Sorry, commenting on an old post, but I had to make this point: "Government shouldn't be able to accuse a firm of something, then demand the firm spend money a

Sorry, commenting on an old post, but I had to make this point: "Government shouldn't be able to accuse a firm of something, then demand the firm spend money assembling data to prove the governments case." Try telling that to the IRS, or OSHA, or any one of a dozen other organizations tasked with certain aspect of US business oversight. If the IRS says "a preliminary investigation showed that you may be underpaying taxes, please show us business records for such-and-such" you absolutely have to do it. It has nothing to do with a lawsuit, even, although a lawsuit is certainly going to follow if you don't comply. If OSHA says "there's a string of unusual injuries that we believe were easily preventable at your workplace, please turn over employee training records and we'd like to do a walkthrough of your work site" -- you can't just say "No" In this case, Google, a federal contractor, is suspected by the Department of Labor for systematically underpaying women. They have EVERY RIGHT to request relevant US employee records. This isn't "asking Google to prove their case," this is a reasonable demand for data that they have the right to.