It has nothing to do with condoning. It has everything to do with stating what the law is And what is or is what is not required to comply. And what is and what is not permitted under the Constitution. Whether you like it or not has nothing to do with anything.
I don't think fastmail is going to help you. They are subject to legal requirements too and probably American jurisdiction also despite what their particular position is. https://www.fastmail.com/blog/fastmails-servers-are-in-the-u.... People love to hate Google but they're just doing what any corporation subject to law is going to do.
> It has been pointed out to us that since we have our servers in the US, we are under US jurisdiction. We do not believe this to be the case. We do not have a legal presence in the US, no company incorporated in the US, no staff in the US, and no one in the US with login access to any servers located in the US. Even if a US court were to serve us with a court order, subpoena or other instruction to hand over user data, Australian communications and privacy law explicitly forbids us from doing so.
They can say what they like, and I am a customer, but in hand-wavey generalization terms one should be aware that Australian law enforcement has excessively broad access to telecommunications data on request and a long history of doing the bidding of the United States. Carriers are forced to retain your data for 2 years.
Under TIA Act provisions (such as s180), an authorised officer of a criminal law‑enforcement agency can authorise access to prospective telecommunications data [metadata only; not whole messages] if satisfied it is reasonably necessary for investigating an offence punishable by at least three years’ imprisonment. (In other words, ~any time they want)
Example: the data‑retention regime’s records were being accessed over 350,000 times a year by at least 87 different agencies, including non‑traditional bodies such as local councils and the RSPCA [pet cruelty nonprofit].
Given Australia's population is only 28M, that means roughly 1 in every 80 people gets communications metadata pulled by their own government annually.
Yep, I am a fastmail user, born and live in Oz. I just assumed that this data would be collected either on this side or via the US servers. Also, we are still a part of the 5 eyes alliance.
In addition to what the sibling comments say, this also puts Fastmail at risk of having their US based service suspended while they attempt to resist government overreach (were they to attempt to do so) which is really not a lot better for their users.
I wasn't looking to dodge US jurisdiction, I was looking to dodge "our craptacular moderation AI had a brainfart when reviewing your account and now you are locked out of your life."
Is that really what you're concerned about that somebody would ask a soft ball question about proposed solutions? Why is questioning the buildup of brush a crazy idea? It's been a mainstream concern for years. I really don't think it's healthy for any inquiry to propose a particular mindset and shut down alternative thinking. It doesn't seem very scientific or intelligent to me.
The issue is that the rhetorical game being played is that by saying the risk is all due to the buildup of combustible materials, it shifts the blame to California's Democratic politicians and away from Republican fossil fuel donors. Clearly in a good faith discussion we'd suggest better forest management, as well as doing everything possible to combat fossil fuel emissions. The problem is that it's not a good faith discussion.
Am I dumb to think that the main worry from fossil fuels right now is CO2, not air quality? (at least while environmental regulations are still mostly intact) It seems reasonable to me to ask about forest management for air quality.
Maybe there was some other sign they didn't ask in good faith? But I have no idea what dumb thing trump said you're even talking about.
Notice how pro-free speech = pro-clearing brush buildup?
It's so weird how people join these partisan factions that have a full package of beliefs that you have to be evil not to share. Woe to your job if you say that you think brush buildup should be cleared; you're obviously racist.
Knowing that Google will do what changes your calculation? Abide by the law? I would be surprised if Google's so-Called promise to notify the subject of the inquiry was not couched in terms of being subject to legal requirements. Companies are not activists, and they shouldn't be expected to act like activists.
Google is acting like an activist here. They went after this guy willingly.
They were also very eager to supply weapon tech to Israel when the Gaza war started, far more eager than they ever were to supply it to our own country. Leadership was letting employees push back, then all of a sudden in ~2023 they told everyone to shut up and physically gated off the HQ. Then told everyone to shut up even more after some people broke into Thomas Kurian's office.
Maybe the founders have personal reasons. Sergey Brin called the UN antisemitic for calling out genocide in Gaza.
Some of them supported them because they were pressured into it. Grocery bans of bags and payment etc. are a PITA for customers. No business in it's right mind would force that on their customer unless they were required to. Passing the cost on to their customer is not an issue. Supporting laws requiring payment etc. are cost benefit analysis. Is it worth fighting the bad PR etc or go along. But obviously they wouldn't have provided the bags in the first place if it was not a competitive benefit to them.
Apple under-speccing their machines like they’ve been doing since the dawn of time is not some kind of indicator of any trends. You can buy $350 PC laptops that come with 12GB of RAM (example: https://www.staples.com/asus-vivobook-x1404-14-laptop-intel-...)
RAM shortages will be quite temporary. Making predictions based on individual component shortages has never been a winning strategy in the history of the industry. Next you’ll tell me that graphics cards will be impossible to get because of blockchain.
All the smart people said fossil fuels bad and renewables were the answer. Now not so much? Nuke is good but why not try lighter regulation, less central planning, and less trying to be smarter than the market and science. Stifling energy innovation and flexibility with central planning is never going to get efficient clean and sufficient energy to support a healthy growing economy that leads to growing standard of living for all.
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