Who do they jail? You can't jail a corporation, so do they jail the CEO? The lawyer who sends the letter saying they won't comply?
Either way, isn't that just begging for that information to be made public? Suddenly, Sundar Pichai is missing, and someone finds out he's in jail. That's going to be a story that gets reported (and probably leaked widely).
I know of an instance of corporate executives being walked out the door in handcuffs by the US Marshalls. That was for flagrantly disobeying the FDA. I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be a lesser response for flagrantly disobeying a National Security Letter.
My point is that the NSL is supposed to be secret, not just for its contents, but the existence of the letter. So, dragging a CEO off publicly would almost certainly expose the existence of the NSL.
It might expose the existence of an NSL, but not of that NSL.
That is: I'm Joe Terrorist. I use, say, GMail. Google gets a thousand NSLs. On at least one of them, they tell the NSA/FBI/CIA/whoever to get lost. Five Google execs get arrested. I, Joe Terrorist, may guess that the arrest is over NSLs. I have no idea whether I am named on one of the NSLs in question, or whether I was on one of the NSLs that Google complied with, or whether I'm still completely under the radar.
It might serve to remind me "oh, yeah, that's right, any of those companies can get an NSL and report everything they know about me", but if I'm at all a competent terrorist, that's something I already knew and should be continually remembering.
Trying to dredge up the articles; I believe that the CEO of a high-tech company was heavily investigated by the IRS after he threatened to make an NSL public.
In the past, the IRS has definitely been used as a tool to apply pressure. It's not supposed to happen, but it does.
> Trying to dredge up the articles; I believe that the CEO of a high-tech company was heavily investigated by the IRS after he threatened to make an NSL public.
Joseph Nacchio[1], CEO of Quest?
His case[2] is a clear warning shot that if you don't play ball with the spooks, the government has no problem throwing the hammer at you.
They will use whatever powers they have to coerce companies (or individuals) into cooperating, including with holding contracts or causing regulatory headaches.
Either way, isn't that just begging for that information to be made public? Suddenly, Sundar Pichai is missing, and someone finds out he's in jail. That's going to be a story that gets reported (and probably leaked widely).