6 ms·

There's 2 different things going on, under different legal authorities and Google is confusing them. Verizon was given a Patriot Act order for business records

by rsingel 13y ago

There's 2 different things going on, under different legal authorities and Google is confusing them. Verizon was given a Patriot Act order for business records, metadata; no names; no content, but all citizens or foreigner. Google and other tech companies are said to have gotten orders under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. That allows the government to compel communications companies to furnish lots of metadata and CONTENT on NON-U.S. persons. This was Congress legalizing warrantless wiretapping ala AT&T, but limiting it by requiring it to be targeted at non U.S. persons. Compliance is mandatory, under contempt of court and companies must provide facilities and help. They also get reimbursed. So it's likely Google never got an order like Verizon did, they likely got one that involves content, but is supposed to exclude intentional targeting of Americans.

Dove 13y ago
I don't buy it. What I quoted above doesn't say anything about US persons or non-US persons, about content or metadata, about this law or that one. It just says, Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. Now, Page may well be lying, but he definitely isn't weaseling. I'm pretty sure that denial covers both of the possibilities you're referring to.
- A1kmm 13y ago
  I think there are a lot of possibilities that could be consistent with Page's statement that also involve the NSA spying on Google users. For example, perhaps the NSA asked Google to disclose their SSL private keys; then, if they are willing to do an active attack with their own infrastructure, they could transparently perform a MITM attack on all requests to gmail, and it would be virtually undetectable. Another possibility is that the NSA could have served orders on Google employees directly, and they are compelled not to tell their managers about what they did for the NSA.
  - pyre 13y ago
    | they are compelled not to tell their managers | about what they did for the NSA. This seems problematic. What if another employee discovers what was done? What if it goes all the way up the chain? When they ask the employee why the created a backdoor, is the employee then obligated to lie? Get fired for the lie? Go to prison while maintaining it's not a NSA secret program?
  - hindsightbias 13y ago
    Or you just follow standard operating procedures for foreign intelligence collection. You hire a foreign national, working for a foreign division of Google to be your spy. Unless every US citizens mail server is domestic, lotta a loopholes to be found. People should also not assume the credit card statement from their bank is a batch job run on US servers by their bank. I've been told this stuff is outsourced, probably to the lowest bidder. Which if I were an intelligence service, I would be more than happy to subsidize.
    - mcherm 13y ago
      >I've been told this stuff is outsourced, probably to the lowest bidder. You have been told incorrectly. (Source: I work for a major US credit card company.) Certain pieces of the development and maintenance may be outsourced (under the supervision of US employees), but we (and, as far as I know, all our major competitors) own the data centers where they are run.
- jamesjporter 13y ago
  I 100% agree; I don't see how anyone can ask for a more blatant and firm statement than that.
- cracell 13y ago
  But if they were give similar court order terms as under the Verizon court order wouldn't he legally have to lie or violate the court order? Or just not give a comment, but no comment on this would implies guilt to a lot of people so lying could seem like the correct path.
  - Selfcommit 13y ago
    I don't believe he can be forced to lie. If he was in that situation, I imagine he would simply not respond.
- gibsonf1 13y ago
  The key issue here is that Google and the other companies may have no idea this is going on. My read is that the NSA has managed to gain access to the data centers either through inside help, spy craft, hardware/router back doors, or some other means we have no idea about.
  - macchina 13y ago
    It's hard for me to believe they could access to the data centers without Google's knowledge. Isn't it more plausible that they're intercepting data flowing in and out of Google servers?
    - VladRussian2 13y ago
      an old time option - a few employees "compelled" to provide access and keep mouth shout. a new time option - Larry is lying because of the gag order. in between - Larry said "on such scale". Well, Google probably is of a bigger scale than Verizon. Anyway, once the data is out there, it is only a matter of time and determination for a government (or any financially well backed up player) to get to it. This scandal will be a great boost for any services involving "crypto", and probably would spring a new ones like an encrypted phone exchange/switch service, where one can see incoming and outcoming phone numbers, yet not which one connected to which :)
    - bigiain 13y ago
      Hmmm… <conspiracy theory> We haven't seen posts from the CEOs of Cisco/Juniper/Dell/HP or other manufacturers of datacenter grade network equipment. Who needs Google/Facebook's "knowledge" if you've got root on all the border network gear (and SSL termination hardware)? I know here in .au, Huawei have been excluded from the government-deployed National Broadband Network due to suspicions that the Chinese government has too much control/access to Huawei newtwork hardware.
      - infographic- 13y ago
        Huawei's exclusion was based purely on FUD. There was no evidence to suggest such a thing.
- xenophanes 13y ago
  Of course it's weaseling. Maybe they disclosed such information on a slightly lesser scale. That passage doesn't say. They all said stuff about "direct access", without discussing what would and wouldn't qualify as "indirect". They didn't deny doing all kinds of different access that could be called indirect in some way.
  - kllrnohj 13y ago
    Of course they don't deny indirect because that would be a lie. Everyone provides data indirectly via a thing called "warrants". Google publishes how many indirect requests they comply with right here: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests
    - RWeaver 13y ago
      The thing is we can't trust any statement by anyone because of the gagging component of NSLs. I've heard it said that the above information is for FBI requests under the patriot act and doesn't include NSLs. For all we know NSL gags could explicitly forbid that kind of reporting and may even compel the recipients to lie if asked. The last sentence he made, that the government needs to be far more transparent about what they're doing is the only sentence I can really trust as honest, especially given that the alternative to lying could be being thrown into Guantanamo for 'assisting terrorists'.
    - hannibal5 13y ago
      Those goole reports are for regular law enforcement requests. They have nothing to do with spying that happens in the name of national intelligence.
      - kllrnohj 13y ago
        False, national intelligence is still covered by Google's transparency report - see the NSL (National Security Letters) part.
- cpleppert 13y ago
  >>Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. If you consider that PRISM is not a 'dragnet' but rather an automated system that processes FISA warrants on company premises then the denial wouldn't be wrong. There is no 'scale' that you wouldn't be able to get using regular data requests to internet companies. PRISM could just make the process a lot easier for everyone involved. So instead of sending a warrant over, having the company verify and send the data to the NSA, then finally transforming the data into a reportable format PRISM automates the whole process. If you read some of the media descriptions it almost looks like PRISM is more of a data aggregation and portal system that sits on top of a data source and allows analysts to explore content.
jervisfm 13y ago
>This was Congress legalizing warrantless wiretapping ala AT&T, but limiting it by requiring it to be targeted at non U.S. persons But how would you determine on the internet that an account holder was a US person or not ? If I claim to be the person X who is a US person by registering for an account in their name, am I then a US person and therefore supposedly exempt from monitoring? Even IP-based clues are not enough as those are not full-proof. I suspect that both US persons can be just as susceptible to tracking from the Government.
- lawnchair_larry 13y ago
  > But how would you determine on the internet that an account holder was a US person or not? That's why they only have to check a box saying they a reasonably sure that there is at least a 51% chance. Vague laws are invariably wildcards that can and will be abused.
silenteh 13y ago
Unless I am mistaken US and most European countries are based on Democracy. Wikipedia defines Democracy as a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Granted, wikipedia is not the oracle but it gives a good definition in my opinion. Does, the gathering of my personal data, affect my life ? Well in my personal opinion it does, therefore I should be informed about it.
- adventured 13y ago
  The US was based on the ideas of a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy.
  - silenteh 13y ago
    Right, there are different forms of democracies. From this chart I see that US is categorized under Full Democracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Democracy_Index_2012_green_and_red.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Democracy_Index_2012_gree... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
kahirsch 13y ago
> Verizon was given a Patriot Act order for business records, metadata; no names; no content, but all citizens or foreigner. No, it was a FISA order: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/veri...
- declan 13y ago
  Both of you are correct. The Patriot Act Section 215 amended the FISA statutes.
chris_wot 13y ago
I don't see how they could have gotten an order under the Patriot Act. The section that deals with this is section 215, which amended section 501 of FISA. It specifically states that such an order can be made "provided that such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution". If they have been violated, then there are a number of members of Congress and the Senate who are falling down on their job - the Attorney General must inform the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate. On top of this, every 6 months the Attorney General must also provide a report to the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and the Senate which details the total number of applications made for orders approving requests for the production of tangible things and the total number of such orders either granted, modified, or denied. I've read and documented the USA PATRIOT Act on Wikipedia incidentally. Took me two years to read and understand the thing. Possibly things after the Patriot Act changed FISA, I wasn't going to spend any more time on writing up about this subject. I'm an Australian citizen, after all. I should note that I'm not thrilled about the fact that the U.S. government can read my communications. Not that I have anything to hide, nor am I of any interest to them, but hardly the point. The two parts to read on Wikipedia, incidentally are: * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act,_Title_II#Overview http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act,_Title_II#Overview * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detailed_breakdown_of_USA_PATRIOT_Act,_Title_II#Section_215:_Access_to_records_and_other_items_under_FISA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detailed_breakdown_of_USA_PATRI...

by rsingel 13y ago

Dove 13y ago

I don't buy it. What I quoted above doesn't say anything about US persons or non-US persons, about content or metadata, about this law or that one. It just says, Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. Now, Page may well be lying, but he definitely isn't weaseling. I'm pretty sure that denial covers both of the possibilities you're referring to.

A1kmm 13y ago
I think there are a lot of possibilities that could be consistent with Page's statement that also involve the NSA spying on Google users. For example, perhaps the NSA asked Google to disclose their SSL private keys; then, if they are willing to do an active attack with their own infrastructure, they could transparently perform a MITM attack on all requests to gmail, and it would be virtually undetectable. Another possibility is that the NSA could have served orders on Google employees directly, and they are compelled not to tell their managers about what they did for the NSA.
- pyre 13y ago
  | they are compelled not to tell their managers | about what they did for the NSA. This seems problematic. What if another employee discovers what was done? What if it goes all the way up the chain? When they ask the employee why the created a backdoor, is the employee then obligated to lie? Get fired for the lie? Go to prison while maintaining it's not a NSA secret program?
- hindsightbias 13y ago
  Or you just follow standard operating procedures for foreign intelligence collection. You hire a foreign national, working for a foreign division of Google to be your spy. Unless every US citizens mail server is domestic, lotta a loopholes to be found. People should also not assume the credit card statement from their bank is a batch job run on US servers by their bank. I've been told this stuff is outsourced, probably to the lowest bidder. Which if I were an intelligence service, I would be more than happy to subsidize.
  - mcherm 13y ago
    >I've been told this stuff is outsourced, probably to the lowest bidder. You have been told incorrectly. (Source: I work for a major US credit card company.) Certain pieces of the development and maintenance may be outsourced (under the supervision of US employees), but we (and, as far as I know, all our major competitors) own the data centers where they are run.
jamesjporter 13y ago
I 100% agree; I don't see how anyone can ask for a more blatant and firm statement than that.
cracell 13y ago
But if they were give similar court order terms as under the Verizon court order wouldn't he legally have to lie or violate the court order? Or just not give a comment, but no comment on this would implies guilt to a lot of people so lying could seem like the correct path.
- Selfcommit 13y ago
  I don't believe he can be forced to lie. If he was in that situation, I imagine he would simply not respond.
gibsonf1 13y ago
The key issue here is that Google and the other companies may have no idea this is going on. My read is that the NSA has managed to gain access to the data centers either through inside help, spy craft, hardware/router back doors, or some other means we have no idea about.
- macchina 13y ago
  It's hard for me to believe they could access to the data centers without Google's knowledge. Isn't it more plausible that they're intercepting data flowing in and out of Google servers?
  - VladRussian2 13y ago
    an old time option - a few employees "compelled" to provide access and keep mouth shout. a new time option - Larry is lying because of the gag order. in between - Larry said "on such scale". Well, Google probably is of a bigger scale than Verizon. Anyway, once the data is out there, it is only a matter of time and determination for a government (or any financially well backed up player) to get to it. This scandal will be a great boost for any services involving "crypto", and probably would spring a new ones like an encrypted phone exchange/switch service, where one can see incoming and outcoming phone numbers, yet not which one connected to which :)
  - bigiain 13y ago
    Hmmm… <conspiracy theory> We haven't seen posts from the CEOs of Cisco/Juniper/Dell/HP or other manufacturers of datacenter grade network equipment. Who needs Google/Facebook's "knowledge" if you've got root on all the border network gear (and SSL termination hardware)? I know here in .au, Huawei have been excluded from the government-deployed National Broadband Network due to suspicions that the Chinese government has too much control/access to Huawei newtwork hardware.
    - infographic- 13y ago
      Huawei's exclusion was based purely on FUD. There was no evidence to suggest such a thing.
xenophanes 13y ago
Of course it's weaseling. Maybe they disclosed such information on a slightly lesser scale. That passage doesn't say. They all said stuff about "direct access", without discussing what would and wouldn't qualify as "indirect". They didn't deny doing all kinds of different access that could be called indirect in some way.
- kllrnohj 13y ago
  Of course they don't deny indirect because that would be a lie. Everyone provides data indirectly via a thing called "warrants". Google publishes how many indirect requests they comply with right here: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests
  - RWeaver 13y ago
    The thing is we can't trust any statement by anyone because of the gagging component of NSLs. I've heard it said that the above information is for FBI requests under the patriot act and doesn't include NSLs. For all we know NSL gags could explicitly forbid that kind of reporting and may even compel the recipients to lie if asked. The last sentence he made, that the government needs to be far more transparent about what they're doing is the only sentence I can really trust as honest, especially given that the alternative to lying could be being thrown into Guantanamo for 'assisting terrorists'.
  - hannibal5 13y ago
    Those goole reports are for regular law enforcement requests. They have nothing to do with spying that happens in the name of national intelligence.
    - kllrnohj 13y ago
      False, national intelligence is still covered by Google's transparency report - see the NSL (National Security Letters) part.
cpleppert 13y ago
>>Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. If you consider that PRISM is not a 'dragnet' but rather an automated system that processes FISA warrants on company premises then the denial wouldn't be wrong. There is no 'scale' that you wouldn't be able to get using regular data requests to internet companies. PRISM could just make the process a lot easier for everyone involved. So instead of sending a warrant over, having the company verify and send the data to the NSA, then finally transforming the data into a reportable format PRISM automates the whole process. If you read some of the media descriptions it almost looks like PRISM is more of a data aggregation and portal system that sits on top of a data source and allows analysts to explore content.

jervisfm 13y ago

>This was Congress legalizing warrantless wiretapping ala AT&T, but limiting it by requiring it to be targeted at non U.S. persons But how would you determine on the internet that an account holder was a US person or not ? If I claim to be the person X who is a US person by registering for an account in their name, am I then a US person and therefore supposedly exempt from monitoring? Even IP-based clues are not enough as those are not full-proof. I suspect that both US persons can be just as susceptible to tracking from the Government.

lawnchair_larry 13y ago
> But how would you determine on the internet that an account holder was a US person or not? That's why they only have to check a box saying they a reasonably sure that there is at least a 51% chance. Vague laws are invariably wildcards that can and will be abused.

silenteh 13y ago

Unless I am mistaken US and most European countries are based on Democracy. Wikipedia defines Democracy as a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Granted, wikipedia is not the oracle but it gives a good definition in my opinion. Does, the gathering of my personal data, affect my life ? Well in my personal opinion it does, therefore I should be informed about it.

adventured 13y ago
The US was based on the ideas of a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy.
- silenteh 13y ago
  Right, there are different forms of democracies. From this chart I see that US is categorized under Full Democracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Democracy_Index_2012_green_and_red.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Democracy_Index_2012_gree... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy

kahirsch 13y ago

> Verizon was given a Patriot Act order for business records, metadata; no names; no content, but all citizens or foreigner. No, it was a FISA order: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/veri...

declan 13y ago
Both of you are correct. The Patriot Act Section 215 amended the FISA statutes.

chris_wot 13y ago

I don't see how they could have gotten an order under the Patriot Act. The section that deals with this is section 215, which amended section 501 of FISA. It specifically states that such an order can be made "provided that such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution". If they have been violated, then there are a number of members of Congress and the Senate who are falling down on their job - the Attorney General must inform the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate. On top of this, every 6 months the Attorney General must also provide a report to the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and the Senate which details the total number of applications made for orders approving requests for the production of tangible things and the total number of such orders either granted, modified, or denied. I've read and documented the USA PATRIOT Act on Wikipedia incidentally. Took me two years to read and understand the thing. Possibly things after the Patriot Act changed FISA, I wasn't going to spend any more time on writing up about this subject. I'm an Australian citizen, after all. I should note that I'm not thrilled about the fact that the U.S. government can read my communications. Not that I have anything to hide, nor am I of any interest to them, but hardly the point. The two parts to read on Wikipedia, incidentally are: * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act,_Title_II#Overview http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act,_Title_II#Overview * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detailed_breakdown_of_USA_PATRIOT_Act,_Title_II#Section_215:_Access_to_records_and_other_items_under_FISA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detailed_breakdown_of_USA_PATRI...