Technology companies and privacy advocates in the US are praising a new deal that will allow companies to disclose more information about how often they are ordered to turn over data to the government in national security investigations.
The Justice Department has reached agreements with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook and LinkedIn that would allow them to disclose data on national security orders the companies have received under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
While it does not allow them to disclose everything they wished and allows them to say more than the government originally wanted, both sides seemed relatively satisfied.
The agreement has been filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has the final say.
The five companies welcomed the deal, but said more needs to be done. “We filed our lawsuits because we believe that the public has a right to know about the volume and types of national security requests we receive,” they said in a joint statement.
“While this is a very positive step, we’ll continue to encourage Congress to take additional steps to address all of the reforms we believe are needed.”
Apple said on its website: “We believe strongly that our customers have the right to understand how their personal information is being handled, and we are pleased the government has developed new rules that allow us to more accurately report law enforcement orders and national security orders in the US.”
Federal officials also seemed pleased with the agreement, which follows discussions about government digital spying after leaks on National Security Agency surveillance from former systems analyst Edward Snowden.
“Permitting disclosure of this aggregate data addresses an important area of concern to communications providers and the public,” Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a joint statement.
Some of those companies signing the agreement were among several US internet businesses identified as giving the NSA access to customer data under the program known as Prism.
The companies had said they wanted to make the disclosures to correct inaccuracies in news reports and calm public speculation about the scope of their ‘ cooperation. The providers wanted to show that only a tiny fraction of their customers’ accounts have been subject to legal orders.
Following the Snowden leaks, the FBI allowed communications providers to report in a limited way the number of orders for data they received from the government and the number of accounts affected by such orders.
However, the FBI only agreed to disclosure of a single, aggregate number of criminal and national security-related orders to the companies from all US governmental entities, plus local and state entities.
Under the new compromise, internet companies will be able to release more information, but still only in very general terms when it comes to national security investigations.
They can report the number of criminal-related orders from the government and, rounded to the nearest thousand, the number of secret national security-related orders from government investigators.
They will also be able to reveal the number of national security-related orders from the FISA court; and the number of customers affected by both.
In the FISA orders, the companies will be able to say the number of requests for personal information about their customers versus their actual emails.
The companies can also choose a simplified reporting process that allows them to report the number of criminal-related orders, and then national security or intelligence orders in increments of 250 and the total number of customers targeted, also in groups of 250.
The companies will have to delay releasing the number of national security orders by six months. They also had to promise that if they come up with new technology or new forms of communication, they are not able to reveal that the government can tap into that new technology for two years.
Web firms reach deal over US spying
No comments:
Post a Comment