Skip to content

Comment on Employer Tipped Off Police In Pressure Cooker/Backpack-gate, Not Googleparent

Comments

I don't see any disconnect. Corporate partnerships with government used to have a negative connotation.

Much the same as the way that governmental employment of mercenaries was once frowned upon, as well as conflicts of interest, which seem to have gained favor in the past 15 years or so.

This sounds to me like it's more a case of sour grapes on the part of the former employer than any sort of redemption for a government's overstepping its mandate.

For those of you playing the home bingo version of this thread, someone calling in a stupid, paranoid, wrong tip to their local police department has now been reframed as a "corporate partnership with the government".

When an employer "blows the whistle" on a former employee whose employment was recently terminated, the onus lies with the government to do their due diligence before encroaching upon the sanctity of the former employees home.

Thus, my reference to a partnership with the government maintains some semblance of appropriateness.

This story directly ties into the Orwellian "See Something, Say Something" campaign initiated by the US government in the name of "the war on <some> terror."

They didn't encroach on the 'sanctity' of the former employee's home. They knocked on his door and had a conversation with him outside.

Really, they searched his home from outside? They're getting very good at spy technology if even the PD has that particular device.

Another reframing:

"Government coverup to protect Google"

People will believe what they want to believe.

I don't see how Google holds any culpability in this situation.

Google isn't the source of the abrogations of our civil rights, Google is merely the avenue by which the surveillance apparatus gains a toehold on a vast amount of data, be it meta, or otherwise.

governmental employment of mercenaries was once frowned upon

When, exactly? What do you think that stuff about 'letters of Marque and Reprisal' in the Constitution refers to, if not Congress's ability to subcontract these things to the private sector?

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.