It's not just a rhetorical trick. Amazon collects most of their data in Virginia, right at the doorsteps of a well known "intelligence" org in the USA. These companies that handle data all around the world are authorized to exist for some reason...

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kasey_junk a day ago | parent [-]

Then the argument should be that. Not “hey commenter you must prove a never ending set of ‘now do Oracle’, ‘now do Amazon’”.

Say the words “I believe all companies exist as an extension of the US intelligence apparatus” and claim the burden for yourself.

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cluckindan a day ago | parent [-]

That is a strawman argument.

Oracle gets its name from a codename of a 1977 project for the Central Intelligence Agency, Oracle's first customer.

In 2004, then-United States Attorney General John Ashcroft sued Oracle Corporation to prevent it from acquiring a multibillion-dollar intelligence contract. After Ashcroft's resignation from government, he founded a lobbying firm, The Ashcroft Group, which Oracle hired in 2005. With the group's help, Oracle went on to acquire the contract.

Following the beginning of the Gaza war in 2023, Oracle’s top executives, including Safra Catz and Larry Ellison, publicly aligned the company with Israel’s military operations. They issued statements of solidarity, paid double salaries to Israeli employees, and donated to organizations connected to Israel’s wartime response.

	▲	kasey_junk a day ago \| parent [-]
		See. Thats a good comment. “Your use of Oracle is a bad counter factual because…” Switching to that is commenting in good faith. It educates and argues the point and makes it clear that you aren’t in fact claiming that all companies are surveillance state apparatus. Note that other commenters ran with the “but they are actually argument” because the door was opened.