Thank you, it's good to keep in mind that as far as the public has been told, the companies are claiming and the government is agreeing that all requests are le

Thank you, it's good to keep in mind that as far as the public has been told, the companies are claiming and the government is agreeing that all requests are legal requirements by the government on these companies. I don't understand the tone here either. But there's a whole different discussion to be had around: >If it's cooperation, what do they get out of it? I'm just spit balling here, but tax breaks and favorable legislation are a reasonable first guess. Keep in mind that just like the legal justification for these user data requests, the meetings of the parties involved here (congressmen and company representatives) are not public knowledge. We don't know what benefits are or may be offered. In fact, we don't know what benefits could be offered. Most of the public--HN included--can't even guess or imagine the benefits that a company would seek in an instance like this. Most of us simply don't have business knowledge at that level, let alone knowledge of the business interests and goals of an individual company as large as Facebook. So the absence of any of us being able to give a good answer to 'what do they get out of it' is not a good reason to believe that they're not getting something out of it. We all like to believe in the good of people. But it's our responsibility as the governed, in order to protect our liberty and the liberty of those who follow us, to challenge the actions of the government especially actions on this scale of importance--because we're effectively questioning if the government is already using telecommunications as telescreens.