I wonder what would happen if the US passed a law that made it illegal for a company to accede to the demand of a foreign government to deprive US citizens of access to data stored in a server on US soil...

Here's a thought - why not start with a law that applies to your own government?

GG will go down in the flames of an incinerator as a horrible product that allowed 1% of people to annoy the other 99%.

Like email?

Should I be able to tell whether this is irony?

But but but I demand my right to take away your rights.

*In* what way :S

What about Google's actions or solutions are so different than the other players that they have earned that trust.

If anything, it seems that Yahoo and Microsoft have gone to greater lengths in fighting NSA letters and similar

Same question to you... "Any what way?"

Nothing any of the ordinary people do will have any effect; the 'open for comments' is just for show. You live in a corporate police state.

Thereby leading to a bigger future threat and defense budget.

Clearly we need an NSA2 to covertly spy on the NSA to see if they're following the rules.

"Pretty please - do not do something which you consider to dramatically benefit your business model but that you consider has no tangible effect on me"

More news at ten.

...closed.

If the roads were full of people meeting to discuss the inevitable widespread recognition of corrupt and unnecessary government, they would be.

Even for-profit companies engage in activities not directly related to profit, whether contributing to charities (eg. sponsoring events, matching employee contributions etc), supporting the local communitiy and so forth.

These are one step removed from profit; they are means by which awareness of the company may be increased ("local company xzy gratiously donated £5000 of its own money to charity abc yesterday; we could help and felt we should, a spokesperson from xyz said, followed by a link to their corporate website") and associated with a warm fuzzy feeling... leading to increased profits.

Warden squeals: "eeeeyay! just what I've always wanted! Bubba; you be warden now; punish me"

Duh! they(tm) make the rules and break them at the location of your punishment for breaking the rules.

What better way to say "Fuck You from the System!" ?

"Democracy" in action; Awesome =D