There is something they could do. Google doesn't have to quietly sit on its hands. It could lobby against the PATRIOT Act. Of course, you could argue that Go

There is something they could do. Google doesn't have to quietly sit on its hands. It could lobby against the PATRIOT Act. Of course, you could argue that Google has no financial incentive to lobby against it, and therefore it can't justify doing so as its primary responsibility is to make its shareholders richer. This is a problem with all corporations that try to act in their financial best interests without consideration for what is best for society at large, and also without being accountable to society at large. Does that make them evil? Not necessarily, except maybe in a "banality of evil" sort of way (see IBM's willing participation in the Holocaust for an example). More usually, it makes them amoral. Amorality and great power could be a dangerous combination.