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Comment by b6 | Hacker News Reader

In this case, I would be happy if some CEO refused, breaking the law in support of a higher principle.

Good luck finding someone who is willing to risk his own reputation and livelihood, including hireability (after he and the company have the shit sued out of them by their shareholders, including institutional investors), as well as the livelihood of his employees.

I understand. But the world would be totally different and much better if people didn't cave in like this.

Very few people don't cave when you put a gun to their head (NSA information demands like this require the direct supporting threat of violence as an or-else).

These guys have millions of dollars already, and just think about the goodwill generated from standing up on principle. We're not at the point where the government can seize their assets "because f___ you, that's why"

They're just as cowardly as many others facing this situation, except the CEO has a lot less to lose (if you can understand this paradox, cheers)

Isn't that the reason they seized Dotcom's assets? They had no legal basis for that.

in dotcom's case, the calculation was that he would be an unsympathetic character:

fat, obnoxious, foreigner, fortune gained from a somewhat illicit business (let's be honest about the service he provided to both licit and illicit customers)

You mean like this? http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/business/global/top-google...

Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio did that when it was blatantly illegal - he's serving a six year prison sentence now.

This implies he was chucked into prison for refusing to hand over data to the US government, which is misleading at best.

He was imprisoned for insider trading, appealed on the basis that a witness's testimony (relating to the data-grab) was excluded from his defence, and won a re-trial where he had his conviction and sentence re-instated.

My understanding of this sequence of events is that while the witness was improperly excluded from his trial (thereby allowing him a re-trial), it did not materially alter anything about the 19 counts of insider trading of which he was convicted. So basically he did a good thing, then did a bad thing, and went to prison for the bad thing. Seems all right.

That is exactly what happens when you fight the powerful. You don't go to jail for fighting. You go in for something else that is entirely disconnected. It could even be a rape case (Yes, I'm talking about Assange)

And that is exactly the problem with PRISM. It gives people in power the ammunition to find you guilty of some unrelated crime if you challenge them.

    “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.”
    - Lavrentiy Beria, head of Joseph Stalin's secret police

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