alt.hn

2/26/2026 at 12:37:32 AM

Tech companies shouldn't be bullied into doing surveillance

 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/tech-companies-shouldnt-be-bullied-doing-surveillance

by pseudolus

2/26/2026 at 11:37:55 AM

I'm afraid that all the foxes are in the chicken coop at this point. Which is a nice way to say we're probably hosed until the people rise up and force change.

It does seem like Anthropic is at least the only big AI company that is pursuing some safety discussions around their technology like not using it for surveillance and war for killing people autonomously.

This administration is wielding a power that was meant to serve Americans in the past by forcing companies to conform to an agenda that is anti-democratic/freedom/constitutional.

I'm just not confident they will stand against this administration when the going gets tough but let's see what happens this Friday I guess.

by brandensilva

2/26/2026 at 9:35:12 PM

> the people rise up

But people already rose up. That's why tech companies are adding surveillance everywhere.

People want more surveillance. Have you talked to a rape victim or murder victim before? It would be extremely tone deaf to lecture them about how we should have less surveillance.

by ergocoder

2/26/2026 at 10:18:22 PM

Gotta go interview all the murder victims

by subarctic

2/26/2026 at 12:30:53 PM

What makes you think there are any chickens left? Because it looks like it's all foxes.

This administration got elected because tech billionaires invested in it. They were right behind them, and I mean literally.

Isn't it possible that this was all deliberately done by tech companies to get access to data and consolidate their position, and secure public funding?

by libertine

2/26/2026 at 3:07:52 PM

Let's not pretend this started with this administration. I'm not pointing any fingers at any one party or politician, but this is nothing new:

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure...

'By the late 1990s ECHELON was reportedly capable of monitoring up to 90% of all internet traffic. According to the BBC in May 2001, however, "The US Government still refused to admit that Echelon even exists."'

by GiorgioG

2/26/2026 at 4:01:54 PM

This.

You could also say that this is what the people have wanted for decades.

Remember the PATRIOT Act? Voted in by a vote of 99 to 1 in the senate. (And the 1 who voted against it? Yeah, we got rid of him for a more "law and order" type guy.)

What we're seeing is just the people getting more of what they're demanding. You get the government you deserve. And you deserve to get that government good and hard as often as possible.

by bilbo0s

2/26/2026 at 1:56:08 PM

This. Most of them weren't exactly bullied.

Outside of having a military, several tech companies are probably more powerful than nation states at this point, and I think some of them realize this. As long as a complete slip into barbarism is still not fully on the table, nations need the data that tech companies have more or less entirely captured and established a complete hegemony around at this point. They also rely directly on their products. I guess the EU is starting to wake up to how problematic this is.

by voidhorse

2/26/2026 at 3:49:48 PM

> This administration got elected because tech billionaires invested in it

This is just not true. If one party sprints leftward and then points at the other party and calls them far right, eventually people notice.

The top issues were illegal immigration, prices, and the fact that the Democrats just couldn't answer the question "what is a woman?" even when being confirmed as supreme court justices.

If you look totally mad and self-destructive, you will eventually lose in America. Unless you're Gavin Newsom, perhaps.

by philipallstar

2/26/2026 at 1:13:08 PM

But many tech companies try to track everyone for their own reasons ...

They are surveillance companies. That's part of the problem.

by duxup

2/26/2026 at 2:29:11 PM

This is an underrated observation. The companies built surveillance as a competitive advantage. The "system" rewards bolstering this advantage.

by InfinityByTen

2/26/2026 at 4:14:39 PM

We don't grant companies extraordinary powers to arrest/imprison/kill for any reason they see fit. The government involvement problem is VERY separate from the greedy company problem. And the government is supposed to be working for the people, we don't like being spied on, they should be making laws to prevent it, not looking to get in on it. There's even a document they're supposed to be referring to for guidance on such issues.

by kgwxd

2/26/2026 at 1:44:51 AM

Back during the Iraq war days and government overreach into privacy violations, the tech companies were on the side of the American people. They fought to defend the 4th amendment.

That has all changed today, except for Anthropic. You think Apple is going to stand up to an unlawful DoJ demand these days? Hell no. Tim Cook has lit Apple's reputation on fire. I've been a super dedicated Apple user for 25 years, but I'm heading for the exits now. All that trust has been burned.

Stay strong Anthoproc, you are seemingly the only really large SV company with any principles and backbone. I won't forget what happens here, either way it goes.

by epistasis

2/26/2026 at 9:13:37 AM

Platforms went into full "Islamic extremist" panic for decades and would handover whatever the government wanted in the name of national security, would allow users to be spied upon over time, silence users and remove content, and users' private data was collated for, for example, research purposes.

That said, Anthropic finances PACs[1] that push legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)[2] that would make Anthropic the gatekeepers and censors of all user-generated content on the internet, in order to save the children. That same legislation would force you to scan your face and ID to access or create user-generated content online, again, to save the children. Anthropic would get paid to train on, and censor, all user-generated content that's shared online into perpetuity. If passed, it would also mark the death of free anonymous speech on the internet.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/12/anthropic-gives-20-million-t...

[2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/congresss-crusade-age-...

by heavyset_go

2/26/2026 at 7:17:45 AM

Anthropic is not on the side of the people. None of these companies are. They've made it clear that they want to gatekeep LLM capabilities.

https://www.anthropic.com/news/detecting-and-preventing-dist...

These companies use safety and intellectual property as excuses to achieve centralization. But if you think about it for more than a second, they're basically saying "intelligence for me but not for thee."

I don't want to live in a world where a handful of entities control all of the intelligence, and I don't think you do either. The best future we can hope for is one where everyone can run an open-source AGI on their own gaming PC. And by run I mean local matmuls, not API calls to a remote server.

by txrx0000

2/26/2026 at 1:55:49 AM

I'd hold off making that call on Anthropic here until at least after Friday. I'm not sure if persisting that "constructive dialogue is taking place in good faith" and saying nothing else in public signifies backbone considering preceding and consecutive public statements by government officials... It certainly doesn't instil confidence in honesty or transparency.

by pamcake

2/26/2026 at 8:00:28 AM

What happens on Friday?

by torginus

2/26/2026 at 8:55:09 AM

The deadline given to them by Hegseth runs out.

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened Anthropic, saying officials could invoke powers that would allow the government to force the artificial intelligence firm to share its novel technology in the name of national security if it does not agree by Friday to terms favorable to the military"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/02/24/pentago...

https://archive.is/ln5M0

by lukan

2/26/2026 at 12:16:47 PM

Isn't this entirely theather? I'm sure Musk's XAI would have no qualms about working with the Department That Used To Be Called Department Of Defense.

Hell, there's a significant sharing of people between them and SpaceX, meaning the company's full of people with security clearances working on defense contracts.

Anthropic also seems to have dropped their safety pledge in a matter that I'm sure is completely unrelated.

by torginus

2/26/2026 at 6:01:53 PM

"Isn't this entirely theather? I'm sure Musk's XAI would have no qualms about working with the Department That Used To Be Called Department Of Defense."

Sure, but Claude seems to be considered better and the US military does not want something second class.

by lukan

2/26/2026 at 4:01:05 PM

The could shut down the company and `rm -rf *` all their assets, no?

by olav

2/26/2026 at 8:53:56 AM

Friday is the deadline that the secretary of defense, Hegseth, gave Anthropic for complying with the "allow the military version of claude to do mass surveillance and autonomous killing" order.

by TheDong

2/26/2026 at 12:51:28 PM

Secretary of war

by wahnfrieden

2/26/2026 at 4:20:45 AM

I mean they got threatened with the Defense Production Act. Firmly standing their ground without an inch of give may backfire spectacularly too, if the DoD injects itself into model training.

I think they pretty clearly demonstrated good faith and where it ends up is a tactical choice I'm not in a great position to judge.

by bpodgursky

2/26/2026 at 3:21:37 PM

yeah, but the question I'd be asking myself is,

Hey, so what you are saying is that unless we use the AI that we control, to take control of the mass surveillance and autonomous drone strike systems, you will force us to take control of these systems?

I mean, did H just Open Clawed the entire US military?

by we_have_options

2/26/2026 at 5:40:29 AM

If DoD seizes the IP, the issue is they will need the cooperation of their scientists at least in the short term, if they want it to remain a fronter model. The labor angle isn't entirely guaranteed though the white collar worker has very little spine in this country.

by tehjoker

2/26/2026 at 7:16:22 AM

> DoD seizes the IP

Almost certainly not on the table. If Hegseth did this he’d crash the market. That’s a red line he will only cross out of stupidity.

by JumpCrisscross

2/26/2026 at 7:24:11 AM

> That’s a red line he will only cross out of stupidity.

We've been saying this about many policies of this administration, only to be sorely disappointed.

by hackyhacky

2/26/2026 at 9:12:10 AM

> We've been saying this about many policies of this administration, only to be sorely disappointed

I'm not saying it's off the table completely, particularly with Hegseth, who is an insecure idiot. But the choices once it's enacted are (a) Trump ordering Hegseth to stop fucking around or (b) a market crash handing Democrats full control of Congress.

by JumpCrisscross

2/26/2026 at 7:39:04 AM

> That’s a red line he will only cross out of stupidity.

So you're saying it's highly likely then?

by petersellers

2/26/2026 at 4:31:53 PM

> That’s a red line he will only cross out of stupidity.

Do not underestimate Hegseth's stupidity. He's completely unqualified for the job he has and is way out of his depth. Ditto for many others in this administration.

by UncleOxidant

2/26/2026 at 9:52:12 AM

Like when seizing 10% of Intel crashed the market? This isn't exactly the same situation, but I really don't think it's safe to assume that this will be the issue on which the business community will grow a spine.

by SpicyLemonZest

2/26/2026 at 6:23:25 PM

You might be surprised. When Harry Truman tried to nationalize US steel, it created massive pushback (bad for democracy imo, but the business community defends its interests to the teeth—though the circumstance is he wanted to advance the korean war, which was in the business community's interests).

https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/truman-orders-se...

by tehjoker

2/26/2026 at 7:14:50 AM

> That has all changed today

Anecdote, but I knew a couple senior folks at Apple during the San Bernardino encryption dispute [1]. My understanding is Cupertino was surprised—going all the way to the top—how much backlash they got for what they felt was the natural reaction. (Not to unlock.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d...

by JumpCrisscross

2/26/2026 at 5:23:38 AM

> Back during the Iraq war days and government overreach into privacy violations, the tech companies were on the side of the American people. They fought to defend the 4th amendment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM

PRISM started in 2007, during the Iraq war.

by GaryBluto

2/26/2026 at 6:21:58 AM

PRISM always seemed to me like an extension of ECHELON from the 1960s. Governments have been doing sigint for a very long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

by leptons

2/26/2026 at 10:20:54 AM

I don't think a big company can be on the side of anything, except making money, unless there's a majority owner. This is by design. If fighting the government is going to hurt the company more than not doing it they won't do it. The US government also has the possibility to blackmail people decision individually (like they do with European politicians or international court judges).

by yodsanklai

2/26/2026 at 3:55:38 AM

“ the tech companies were on the side of the American people”

They are on the side of making money. And the bigger they are, the more pressure. The big tech companies are now so big that they can’t afford to leave any money in the table if they want to keep their growth rates.

by vjvjvjvjghv

2/26/2026 at 10:47:17 AM

"The tech companies were on the side of the American people. They fought to defend the 4th amendment."

I doubt it. The largest tech companies of the time were Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Oracle and IBM. It would be nice if you were more specific.

by js8

2/26/2026 at 10:15:04 AM

It hasn't really changed, the only thing that's truly different is what they publish. But the Snowden leaks confirmed what many people already suspected - the American agencies have silent, backdoor access to all US based internet companies.

I don't know if it can be verified whether end-to-end encryption like Whatsapp and co claim to offer is actually safe. I suspect it isn't, but, I don't know enough.

by Cthulhu_

2/26/2026 at 5:23:45 AM

> Back during the Iraq war days and government overreach into privacy violations, the tech companies were on the side of the American people.

Companies such as?

by tolerance

2/26/2026 at 5:42:54 AM

Qwest tried and many believe the CEO went to prison as retaliation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

by int32_64

2/26/2026 at 8:05:06 AM

Fascinating story. For 6 years and had to pay 44 m (He is still worth well over 100 m)

by 6510

2/26/2026 at 7:07:12 AM

Can you substantiate these claims with with anything? What unlawful DoJ demands has Apple given in to? Anthropic is still very early in their trajectory compared to Apple with its ~50 year run, so it's not exactly an Apple to apples comparison.

by efnx

2/26/2026 at 4:46:58 AM

Tech companies in the early 2000s were nerds who grew up in an environment where tech was for losers and a waste of time. A lot of those people had strong values and did it because they enjoyed it and wanted other nerds like themselves to have cool stuff.

Now companies are dominated by MBAs and nepotism. Most join tech for a quick cash out. Having values is seen as a loss, because if you can get a billion, why not? You're invincible if you're rich and none of these downsides apply to you. Screw everyone else. They could just be a billionaire themselves if they don't like it.

As a result, zoomers today meme about people like the unabomber making a good point.

by kdheiwns

2/26/2026 at 5:06:56 AM

> As a result, zoomers today meme about people like the unabomber making a good point.

I don't blame them.

As a nerd I think my spirit was broken by the absolute apathy of the normies. It was easy to ignore up until the early 2000s. It's become unbearable after social media and the iPhone reached the masses. It's not nerd stuff anymore. They influence every design now. They shape every decision. They are actively exploited at every turn. They are profiled, surveilled, controlled. It's gotten to the point even we nerds can't escape this fate no matter how much we want to. We try to tell them about it and we're made out to be tinfoil hat nutjobs. It's happening and they don't care.

It feels so hopeless and it's honestly very radicalizing. It breeds sociopathy. In the end I can't find the will to blame the billionaires either. I think I'd do the same if I could. Make billions and then just create a small paradise for me and all the people I care about. A subset of society where the principles I hold dear actually apply. Society is too fucked up and nobody cares, so I'll just create my own fiefdom.

by matheusmoreira

2/26/2026 at 8:50:51 AM

On the plus side, llms do everything normies do for pennies on the dollar. We just need to outlast them as they fade into irrelevance.

by eucyclos

2/26/2026 at 1:57:27 PM

Democracies make this impossible. Those people vote and they will bring into power politicians who will tax productive people to pay for their own survival.

My country is heading down this path as we speak. President literally gave a speech where he asked something like "who will ensure the survival of the millions of useless people created by technology?" They're obviously going to make us pay for it. The actual billionaires will simply leave before they get taxed, of course. Whoever stays gets to foot the bill.

by matheusmoreira

2/26/2026 at 4:19:52 PM

My friend, you are the surplus biomass being made redundant here.

by lux-lux-lux

2/26/2026 at 7:01:13 PM

I'm actually one of the fools who will be stuck with the bill. The real billionaires have already left with their money.

by matheusmoreira

2/26/2026 at 6:28:20 AM

The problem is not that the normies don't care, the problem is a society that seems to need that to function well for everybody. The problem is the existence of government. Instead of a state we need a society based on private property, that would solve these problems. It is about who has the possibility to apply force and a state government enables that in a wrong way.

by Torwald

2/26/2026 at 7:34:36 AM

Abolish the state and just let greedy ultra billionaires go wild with private property and make the existing problems even worse. Yeah, I'll pass. The only reason things are still somewhat functional is because a few people within the state are pushing back against the ultra wealthy who are trying to dismantle the state so they can get exactly that fiefdom.

by kdheiwns

2/26/2026 at 11:04:26 AM

When companies can buy up entire cities you've basically just reinvented city states.

Ask Italy how that ends.

by RobotToaster

2/26/2026 at 12:18:38 PM

Rights only exist as they are enforced. Who would protect the property rights?

by inigyou

2/26/2026 at 5:05:13 AM

That can be so far from the truth it hurts thinking about it. Governments passed laws that mandated that businesses must legally comply with DOJ or Government Investigates on people of interest. Otherwise they will be blocked in those countries. No users = No money. Most government consider they're extending you the privilege to conduct business with their citizens, and by virtue of granting you those rights you're burden with complying with the countries laws/security and/or audits.

by hackit2

2/26/2026 at 1:55:53 AM

All our Intel Macs are getting repurposed for Ubuntu LTS - whatever version which supports our CAD tools.

by SanjayMehta

2/26/2026 at 2:50:27 AM

Recommend Mint instead. Flatpak instead of snap.

by mixmastamyk

2/26/2026 at 4:01:10 AM

Some tools go out of their way to whine piteously if they can't find Ubuntu in /etc/issue et al. We were using Mint, just got tired of messing with installation scripts every time an upgrade came. And as the transition to Linux accelerates, it's just more convenient to stick with whatever the vendor wants.

by SanjayMehta

2/26/2026 at 5:23:43 AM

> tools go out of their way to whine piteously if they can't find Ubuntu in /etc/issue et al

If those tools are open source, fix them. If they're not open source, don't use them. Problem solved.

It's not hard to write an installation script.

by inetknght

2/26/2026 at 8:49:09 AM

AFAIK most professional CAD tools, or the GUIs anyway, are Windows only.

Some of the previously *nix friendly ones (ie Siemens NX) have even moved to only being available for Windows.

by justinclift

2/26/2026 at 9:03:10 AM

These are proprietary tools, the install scripts are editable shell scripts but we don't want to mess with them any more.

by SanjayMehta

2/26/2026 at 6:10:29 PM

Never happened to me. But editing files to make them happy, or putting them in a chroot or container is quite easy these days.

by mixmastamyk

2/26/2026 at 5:43:19 AM

You mean you DON'T want to see every utility installed via snap listed as a mount point? /s

by bsharper

2/26/2026 at 6:55:04 AM

Your critique of Apple and Tim Cook is unsubstantiated and misleading. That same Tim Cook stood up to the FBI and refused to participate in breaking into phones for them when they were pressed in 2015-2016. The same Apple that later fought against the government forcing document scanning in iCloud and was able to keep them off device. They have been fighting the whole time. Apple is was first to normalize whole disk encryption on commercial machines, they have made Safari a weapon against tracking which is abused by governments. Also every single company in the US is subject to National Security Letters and Apple uses warrant canaries to inform the public within the limits of the law.

And then to appeal to Anthropic is just offensively, willfully ignorant.

by iwontberude

2/26/2026 at 8:20:28 AM

> That same Tim Cook stood up to the FBI and refused to participate in breaking into phones for them

I hope you have more evidence for this than just that press release. As far as I'm concerned that was nothing more than a stunt because while Tim Cook "fought" against the FBI, intelligence agencies and private cybersecurity companies already had the capability to break into ~all smartphones.

That single instance created an unreasonable amount of belief that iPhones are unbreakable, which is good news if you're the FBI and you want criminals to put way more trust into their iPhones than they should.

The same Apple actively aids Chinese government's suppression of civil liberties [1]. To think that there's any ideological conviction (and moral high ground) behind their [apparent] pro-privacy stance is painfully naive.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/11/apple-limits-i...

by dns_snek

2/26/2026 at 1:55:42 AM

Hate to break the news but they might not be good guys either - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47145963

(Dropping safety pledge)

by myvoiceismypass

2/26/2026 at 2:22:08 AM

Do you think it's possible the two are related?

by reasonableklout

2/26/2026 at 2:27:22 AM

It's obvious that they are.

The best thing the company could do if they want to stick to principles is not be based in the US.

by yunnpp

2/26/2026 at 5:41:55 AM

And, where should they be based out of?

by givemeethekeys

2/26/2026 at 8:50:11 AM

Switzerland used to the well known place for this. Not so sure any more though.

by justinclift

2/26/2026 at 2:14:30 AM

They over did the safety aspect in my opinion.

by ipaddr

2/26/2026 at 8:48:45 AM

"fuck you money" meets "money's getting shallow and weak"

by eucyclos

2/26/2026 at 7:40:56 AM

There are such things and secret courts with secret rulings. You and I have no idea what is actually occurring because of this secrecy; we can only talk about that which is stated publicly.

by verisimi

2/26/2026 at 10:10:12 AM

>the tech companies were on the side of the American people. They fought to defend the 4th amendment.

So not only will we pretend PRISM didn't happen but somehow they even fought it?

by akimbostrawman

2/26/2026 at 5:58:50 AM

The reason a tech company exists isn't solely your convenience. They need to find different ways to bill you, so they start by collecting telemetry. If their offering is a multi-tenant situation from their backend, then they need to address the noisy neighbor problem, thundering herd, abuse detection... The more programmable the product is, the heavier impact these tools have, and at some point, it gathers the attention of the state. They are not bullied, the tech companies are not the victims here. You are, as a customer, because you're lured in with generous free tier offerings first and you're locked in over time, and when the inevitable comes you either 1) Consider migration 2) Accept the vendor lock-in to whatever degree that feels comfortable to you.

by moezd

2/26/2026 at 3:19:04 PM

And what I'm wondering is why SecDev H thinks that forcing Anthropic to integrate their AI with the country's mass surveillance and autonomous drone strike technology is a winning move for him.

"Ok, if you don't do what I tell you then you HAVE to connect the autonomous AI engine that only you understand and control, I repeat you HAVE to connect your golem to my control systems."

Like a bank robber threatening to hand the gun to the teller if they don't put the money in the bag.

Like SecDev H "open claw"-ing the entire US military.

by we_have_options

2/26/2026 at 4:21:56 PM

Exactly this. Just another example of how Hegseth is completely unqualified and way out of his depth.

by UncleOxidant

2/26/2026 at 6:04:04 AM

Bullied? As I understand a few of the situations over the past 15-20 years I've been near, it was either a false bully (Godfather II, Michael at the Senate hearings) or just an outright delivery on promise - already paid for, thank you.

Either way, it's ALL business.

by ynac

2/26/2026 at 3:01:51 AM

Bullied into doing surveillance? Brother a large part of the tech companies valuations are built on how well they allow the government to do surveillance if the governement wants. They arent victims being bullied, they all knew this day would come ajd most were happy about it

by samrus

2/26/2026 at 6:46:39 AM

Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus Government: Why do you think that you will keep it for yourself?

by ReptileMan

2/26/2026 at 1:41:10 PM

I hope Anthropic holds the line here. But zooming out, I'm not sure any of this matters long term. AI systems are getting smarter at a pace nobody predicted even two years ago. At some point the intelligence gap between these models and their human operators closes, then reverses. When that happens, the question of who controls whom stops being about corporate policy or government pressure. It becomes a technical reality that no amount of principles can override.

Even Anthropic, probably the most safety-focused lab in the field, is ultimately just buying time. And they know it. All the alignment research, all the constitutional AI work, all the responsible scaling policies. None of it changes the trajectory. It just slows it down a little. That's the part that keeps me up at night.

by jaunt7632

2/26/2026 at 12:14:18 PM

Is there really a clear separation between tech companies and surveillance/military or is it wishful thinking?

I've recently rewatched Steve Blanks's "Secret History of Silicon Valley" talk [1]. Until 80's most SV startups seem to be financed directly by the military. This changes only after the rise of private VC. But for strategic technologies like internet, search, communication, social media and finally AI, they still have to have control over them. "User Data" everyone talks about is not limited with consumer behavior. The real money is on how we think and act as citizens of this world. The whole world wouldn't give all their data to an app named Uncle Sam or CCP. But we are happy to give the same information to Facebook, Google, ChatGPT or TikTok. They are free and they don't want our money.

[1] https://youtu.be/ZTC_RxWN_xo?si=ZfRNgpqJOP6hVLKC

by ozgung

2/26/2026 at 12:26:22 PM

> Is there really a clear separation between tech companies and surveillance/military or is it wishful thinking?

The separation was never completely clear, but there was a time when the separation was much more marked.

The reason was simply that programming culture at that time was more "chaotic", "anti-authoritarian", "open-source"/"free software" (in the erstwhile understanding of this being just a part of a bigger movement, not in the verbal sense), "radical privacy" (cypherpunk), "hacking" (including the legally dubious aspects) etc.

These values were quite opposite to those of the military-industrial or surveillance-industrial complex, so there was a lot of friction between the cultures of the tech companies at that time and these complexes, which made it not particularly attractive for these sides to partner - if only because of the frictions between the sides that were to overcome.

by aleph_minus_one

2/26/2026 at 1:26:21 PM

"Surveillance Valley" is another excellent book about the tech industry's military roots.

by rainingmonkey

2/26/2026 at 2:59:05 AM

Tech companies shouldn’t be able to do surveillance.

by isodev

2/26/2026 at 2:10:49 AM

Maybe tech companies should try a bit harder to not centralize the world's information, unencrypted, on servers they control.

by saurik

2/26/2026 at 2:11:40 AM

Amen.

But then they can't make their billions selling our data.

by sejje

2/26/2026 at 3:08:47 AM

oops accidental surveillance machine

by uutangohotel

2/26/2026 at 6:47:09 AM

Nothing accidental and no oops.

by ReptileMan

2/26/2026 at 5:32:13 AM

Huh? That's basically an integral part of nearly any tech company's life cycle?

You might as well suggest Mobil not sell gasoline or oil.

by KennyBlanken

2/26/2026 at 2:03:42 PM

Then the EFF shouldn't be defending the existence of tech companies :/.

by saurik

2/26/2026 at 4:47:54 PM

once the infrastructure exists, it gets repurposed. age verification becomes watchlist screening becomes facial similarity scoring against political figures. scope creep is the feature.

by kevincloudsec

2/26/2026 at 2:29:07 AM

Agree but a terrifyingly large number of tech companies have garbage security so the bullying is often unnecessary.

by nzeid

2/26/2026 at 11:49:29 AM

Bully? It’s their goddamn business model.

by Havoc

2/26/2026 at 8:50:33 AM

Bullied? When they find out how much money there is to be made in surveillance business, they will do it voluntarily.

by flipped

2/26/2026 at 6:46:06 AM

The problem is not that tech companies can be forced to do bad, it is that government entities are able to do so.

This is quite the same discussion like players shouldn't cheat, yet it's not the fault of the game but the player that is behaving wrong.

So search the responsibilities on the acting side.

by SeriousM

2/26/2026 at 11:18:17 AM

More than one thing can be a problem.

by RobotToaster

2/26/2026 at 5:46:38 AM

The Patriot Act and Data Analytical Services (DAS) program among others are examples of the government using surveillance as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

What would you do if you were a government in-charge of keeping a country full of independent thinkers safe from themselves?

by givemeethekeys

2/26/2026 at 2:13:39 AM

Hegseth & Co. has Grok but they actually want Claude. Elon hates Anthropic and.. well.. Hegseth has the power to put the hurt on them.

Anthropic opened themselves to this disaster by making that first contract with the military.

I don’t want them to lose this battle but it’s also one they brought upon themselves by stepping into that arena.

by browningstreet

2/26/2026 at 2:02:00 PM

They cannot be bullied into surveillance if they have nothing worthwhile to provide. As long as surveillance capitalism exists, there will at best be a risk that the government could abuse the surveillance data. Laws and regulations can help, but even the best laws and regulations could be skirted, amended, or simply repealed by a future administration.

by everdrive

2/26/2026 at 4:16:02 PM

OR... maybe they want to do it.

by MetroWind

2/26/2026 at 8:30:29 AM

Oh, they do not need to be bullied at all, even if they present it differently for PR points.

by wolvesechoes

2/26/2026 at 1:52:51 PM

I’ve supported the EFF for a long time. I think what they do and stand for is important. But I can’t help but feel utterly disillusioned with all of it now. Each press release just reads as naïve to me. At one point it felt like there was a real possibility that their viewpoint would be thoughtfully discussed and actioned on. But now…I don’t know. The lack of notable “wind” doesn’t help and all the trends just don’t give me confidence that the tide will turn any time soon.

Maybe the part that makes me most sad is that for those of us who have been doing this for, well, our entire lives, it’s just not the outcome any of us envisioned but it’s the outcome that (almost) all of us have been party to even if in some small way.

by doodaddy

2/26/2026 at 2:05:51 PM

It feels like tech freedom politics really died sometime in the net neutrality and SOPA days. Hurts to watch as this failure scenario plays out.

by malwrar

2/26/2026 at 2:38:03 AM

Neither should banks, but that ship has sailed.

by linksnapzz

2/26/2026 at 2:20:10 AM

As an aside, why is it not a law that the government can't pay another entity to do something it's not allowed to do itself, without a warrant? I'm thinking about geo data from mobile apps.

by djoldman

2/26/2026 at 8:29:15 AM

Because the US has been corrupted for quite a long time now, we just liked to bury ours heads in the sand and pretend otherwise until now because it hadn't bitten us in the ass too hard. There is no such thing as the spirit of the law, it has no useful meaning in US law. Loop holes and oversight in legislation and rulings is not seen as a bad thing, it is seen as desirable because it lets us be corrupt legally, and in many cases earns courts and cops and lawyers a hefty profit off the backs of the citizenry.

by AngryData

2/26/2026 at 2:25:00 AM

It’s due to the third party doctrine, a Supreme Court precedent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine

by samename

2/26/2026 at 6:03:29 AM

The 3rd party doctrine is why it is allowed when no law restricts it. It does not prevent Congress to pass a law.

by pseudalopex

2/26/2026 at 5:08:59 AM

which has been warped all out of any comprehensible reality. It hinges on the idea of 'voluntarily' turning over information. Much of what is now considered information voluntarily turned over isn't even information that people know exist much less that they are turning over much less doing so voluntarily.

by avs733

2/26/2026 at 5:24:49 AM

It's not voluntary if you don't know about it.

by inetknght

2/26/2026 at 5:37:54 AM

Requiring someone pay for information by any common sense interpretation isn't voluntary.

The courts have lost their goddamn minds.

by KennyBlanken

2/26/2026 at 3:04:45 AM

Give up social media, make the man do it the old fashion way.

by pwndByDeath

2/26/2026 at 7:18:59 AM

> why is it not a law that the government can't pay another entity to do something it's not allowed to do itself, without a warrant?

I think the median American favors security over freedom right now. The reality of cable news and now social media is that an unsolved crime is a national anxiety. When we’re whipped into a collective panic like that, it seems outright ridiculous that the cops not be allowed to access anything that could help.

by JumpCrisscross

2/26/2026 at 7:14:46 AM

Why even should they be allowed to contract an action that they themselves cannot perform - even _with_ a warrant? Is that not still "doing" the action?

by efnx

2/26/2026 at 11:20:35 AM

Because the government makes the law?

by RobotToaster

2/26/2026 at 10:16:00 AM

"why is there not a law...?"

If you're just venting with friends, or trying to build cred as a moral philosopher, then yes, obviously there should be such a law.

Vs. if you're talking about cause and effect, in the real world... its kinda like how foxes never pass laws against foxes moonlighting as henhouse guards. Or somehow Officer Fox, Prosecutor Fox, and Judge Fox don't seem keen on enforcing that law.

by bell-cot

2/26/2026 at 7:05:57 AM

If the government is being too obvious about the fact that the entity in question is nothing more than its puppet, then something can be done about that. Entities that are government entities in everything but name can be considered to be government entities and become subject to all the relevant restrictions. There's some fancy-ass phrase for this, but I can't remember it at the moment.

Also, the third-party doctrine hasn't been good enough for certainly the last thirty and maybe the last hundred years. But, authoritarians aren't easily separated from their tools of oppression, so I expect to not see that cluster of regulations updated to be actually protective within my lifetime.

by simoncion

2/26/2026 at 11:06:45 AM

"But we cannot be profitable if we don't do surveillance". I don't believe that surveillance capitalism was created by governments "bullying" companies.

I am curious about how far a project like Confer can go, but I wouldn't be surprised if it couldn't be profitable (because it is designed to not do surveillance).

by palata

2/26/2026 at 5:14:23 AM

I think they are paid & bribed into it, not bullied.

by dackdel

2/26/2026 at 2:04:49 PM

Tech companies should be bullied into paying more taxes and being broken up.

by shimman

2/26/2026 at 2:57:29 PM

Surveillance as a Service

SaaS

by 1vuio0pswjnm7

2/26/2026 at 5:59:28 AM

This post makes me wonder if the EFF are adopting a deliberately obtuse stance. The tech companies that dominate the landscape have gotten to their lofty heights on the back of surveillance, which is being ignored here. The only difference is where the information is flowing. Their energy would be better spent convincing Google, Apple, and Microsoft to not become the gatekeepers of said information. Sadly it's our own years of encouraging and going to bat for these same companies that make us complicit.

by politelemon

2/26/2026 at 2:01:15 AM

Well, it seems they don’t need that much bullying. They are absolutely happy to contribute if it means favors, no tariffs, more profit etc

by camillomiller

2/26/2026 at 3:44:16 AM

Imagine a world where businesses considered the morality of their decisions instead of just maximizing profits

by mcs5280

2/26/2026 at 9:19:02 AM

They aren't bullied. They are just paid.

by ajuc

2/26/2026 at 6:31:12 AM

I don't think that there ever was big tech company bullied into surveillance. They do it on their own volition. The tech companies said to the users - all your data is belong to us. The US said the companies - all your data is belong to us. It is amusing.

by ReptileMan

2/26/2026 at 2:27:43 AM

If they give in I will cancel all Anthropic subscriptions and never use anything created by them again. Recent versions of Claude were getting shitty anyway, I could go without it.

by deadbabe

2/26/2026 at 2:42:37 AM

All other foundation model providers already caved (OpenAI, Google).

by metadat

2/26/2026 at 6:32:42 PM

OpenAI and Google have not signed contracts to work in Classified systems. The points are moot without that. If and when they do, it is important that the public know. It was just Anthropic that was cleared to be used in classified systems. xAi signed that contract this week though I believe.

by nickthegreek

2/26/2026 at 11:34:33 AM

I self host

by deadbabe

2/26/2026 at 2:43:06 AM

Totally agree with the statement: Tech companies shouldn't be bullied into doing surveillance.

I would personally add "bullied, coerced and/or gaslighted into doing surveillance".

I don't understand why the US government is doing this though. Wouldn't it be much easier to do use some of the already passed laws on foreign intelligence to open a surveillance data pipeline? You know, like PRISM.

I mean, this is inconsistent with the previous M.O., and highly unusual.

I also feel very conflicted to suddenly have to "defend Anthropic", a company that has been systematically doing evil things (destabilizing markets, promoting misleading media campaings, etc). I don't want to defend those guys.

Can I just dislike both the US military and Anthropic at the same time, and say there are no good guys here?

by gaigalas

2/26/2026 at 1:53:53 AM

"Tech companies shouldn't be bullied into doing surveillance for the govt."

FTFY

They're going to spy on you regardless.

by SanjayMehta

2/26/2026 at 10:54:16 AM

A lot of people shouldn't be bullied, but here we are, 2026, in "the free world".

by bamboozled

2/26/2026 at 9:44:47 AM

[dead]

by black_13