[Anonbrit]

Don't use products from large US tech companies?

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

[panarky]

Is there any evidence that Apple fights administrative subpoenas issued by US federal agencies?

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.

[nomel]

It's a constitutional right to record them doing their duties, in public. That's clear.

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)

[Nextgrid]

Alternatively, use them pseudonymously? There's little reason any of these companies need to know your real identity. This will both reduce the likelihood of ICE finding your account from a real-life interaction, as well as reduce the likelihood of ICE finding your real-life identity if they do get your account data (they'd at least need to dig through it more than just going by first/last name on the account itself).

[sneak]

You can’t do that. If you think you can, you haven’t tried recently.

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.

[JohnMakin]

> (they'd at least need to dig through it more than just going by first/last name on the account itself).

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.

[PlatoIsADisease]

Wild guess: You like Apple more than Google.

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.

[frumplestlatz]

You don't have to like Apple to recognize that they take a materially different stance from Google when it comes to user privacy.

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.

[pixl97]

I'm guessing your constraint is impossible as living in the US pretty much requires banking and working with companies that will gladly give government agencies your information. I severely doubt that tech is the only group doing this.

[sneak]

No they do not. Apple intentionally preserves backdoors in the e2ee of iMessage (via iCloud Backup) to aid the FBI.

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.)

[crazygringo]

> Don't use products from large US tech companies?

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.

[fsflover]

> Why do you think smaller companies are any more likely to resist? If anything, they have even less resources to go to court

Somehow smaller companies do resiste much more. Examples: Lavabit refused to expose Snowden, Purism offers SIM-cards protecting you from tracking ("AweSIM").

[pear01]

Are they going to stop because a company fights a subpoena? Or perhaps in the case of some touted alternatives, even if a subpoena were acted upon, no data would be intelligible?

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.

[throwway120385]

It's more nuanced than "the federal government is too powerful." I feel more like non-law-enforcement agencies like ICE are too powerful right now, but I also believe that the FBI and the DOJ had a good mandate that should be preserved. And I also believe that antitrust needs to be a high priority. Please don't lump me in with people who just want to tear it all down so they can live in a fiefdom. There are good people in the US government, and there are good things about it. It's just not all of it is good and none of us can agree at all times on what's bad here.