to kiss the ring and be by internal policy more cooperative than what the law strictly says.

I guess we’ll get a better idea if more cases show up.

[timschmidt]

Previous administrations weren't easier to resist. Look up Joseph Nacchio's story. Short version: refuse to install https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAINWAY without a warrant, go to jail.

[nobody9999]

>Google knows users care about their privacy, and it made the promise in its terms precisely for that reason. People pay attention to this stuff, as the popularity of this story shows.

Do Google users care about their privacy? I'd expect not, given that Google is (and hasn't been shy about telling us about it) reading all their emails in order to provide more targeted advertisements.

And, as I mentioned, Google hasn't been shy about saying that's exactly what they do (prioritizing their ad revenue over their users' privacy), so I have to assume that Google users don't care about their privacy.

If they did care about their privacy, they'd self-host their email on hardware they physically control.

That's orthogonal to Google giving up data to the government, with or without notifying the user(s) in question, except that the above makes clear what we already know: Google doesn't respect the privacy of their users.

[crazygringo]

> given that Google is (and hasn't been shy about telling us about it) reading all their emails in order to provide more targeted advertisements.

That hasn't been the case since 2017. Nearly a decade ago. They stopped precisely because Google users do care about privacy -- and tracking is one thing, but scanning the content of your e-mails is another.

[nobody9999]

Yeah, sure. Whatever you say.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2025/05/07/googles-g...

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2025/11/gmail-is-read...

https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/gmails-ai-secretly-re...

https://www.howtogeek.com/gmail-might-be-harvesting-your-ema...

https://cyberguy.com/privacy/stop-google-ai-scanning-gmail/

[thayne]

It's quite possible that google is more afraid of what will happen if they resist ICE than they are of bad publicity like this.

[nextaccountic]

It's not just bad publicity. They may be sued

But yeah no matter the amount they lose in courts, it's inconsequential compared to angering this federal administration even a little bit

[airstrike]

> Google knows users care about their privacy, and it made the promise in its terms precisely for that reason. People pay attention to this stuff, as the popularity of this story shows.

Does it know? And do users really care? Popularity on HN isn't popularity everywhere.

I'd wager most people don't care enough to move away from Gmail.

But even if they did, unfortunately this isn't the only variable a business is solving for. Corporations will generally just pick between the least unprofitable of two evils, not the lesser of.

[jmyeet]

According to the ACLU [1]:

> This document explains two key ways that recipients can resist immigration administrative subpoenas: First, any gag order in these subpoenas has no legal effect; you are free to publicize them and inform the target of the subpoena. Second, you do not have to comply with the subpoena at all, unless ICE goes to court—where you can raise a number of possible objections—and the court orders compliance.

[1]: https://www.acluofnorthcarolina.org/app/uploads/drupal/sites...

[paulddraper]

The next question is, who likes paying legal fees?

[busterarm]

Is the ACLU offering to pay your legal bills or participate in your defense along with that legal advice that they're offering?

[hluska]

How is that relevant?

[busterarm]

It's relevant if you follow their legal advice and the government decides to pursue a case against you.

Even if you're in the right, defending yourself in a legal proceeding is expensive. You need a checkbook that can back up your confidence in what they're telling you. And sure, Google has that money, but they're also fighting off half of congress trying to break up their business.

It's in their best interests to do whatever the DoJ asks of them.

[FireBeyond]

Administrative subpoenas are tenuous at best, but in the absence of an actual court order, words from ICE attorneys or officers saying "You are ordered not to disclose the details of this subpoena" have no actual weight in law.

[hypeatei]

This exactly. It's like everyone is assuming whatever ICE ordered Google to do was completely lawful. Even if this administration was a tightly run ship, when an agency gets a massive funding increase and daily quotas to hit like ICE did, all bets are off and you should never give them the benefit of the doubt. Obviously when the DHS secretary is calling American protesters domestic terrorists, cosplaying as a cop, and spending $200M+ on ads that feature herself, then you definitely give maximum scrutiny to everything that agency is doing/did.

[fn-mote]

Cited elsewhere in this thread. [1]

> First, numerous other individuals have challenged recent administrative subpoenas in court after receiving notice, and the Department of Homeland Security has withdrawn those subpoenas before reaching a court decision.

They don't want a ruling against them.

> [The subpoena would have been quashed because] there are facial deficiencies in the subpoena, including that the subpoena is missing a “Title of Proceeding.”

[1]: https://www.eff.org/files/2026/04/13/eff_letter_re_google_no...

[hedora]

I’m really hoping this leads to criminal convictions once these clowns are voted out of office.

Congress needs to retroactively eliminate the presidential pardon, or (more realistically) states need to pass laws allowing them to prosecute members of the federal government (the federal government already did this to the states; the result would be symmetric, and likely survive legal challenges.)

[kmeisthax]

The underlying problem is that the presidency is just a non-hereditary elected monarch. If you make a "CEO of the military", you have made a king. We need to get rid of or neuter the presidency.

The reason why we have this defective executive structure is because the Founders wanted separation of powers and thought Parliaments were inherently corrupt. In a Parliament, the executive is fundamentally a creature of the legislature and cannot disobey it. The Founders wanted an independent executive that couldn't be overruled by normal legislative actions, because the executive is supposed to be calling out the legislature when they do a tyranny. And since that executive executes the law, they also need control over the military. Congratulations, you have made a king.

Separation of powers failed the moment America got a party system: why would a Republican Congress check the power of a Republican President? Likewise, the process for removing a rogue President is laughably difficult to execute. In almost every party system in America, impeachment and conviction would require a complete collapse of party support for their own President. This rarely happens, because Congress is reliant on the Presidency to send votes downballot[0]. Voters do not reward political traitors for saving the voter's asses.

So in my mind, the only ways to fix this would be to either:

1. Replace the President and Vice President with an Executive Council (ala the EU Commission) where there is one member per department and every member is a separate elected position.

2. Make impeachment convictions a 50% majority matter.

3. Abolish the executive branch entirely and have Congress elect its own to do executive functions (i.e. become a Parliament).

I can see problems with all three, but they seem less problematic than just letting one guy run everything with term limits as the only check on their power.

[0] In general, there is a problem with Congressional and local elections not getting as much attention as they should be. I've found that mail-in ballots actually make it a lot easier to vote downballot. Even if I don't recognize the name off the top of my head, I can look them up and have a decent idea of what I'm voting for. If you have to do this in a ballot box, you aren't going to have a lot of time (there's a lot of people behind you) and will just skip the downballot races.

[Spooky23]

The article pointed this out as well, but notably did not state that Google had in fact received an administrative subpoena.

[cheriot]

From the article

> In April 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent Google an administrative subpoena requesting his data.

[bannable]

fta

> In September 2024, Amandla Thomas-Johnson was a Ph.D. candidate studying in the U.S. on a student visa when he briefly attended a pro-Palestinian protest. In April 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent Google an administrative subpoena requesting his data.