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Normally I would say that investigating Google for antitrust violations would be a good idea, but I do not trust this administration and it's Justice Department

Normally I would say that investigating Google for antitrust violations would be a good idea, but I do not trust this administration and it's Justice Department to do it without having nefarious ulterior motives. It isn't hard to imagine what they may be: using the threat of a DOJ investigation to extort either money or political favors from the enormously powerful multinational technology conglomerate that is Google. The people who run the current administration have demonstrated countless times that they are not afraid to use the powers of the federal government for personal benefit and enrichment, so it has become impossible to trust any legal action they may undertake.

throwaway13337 7y ago
Making this another polar political discussion would be shameful and unproductive for hacker news.
- rahuldottech 7y ago
  Tech and politics cannot always be separated. This appears to be one of those cases.
  - dang 7y ago
    For sure they can't—but discussions don't need to degenerate into predictable partisan sniping. That stuff is always the same, so though it may be intense and exciting (to some), it's not intellectually interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- creddit 7y ago
  This is an inherently political topic.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    It is. The interesting part of the politics, though, is not how it intersects with the current president. There are much more interesting topics: Should Google be under investigation? For antitrust, I presume (and the article mentions), but anything else? What's the relation between the state AGs and the US DOJ in this?
dariusm5 7y ago
Previous administrations have clearly abused their power with the DOJ, just look at how DACA was passed. Just because the large media outlets did PR for previous administrations or you agreed with their politics doesn't mean that abuses did not occur.
- BubRoss 7y ago
  He didn't say previous abuses didn't occur, he said he doesn't trust this administration to not have ulterior selfish political motives. Edit: Also, poor form or not, I see the same patterns here as I do on threads about china and the people that took over bitcoin - votes up in increments, then all comments are downvoted multiple times in batches. That and lots of whataboutism.
  - ngold 7y ago
    The classic "But what about...look over there...this is normal...nothing to see here...move along now. "
    - BubRoss 7y ago
      Yes, that's whataboutism and what I was replying to. Instead of saying why the current administration can be trusted to not have ulterior motives, someone says 'other people also abused their position'. This isn't about comparison, it's about the motives of this move.
- tzs 7y ago
  DACA was a Presidential memorandum. What DOJ connection are you referring to?
- cletus 7y ago
  Oh, great. Even HN apparently isn't immune to Trumpian Butwhataboutism. DACA was enacted by executive order. What does this have to do with the DOJ? I could even add that DACA in various form was passed by the House and Senate at different times and only didn't become enacted legislation because of a Republican filibuster in the Senate (and, later, being not brought up for a vote in the House).
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
I think I feel the opposite. To me, Barr (and Durham) represent really good news for legal reform in the FISA courts. The fact that these courts, non-adversarial by design, can spy the way they have is really troubling, let alone on an incoming and present administration. I hope there's strong reform here. Transparency is the only way forward. When secret FISA courts were first introduced, I'm sure many people wondered how long it would take before they're used illegally, for political purposes... I guess it's just the sign of the times that two people, probably relatively similar in most regards, can have precisely opposite feelings.
- AaronFriel 7y ago
  Your belief about Barr is fundamentally incompatible with Barr's belief about Barr. The real Attorney General, in words and in deeds, favors a unitary executive who, by dint of national security argument, has almost unlimited power including the ability to spy on anyone they please. While you may believe he is taking on the FISA court, and there are abuses there to fix, by Barr's own admission he doesn't seem to think there are any restraints on an Executive's power in the realms of national security or foreign policy. It seems to me the motivation around FISA is strongly motivated not by sincere belief in the limitations of executive authority, but because of a sense that they (read: the President) were wronged. When Attorney General William Barr spoke to the Federalist Society in a memorial lecture just a few months ago[1] he lamented the transparency Congress has forced upon the Executive, "There is no FOIA for Congress or the Courts. Yet Congress has happily created a regime that allows the public to seek whatever documents it wants from the Executive Branch at the same time that individual congressional committees spend their days trying to publicize the Executive’s internal decisional process. That process cannot function properly if it is public, nor is it productive to have our government devoting enormous resources to squabbling about what becomes public and when, rather than doing the work of the people." Barr then attacked the judicial branch directly, claiming they are "encroaching on Executive responsibilities in a way that has substantially undercut the functioning of the Presidency" and in particular, those darned judges keep finding that they can review the acts of the Executive! Isn't that frustrating? He writes in such an example: "Courts are now willing, under the banner of judicial review, to substitute their judgment for the President’s on matters that only a few decades ago would have been unimaginable – such as matters involving national security or foreign affairs. "The Travel Ban case is a good example. There the President made a decision under an explicit legislative grant of authority, as well has his Constitutional national security role, to temporarily suspend entry to aliens coming from a half dozen countries pending adoption of more effective vetting processes." Do you think that a surveillance state reformed by Barr would really rein in the courts, or simply remove them from the picture? [1] - https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-19th-annual-barbara-k-olson-memorial-lecture https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-...
newnewpdro 7y ago
I don't think the threats of regulatory capture are unique to this administration.
Jerry2 7y ago
Previous administration had a rotating door with Google executives. It's as if Google was running the WH. This is how they managed to avoid all of the FTC investigations. [2][3][4] This is usually what 3rd world type "banana republic" corruption looks like. [1] https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close-relationship-with-the-obama-white-house-in-two-charts/ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close... [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-u-s-antitrust-probe-of-google-1426793274 https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-u-s-antitrust-probe-... [3] https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-avoided-ftc-probe-but-others-loom-1426858302 https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-avoided-ftc-probe-but-ot... [4] http://graphics.wsj.com/google-ftc-report/ http://graphics.wsj.com/google-ftc-report/
- slg 7y ago
  Regardless of the truth of your accusations or validity of the fears presented by OP, it constantly amazes me that so many people genuinely react to these stories with "the other side does it too". Someone else doing something wrong is not a justification for you also doing something wrong. It is the type of excuse you expect from an elementary school child.
  - izacus 7y ago
    That's because having the rule of law in the modern world usually means that you're playing by the same rule book. If you allow one powerful player to do things the other can't, that's simply corruption. And our ex-socialist states have proven that that's fundamentally damaging to the country. People fundamentally want government that's fair.
    - AaronFriel 7y ago
      Corruption on "both sides" however is not fair, that's just more corruption. So the whataboutism present in the reply isn't an answer to a question about whether the current DOJ and Administration will act properly.
      - 7y ago
adrianmonk 7y ago
It's even less hard to imagine when you consider Trump's own words from 2018: > Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed! https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1034456281120206848 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/10344562811202068... Trump promised he'd take action against Google. Now action is being taken against Google. Maybe there's no connection, but Trump has given everyone a very good reason to suspect that there might be one.
- cookiecaper 7y ago
  Do we really trust that a politician who finds them helpful is not going to overlook certain misconduct that is politically beneficial (e.g., suppressing the statements of their major opponents)? It's certainly not a forgone conclusion that investigations led by "friendlier" administrations are necessarily fairer. I doubt there's any way to have a purely unbiased investigation into an entity as prominent and influential as Google.

throwaway13337 7y ago

Making this another polar political discussion would be shameful and unproductive for hacker news.

rahuldottech 7y ago
Tech and politics cannot always be separated. This appears to be one of those cases.
- dang 7y ago
  For sure they can't—but discussions don't need to degenerate into predictable partisan sniping. That stuff is always the same, so though it may be intense and exciting (to some), it's not intellectually interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
creddit 7y ago
This is an inherently political topic.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  It is. The interesting part of the politics, though, is not how it intersects with the current president. There are much more interesting topics: Should Google be under investigation? For antitrust, I presume (and the article mentions), but anything else? What's the relation between the state AGs and the US DOJ in this?

dariusm5 7y ago

Previous administrations have clearly abused their power with the DOJ, just look at how DACA was passed. Just because the large media outlets did PR for previous administrations or you agreed with their politics doesn't mean that abuses did not occur.

BubRoss 7y ago
He didn't say previous abuses didn't occur, he said he doesn't trust this administration to not have ulterior selfish political motives. Edit: Also, poor form or not, I see the same patterns here as I do on threads about china and the people that took over bitcoin - votes up in increments, then all comments are downvoted multiple times in batches. That and lots of whataboutism.
- ngold 7y ago
  The classic "But what about...look over there...this is normal...nothing to see here...move along now. "
  - BubRoss 7y ago
    Yes, that's whataboutism and what I was replying to. Instead of saying why the current administration can be trusted to not have ulterior motives, someone says 'other people also abused their position'. This isn't about comparison, it's about the motives of this move.
tzs 7y ago
DACA was a Presidential memorandum. What DOJ connection are you referring to?
cletus 7y ago
Oh, great. Even HN apparently isn't immune to Trumpian Butwhataboutism. DACA was enacted by executive order. What does this have to do with the DOJ? I could even add that DACA in various form was passed by the House and Senate at different times and only didn't become enacted legislation because of a Republican filibuster in the Senate (and, later, being not brought up for a vote in the House).

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago

I think I feel the opposite. To me, Barr (and Durham) represent really good news for legal reform in the FISA courts. The fact that these courts, non-adversarial by design, can spy the way they have is really troubling, let alone on an incoming and present administration. I hope there's strong reform here. Transparency is the only way forward. When secret FISA courts were first introduced, I'm sure many people wondered how long it would take before they're used illegally, for political purposes... I guess it's just the sign of the times that two people, probably relatively similar in most regards, can have precisely opposite feelings.

AaronFriel 7y ago
Your belief about Barr is fundamentally incompatible with Barr's belief about Barr. The real Attorney General, in words and in deeds, favors a unitary executive who, by dint of national security argument, has almost unlimited power including the ability to spy on anyone they please. While you may believe he is taking on the FISA court, and there are abuses there to fix, by Barr's own admission he doesn't seem to think there are any restraints on an Executive's power in the realms of national security or foreign policy. It seems to me the motivation around FISA is strongly motivated not by sincere belief in the limitations of executive authority, but because of a sense that they (read: the President) were wronged. When Attorney General William Barr spoke to the Federalist Society in a memorial lecture just a few months ago[1] he lamented the transparency Congress has forced upon the Executive, "There is no FOIA for Congress or the Courts. Yet Congress has happily created a regime that allows the public to seek whatever documents it wants from the Executive Branch at the same time that individual congressional committees spend their days trying to publicize the Executive’s internal decisional process. That process cannot function properly if it is public, nor is it productive to have our government devoting enormous resources to squabbling about what becomes public and when, rather than doing the work of the people." Barr then attacked the judicial branch directly, claiming they are "encroaching on Executive responsibilities in a way that has substantially undercut the functioning of the Presidency" and in particular, those darned judges keep finding that they can review the acts of the Executive! Isn't that frustrating? He writes in such an example: "Courts are now willing, under the banner of judicial review, to substitute their judgment for the President’s on matters that only a few decades ago would have been unimaginable – such as matters involving national security or foreign affairs. "The Travel Ban case is a good example. There the President made a decision under an explicit legislative grant of authority, as well has his Constitutional national security role, to temporarily suspend entry to aliens coming from a half dozen countries pending adoption of more effective vetting processes." Do you think that a surveillance state reformed by Barr would really rein in the courts, or simply remove them from the picture? [1] - https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-19th-annual-barbara-k-olson-memorial-lecture https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-...

newnewpdro 7y ago

I don't think the threats of regulatory capture are unique to this administration.

Jerry2 7y ago

Previous administration had a rotating door with Google executives. It's as if Google was running the WH. This is how they managed to avoid all of the FTC investigations. [2][3][4] This is usually what 3rd world type "banana republic" corruption looks like. [1] https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close-relationship-with-the-obama-white-house-in-two-charts/ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close... [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-u-s-antitrust-probe-of-google-1426793274 https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-u-s-antitrust-probe-... [3] https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-avoided-ftc-probe-but-others-loom-1426858302 https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-avoided-ftc-probe-but-ot... [4] http://graphics.wsj.com/google-ftc-report/ http://graphics.wsj.com/google-ftc-report/

slg 7y ago
Regardless of the truth of your accusations or validity of the fears presented by OP, it constantly amazes me that so many people genuinely react to these stories with "the other side does it too". Someone else doing something wrong is not a justification for you also doing something wrong. It is the type of excuse you expect from an elementary school child.
- izacus 7y ago
  That's because having the rule of law in the modern world usually means that you're playing by the same rule book. If you allow one powerful player to do things the other can't, that's simply corruption. And our ex-socialist states have proven that that's fundamentally damaging to the country. People fundamentally want government that's fair.
  - AaronFriel 7y ago
    Corruption on "both sides" however is not fair, that's just more corruption. So the whataboutism present in the reply isn't an answer to a question about whether the current DOJ and Administration will act properly.
    - 7y ago

adrianmonk 7y ago

It's even less hard to imagine when you consider Trump's own words from 2018: > Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed! https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1034456281120206848 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/10344562811202068... Trump promised he'd take action against Google. Now action is being taken against Google. Maybe there's no connection, but Trump has given everyone a very good reason to suspect that there might be one.

cookiecaper 7y ago
Do we really trust that a politician who finds them helpful is not going to overlook certain misconduct that is politically beneficial (e.g., suppressing the statements of their major opponents)? It's certainly not a forgone conclusion that investigations led by "friendlier" administrations are necessarily fairer. I doubt there's any way to have a purely unbiased investigation into an entity as prominent and influential as Google.