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Facebook Releases Data, Including All National Security Requests
- jarek 13y agoIs there any practical way for them to actually prove this is the complete number, rather than the number they're allowed to tell us about?
- Afforess 13y agoYou could file a FOIA request and find out.
- Goopplesoft 13y ago<REDACTED>
- genwin 13y agoToo <REDACTED>!
- moskie 13y agoWhat would you accept as proof?
- fragsworth 13y agoThat's the problem. I don't think I we can accept anything at this point. We literally cannot trust our government, or the corporations under its control, to be telling us the truth.
- nkarpov 13y agoI think the exploration of the answer to this question is about the most frightening implication of this whole mess
- darxius 13y agoI don't think we can accept much as proof now seeing as the trust between client and service has been broken. Hopefully this whole debacle will drive new zero-knowledge services to take over. Let us use your servers and tools, we can handle the contents of our data.
- AYBABTME 13y agoThis simple question raises so many interesting problems.
- jarek 13y agoPerhaps I should defer to Jean Chretien... "A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." Honestly though - I don't know. It's why I asked. Possibly they can't, because how do you prove you're not lying other than saying you're not lying? It's not like there's some sort of an unshakable, absolute truth hardware log that details every single data access.
- marcosdumay 13y ago> how do you prove you're not lying other than saying you're not lying? There is something called "evidence" used exctly at those circunstances. Of course, I have no idea what kind of evidence those companies or the US government have, they are not telling anybody. And that is evidence that they are lying.
- jlgreco 13y agoVivisection. Public vivisection. Strap these organizations down and cut them the fuck open with no regard for their wellbeing. If the procedure kills them, then so be it. There is a threshold past which live dissection (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Recovery_of_the_Stasi_files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Recovery_of_the_Stasi_fi...) is the only way that trust can be restored. I assert we have run across that threshold. And before anyone whines about it; no, we are not as bad as the Stasi yet. The Stasi do not represent the position of the threshold, they were miles past it.
- jarek 13y agoIncidentally, this would be a great advance on Zuckerberg's professed goal of making the world a more open place. Safer or better would be arguable - more open would not be.
- jlgreco 13y agoOh, don't get me wrong, we certainly should not start with Facebook. Going after Facebook would probably be unnecessary after we were through with the accused government organizations. At that point Facebook's innocence would either be clear, or it would be clear that Facebook was a victim in this. If we found reason to believe both of these were not true, then we could pursue them as well.
- gaborcselle 13y agoI wonder if this is something that Google and Co. will also be allowed to do?
- dmazin 13y agoI imagine they're all getting the go-ahead.
- nly 13y agoThey already do. Google have been publishing statistics and reports about this stuff for a while: https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/ https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/ None of this is relevant though. These are legal requests. The issue that people should remain focused on is whether or not the NSA has illegal, ongoing, unfettered access to wholesale data under PRISM or other programmes.
- travisp 13y agoGoogle was only allowed to release some of this data. FISA requests were not permitted. >we can now include in a transparency report all U.S. national security-related requests (including FISA as well as National Security Letters) – which until now no company has been permitted to do. So, this is a change, albeit still a limited one.
- LoganCale 13y agoGoogle does not publish information about requests which come with a gag order. They were the first to request the ability to publish that data several days ago, followed by Facebook and others shortly after. Facebook is the first to publish updated statistics with the numbers from National Security Letter and FISA warrants included after being granted permission. Google presumably will do so soon as well.
- declan 13y agoIncorrect. Google disclosed NSL summary stats months ago. As you say, FISA stats are next. I'd expect them this evening.
- gasull 13y agoI'm waiting to see what the EFF says about this. Is all the information there? I hope that's the case.
- MattyRad 13y agoGood call. This whole situation is so messed up that the EFF is one of the few agencies I trust. I'm glad to see there's healthy skepticism about the validity of this release though.
- bicx 13y agoThe trust is gone. They shouldn't have waited until they were caught red-handed to come up with some numbers. Doesn't even matter if it's correct now. No one will believe them.
- mpyne 13y agoIf there is no way for them to regain trust, or make people whole in any way at all, then what reason do you leave for them trying to improve transparency? What should the Zuck do, commit seppuku? Is that what would make people happy going forward?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- darxius 13y agoDonate his fortune to the EFF and start from scratch. Of course, that will never happen so for now, if you're concerned with security, you need to find new services to use.
- e3pi 13y ago>...Donate his fortune to the EFF and start from scratch. Of course, that will never happen... Why? Would it be legally contrary to shareholder value? I think this is a terrific idea for all of them to do. Zuck and the others appear genuinely upset from Snowden disclosure blowback and are frustrated at reclaiming their user's trust. These may be their best cred ROI. Perhaps someone experienced could organize this. EFF ...itself?(?!)
- bicx 13y agoHow do you regain trust in any relationship? Usually it's a combination of time and repeated demonstration of truthfulness. Right now, no one knows what happened behind closed doors, and the suspicion is still high.
- fragsworth 13y agoThere is no way. The government has already shown us how they are fully capable of lying, and even worse - forcing companies under their control to lie.
- dmazin 13y agoA fraction of a percent of US citizens are wrongly incarcerated. I'm not sure what relative numbers even mean here. 19,000 people under scrutiny is still scary to me.
- adventured 13y agoUnfortunately it's not a fraction of a percent. 2.2 million people in prison in the US at the moment. That's probably about 1.5 million that are "wrongly" incarcerated (extrapolating based on the number of people in prison before the war on drugs began, and what it should be today based on population growth). They're political prisoners. This graphic nicely sums up the obviousness of that: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/US_incarceration_timeline-clean-fixed-timescale.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/US_incar...
- jlgreco 13y agoTechnically 2.2 million is something around 7/10ths of a percent.
- dmazin 13y agoWell that's my whole point; half a percent of the population, which is what I also calculated when writing my original comment and consider a fraction, being wrongly incarcerated is an atrocity so Facebook's "fraction of a percent" means nothing to me.
- travisp 13y agoIt's scrutiny beyond national security and secret requests. Facebook gives some good examples of requests that aren't NSA or FISA based, e.g. "a federal marshal tracking a fugitive". Given the appropriate legal paperwork, should it be scary for a federal marshal to request access to a fugitive's facebook data to check things like last login time and IP address, or private messages? To really decide how "scary" it is, we need to know what proportion of the requests are related to what kind of thing, and of what scope are the requests. Unfortunately, Facebook has still not been permitted to release any of this data.
- Flying_Dwarf 13y agoI think this is intended to be comforting, especially for corporate entities as they feel scrapegoated into bad light by the government, but there's very little for the public to acknowledge these numbers. I'm not saying Facebook is lying, I'm saying the people giving Facebook the numbers are probably lying. There's no way to tell.
- mcintyre1994 13y agoFacebook know how many requests they've responded to. If there is any dishonesty here, it's coming from Facebook. They might have been told to give false numbers, but they've got the correct numbers.
- jarek 13y agoThere's the shared-private-keys argument, by which they wouldn't actually know how many requests were made. I haven't been followed very closely so I don't know if private keys thing was specifically denied - was it?
- mcintyre1994 13y agoAs far as I know, they deny any sort of blanket availability of data - so a shared private key would seem to be denied under that guise. I think claiming a number as they have, and a number of affected users, would also be denial of that. Circular logic, but we can't do much better. If they're lying and just made up these numbers, there's nowhere to really go with that.
- genwin 13y agoWhy give false numbers when you can give true numbers for only a six month period? Just leave out the NSA request for all user data that was made earlier.
- mpyne 13y agoWhat people would be giving Facebook the numbers? Those are Facebook's own stats, compiled by their own legal department.
- krek 13y agoThe issue to me is if the so-called "upstream" actually stores all the raw SSL data, and how fast it's decrypted. This is apart from any corporate cooperation, except for the Mark Klein AT&T splitter variety. (Unless of course Google, Facebook, etc are handing over their private SSL keys.)
- geuis 13y agoYou can't believe anything these companies say. If they are ordered to misreport info to the public, they will. Remember that companies are not monolithic things. They are made of people, and if anyone or a group try to make a stand they will be hunted down. It's easier to follow along than be honest. Personally, I won't trust any of these companies until the entire Homeland security dept is dismantled and its component agencies restored to their pre-9/11 statuses. And although the TSA is not directly part of this spying issue, they need to go away as well. It's all part of the same shadowy cabal and its time for a clean slate. I'm not against the principles of the FBI and NSA. They do a lot of good work. But there's too much dry brush and weeds cluttering up their mandates and it needs to be burned out.
- kevando 13y agoAnd it's very easy to release misleading statements like this. It's great to know about all the "user data requests" from law enforcement, but they mention nothing about the allegation that NSA didn't need to submit these requests.
- genwin 13y agoYep. If you can't legally acknowledge the request, leave it out of the data you report. Or walk the line by conveniently reporting your data for a six month period that doesn't include the NSA request for all user data now and in the future.
- discostrings 13y agoIf there's slipperiness in this statement, I think it's probably in the use of the term "user data requests". >The total number of Facebook user accounts for which data was requested pursuant to the entirety of those 9-10 thousand [user data] requests was between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts. Is a "user data request" a request for data about a specific user? Would the request "give us the names and birthdays of everyone that has searched for 'discontent with government'" constitute a user data request? Or would that be a "search term request"? I'm not sure I think this is slippery language, but there's definitely room for that interpretation.
- peterjancelis 13y agoI hope Edward Snowden sees this. He and Glenn Greenwald should be proud. The economics of surveillance have now changed because it comes with reputation effects on US based companies.
- ihsw 13y agoThat's a massive load of shit, the 'economics of surveillance' is a drop in a very large bucket. Most people don't give a shit about surveillance and half the people that do care think it's great. This blog post is damage control to avoid getting banned across the world since it's become painfully clear that Facebook is inseparable from the US Government.
- gwgarry 13y agoMost people don't give a shit because it does not effect them. If we can show them that it does effect them, their opinions will change. And it does effect everyone, because if you have to worry about explaining what you say to other people or face consequences then freedom of speech and freedom of conscience is effectively dead.
- gwgarry 13y agoYes and these ass holes will keep lying their teeth out and now no one will believe them.
- genwin 13y ago> a tiny fraction of one percent of our user accounts were the subject of any kind of U.S. state, local, or federal U.S. government request (including criminal and national security-related requests) in the past six months. Nice try, Facebook. Key words, in the past six months. The NSA could've requested a continuously updated copy of all user data more than six months ago.
- discostrings 13y agoI'm pretty surprised they've been given the go-ahead to release this. Typically, these agencies would never consider such a thing, especially under pressure. If I were more trusting, I suppose I would see this as a nice evolution toward a more transparent state of affairs. But it's uncharacteristic of these agencies and the state of affairs that has been going on. I find it hard to believe they would move so quickly to pull back some of the secrecy they've imposed if they weren't expecting a great deal of scrutiny for what we've yet to learn.
- brown9-2 13y agoIt's already been reported that you can expect to see more disclosures from the DNI and NSA next week. I think the government understands that the past week has been bad for them - and that it's bad for all of us if Americans have recent to doubt their government. You can also look at it as they would like a chance to correct bad impressions given by inaccurate or incorrect reporting (we can't really judge this yet).
- coreyja 13y agoI may be part of the minority here, but I have/see no reason to believe the Facebook is lying about these numbers, or lying about the fact they actually check every request, and don't have a NSA backdoor. If I am correct, they only thing that shows Facebook has given the NSA/government agency access to their servers is a leaked PowerPoint presentation. I believe it is more than likely that one of the following two options is true. (1) The PowerPoint is just wrong, and was made it up someone working for a government contractor. (2) The PowerPoint is inaccurate in that these corporations have complied with the government, when asked to and required by law too, through the use of warrants, both secret and otherwise. Personally I think option 2 is the most likely scenario. Facebook (and Google and most of the other named corporations) have done nothing to lose my trust in them. The only party that at this time, I know is to blame is the NSA/government for conducting a cloaked surveillance operation on the entire US population. Until there is proof, or a reasonable argument, showing that these corporations willingly complies with the NSA and were a part of PRISM, I don't think they have lost any substantial part of my trust.
- revscat 13y agoThey have very good reasons to lie if the government threatened Zuckerberg, et. al., with the Worldcom treatment.
- coreyja 13y agoI'm not saying you are wrong. There is most definitely a chance that you are correct. I guess my point is that I think these companies deserve the right of "innocent until proven guilty." And I don't believe enough has been done to prove they are guilty. EDIT: I don't think that "innocent until proven guilty" should only apply to crimes. I think the same concept can and should be used in almost all cases of accusing a party of something.
- jarek 13y agoThey aren't being accused of a crime (or at least most of the controversy isn't about things that are normally considered crimes), so I'm not sure if innocent-until-proven should necessarily apply.
- kefs 13y agoWhile I've never believed their statements... ..by their own account this is ~50 "intercepts" per day, on facebook alone... that's more than 2 per hour, every hour, for 6 months.
- mpyne 13y agoAnd now you see why they've tried to automate the part of the process that could be automated.
- tzs 13y agoThat's a remarkably low rate, considering that it includes all levels of law enforcement. For instance, around 2000 children are reported missing in the US every day. I would expect a lot of those to lead to local police to ask to see the child's Facebook data, and that alone could account for most of the requests. Now throw in all the other ordinary crime local police deal with every day, and I'm completely astonished that Facebook only deals with 50 requests a day.
- bobwaycott 13y agoThose numbers seem odd. So almost 2 persons are the subject of every request?
- cpdean 13y agoHow much longer till a similarly-worded release from Google?
- aml702 13y agoAll you need to remember about Zuckerberg and Facebook from his quotes here: Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS Friend: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks
- onedev 13y agoHe was 19 years old. He's 29 now. Think about that for a second.
- mcintyre1994 13y agoZuckerberg, perhaps. Facebook, as in the current Facebook entity, absolutely not.
- jarek 13y agoThe principle still applies: the information has been submitted, collected, and is accessible to those who ask persuasively enough.
- mcintyre1994 13y agoYou say those who ask persuasively enough, but we only know they've given data to governments, they are legally obliged to do so. I wouldn't say that's the same in any way as giving it to friends.
- icebraining 13y agoI actually don't see anything particularly wrong there. If I were to set up a page asking for personal info, and a bunch of college students (supposedly more technologically informed people) were to give them to me, I'd consider them somewhat dumb as well. It's not that I'd do anything wrong with the data, but they didn't know that. This doesn't mean I support him or Facebook; I certainly don't.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- aspensmonster 13y agoAm I to understand that this: >The total number of Facebook user accounts for which data was requested pursuant to the entirety of those 9-10 thousand requests was between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts. Is global? As in, 19,000 accounts in total across the globe over the past six months? The description of the requests is "all U.S. national security-related requests (including FISA as well as National Security Letters)." Or is this just the number of persons 51% likely to be a US citizen?
- travisp 13y agoIt says " the total number of user-data requests Facebook received from any and all government entities in the U.S. ", which I take to mean the target accounts may or may not be US citizens, but the requests came from US government agencies. International government agency requests, which I assume they also comply with in certain situations, would be not included.
- lotu 13y agoYes that is global 19,000 accounts in total USA and non-USA citizen.
- lsiebert 13y agoSo if people don't trust them, figure out how to verify this. Hint: they are publicly traded companies.
- runn1ng 13y agoThey don't have to be lying. 19k over 6 months is still quite a large number, I think.
- bengtan 13y ago> from things like a local sheriff trying to find a missing child So ... why do they need to hide a request for something as 'innocent' as this?
- jarek 13y agoThey don't, but were either not allowed or not willing to publish the number of requests excluding the non-secret ones or the breakdown of the total number into "innocent" and otherwise.
- nly 13y agoEverybody here seems to be distracted. The law abiding requests disclosed here could still be served alongside a covert operation. This has no impact on the PRISM scandal.
- eightyone 13y agoWhy are they only offering figures for the last 6 months?
- javajosh 13y agoWith all of the secrecy and secret gag orders, and all of the blatant, proven lies, how on earth are we supposed to trust anything anyone says about this issue? Why aren't people getting fired and prosecuted for lying to the American public?
- noir_lord 13y agoBecause the American public simply doesn't care. As a Brit this is the attitude the US is currently projecting. Of course as a brit I suspect our programs are far more invasive than anything the NSA has cooked up (so far).
- fieryeagle 13y ago*insert reference to 'Spooks' here.
- eightyone 13y ago"the total number of user-data requests Facebook received from any and all government entities in the U.S." It's common for 3 letter agencies to set up a corporation to handle their dirty work. I wonder if a front organization would be considered a government entity? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_organization#Intelligence_agencies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_organization#Intelligence...
- greiskul 13y agoBut Facebook does not need to answer any request from a non government entity.
- declan 13y agoMore than that, they vigorously oppose such requests in court, as my article here revealed: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57518086-38/facebook-fights-for-deceased-beauty-queens-privacy/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57518086-38/facebook-fight...
- Canada 13y agoThe whole concept of a secret warrant is repugnant. A pox on both of them.
- skwirl 13y agoA great deal of the comments here border on being ridiculous conspiracy theories. I know that when it was "revealed" to us that the NSA had direct access to Facebook, it was a green light for many to share their formerly private conspiracy theories as if they were now completely validated. With the revealed claims being bogus, the "validated" conspiracy theories are once again naked. Of course, it comes as no surprise that when the sensationalized Greenwald claims were walked back we'd hear that it was all a cover-up and the NSA is threatening to throw Zuckerberg in jail and drone strike Snowden, etc. There is literally nothing that could possibly happen that would convince some people that Greenwald was full of shit.
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- whyme 13y agoIf it's anything like the last 6 months stock market volumes well it doesn't mean shit; it's probably intended to mislead everyone from the mega volume spikes that often do occur. 5 years data might be worthwhile.
- startswithaj 13y agoTed Ullyot, Facebook General Counsel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Ullyot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Ullyot "From January 2003 to January 2005, Ullyot worked in the White House as associate counsel and as a deputy assistant to President George W. Bush. He then served as chief of staff to U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales."
- coreyja 13y agoWhat point are you trying to make here? Are you just saying that Facebook's general counsel has ties to the Government? Because if so I fail to see how that relates to the current controversy. Many people have connections, and previously worked for the Government, and didn't have any knowledge or control over any of this.
- startswithaj 13y agoPeople were discussing the legitimacy of this release. I read the release, googled the authors name and I thought his history relevant to the conversation. Not just ties 'deputy assistant to President George W. Bush'.
- humanspecies 13y agoWell this is 100% bullshit
- lighthazard 13y ago1% of 1.1 billion is ~ 10 million? Doesn't seem like a tiny amount.
- simonk 13y agoA fraction of 1% the release says.
- john_w_t_b 13y agoI think these are true numbers. I assume that everything I put on Facebook is prone to public dissemination anyhow. The whole point of site is to share your data.
- anologwintermut 13y agoAssuming we believe the numbers, it seems pretty clear PRISM was not the drag net it was originally portrayed as. 19k accounts over 9k requests is not mass access. There is,however, a readily confirmable and some what plausible alternative: Facebook's numbers are low because no one the NSA is interested in (e.g. AQ, China, Wikileaks, maybe even Occupy) uses Facebook heavily. If Google and Microsoft aren't allowed to release numbers, than we should actually be concerned about this possibility.
- telecuda 13y agoFrom first-hand experience, Facebook is overly protective of user data when it comes to state and local law enforcement requests (I obviously don't know about the NSA side). They provide very little on initial subpoenas and require warrants for anything more. In fact, most law enforcement are angry at how little Facebook will reveal about a suspect.
- Myrmornis 13y agoFrom Mark Zuckerberg: > I want to respond personally to the outrageous press reports about > PRISM. ... Mark Zuckerberg should apologize for calling the activities of the free press "outrageous".
- declan 13y agoI'm surprised that Microsoft's own statistics released about an hour ago haven't made their way to the HN front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5883894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5883894
- lambda 13y ago> a local sheriff trying to find a missing child As worthy as these cases might be... this is not a national security issue. This kind of case should never use any law regarding national security. This is a regular police investigation, and as such, should require a regular old subpoena or warrant.
- tzs 13y agoThey did not say that those requests use national security laws. They are just giving us the total number of accounts they have released information on regardless of what law was used to compel release.
- lambda 13y agoAh, you're right, now that I read it closer, that is the case. Thanks for the clarification.
- abalone 13y agoAll this conspiratorial thinking is all very X-Files "I Want to Believe" and stunningly short on rational thinking. Consider: 1. Let's accept that Facebook, Google, Yahoo et al are rapacious profit-oriented corporations who could give a crap about anything but their own self interest. Fine. 2. At this point, given the statements made, in order for there to still be some kind of "back door" direct access to all of their DBs by the NSA, it would involve direct, bald-faced, massive lies to the public about its existence by top management. 3. What would the cost be to these companies be if these were revealed to be massive lies? I'm not talking about the government granting immunity from prosecution, which most commentary seems to focus on. I'm asking, how would customers react? Answer: Their business would blow up. Revelations of lying at this scale, completely destroying their credibility, would literally threaten the entire existence of their companies. It would be a stupendous business risk to take on. 4. What is the probability that such a massive lie would be revealed? Consider that to facilitate broad access to company datasets there would need to be a bunch of technical staff in on the conspiracy -- and not just at one company. This allegedly involves most of the major Internet companies. A whistleblower at any one of them would blow it for everyone. So, in order for any one company to participate in the conspiracy, they would need to take a bet-your-company risk that all the other companies would keep a lid on it. 5. Finally, now that we've reviewed the downsides, what's the upside? What would the benefit to these companies be of lying? Some commentary has suggested they obtained privileged information about competitors or foreign attackers (e.g. Google & China). Ok. How does that benefit compare to the risk of nuking billions of dollars in value overnight if your company's credibility with customers is utterly destroyed? I am all for more public oversight of the secret courts governing these requests for data. The Verizon order is extraordinarily broad, and we can't have much confidence that even the relatively small number of monitored Facebook accounts aren't abuses. But this idea that Facebook, Google etc. are lying to the public about their role just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
- _phred 13y agoHackers built Facebook. They hire hackers. If there's a group that's hardest to pigeonhole in terms of beliefs it's hackers. The idea that a company composed if hackers could have not a single whistleblower, no single person that objects so strongly that they must speak up regardless of their personal situation is betting against human nature. Nay, hacker nature. Freedom ain't looking good nowadays, but this is not the vast conspiracy it may seem.
- B0Z 13y ago> "We hope this helps put into perspective the numbers involved, and lays to rest some of the hyperbolic and false assertions in some recent press accounts about the frequency and scope of the data requests that we receive" God Damnit! When did we start using the total number of violations of the fourth amendment as the yardstick by which we measure it's importance or relevance to a reasonable expectation of privacy? "Hey, hey, hey... we ONLY violated 'x' number of people's rights. Not the 'x' times 'y' you are accusing us of doing, therefore..." Putting that aside for just a moment, their response lumps in and equivocates the well-intentioned, and IMHO well-justified, search for a missing child with fourth amendment violations of millions of American's under the guise of national security and terrorism. They still don't get it. The government still doesn't get it. Feigning outrage is not a good transparency policy. I've never once considered myself a Libertarian. It's never so much as crossed my mind. I'm not even an excitable or rash person. But the recent exposure of the breadth and scope of the shielded activities of the NSA has caused me to give a long, hard, well-reasoned review of how I vote.
- B0Z 13y agohttp://www.theverge.com/2013/6/15/4432368/google-opts-out-of-fisa-disclosure-deal-made-by-facebook-and http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/15/4432368/google-opts-out-of... Apparently, it was an agreement based on negotiating between the companies in question and the US Government. It makes me sick to my stomach that in spite of the relative uselessness of the exact count of requests, that the Government is just as interested in presenting a positive spin as they are claiming that the acknowledging the mere existence of the requests presents a risk to national security.
- unclebucknasty 13y agoIt is interesting to note what the number of requests is, however, it shouldn't put anyone's mind at ease. This is as much about what the government can do than it is about what they have done. Even if the program has been used "judiciously" by the government to this point (if such a case can be made), it is ripe for abuse. Our protection should come by the law itself, not by the judgment and whim of the Executive (i.e. those executing the law). Otherwise, we are not much different than a monarchy, hoping for a just king or queen.
- grey-area 13y agoGreat to see these numbers from Facebook - hopefully now Google can do the same, and report numbers that should have been public in the first place (and that they probably would have liked to make public). I can't see any justification for saying that they're lying, and frankly think it is verging on conspiracy theory to say they are, why would they bother releasing anything at all? Though broader in scope than many (including myself) would like, this tallies with their initial statements, and with a system as described in the PRISM documents (which are pretty vague anyway). Of course this isn't the entirety of the information the NSA is collecting, and probably not the entirety of data from FaceBook if they are also harvesting traffic, but it could very well be everything FaceBook knows about. The thing that worries me most about all this collection is that the NSA probably never deletes any of its data (as evidenced by their massive storage facilities being built), so eventually they can build up quite a large store of complete data on people if they just keep collecting from various sources gradually over time.
- Zr40 13y agoGoogle already publishes this: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/US/ http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/US...
- grey-area 13y agoThey don't publish all requests including fisa requests, I think they're still negotiating about that. See the first sentence of the page you linked.
- fauigerzigerk 13y agoI would be interested in what Facbook and other internet companies (or anyone else who has a clue) have to say to this article: "PRISM: Here's how the NSA wiretapped the Internet" http://www.zdnet.com/prism-heres-how-the-nsa-wiretapped-the-internet-7000016565/ http://www.zdnet.com/prism-heres-how-the-nsa-wiretapped-the-... It's a very convoluted and speculative article, but I wonder how much of it is realistic.
- zmmmmm 13y agoIt makes me kind of cynical that suddenly the security agencies get all friendly and start being "flexible" when they suddenly realise it's in their own political interest to do so. Until exactly this point they would have put people in jail for even mentioning these numbers. Now, oops, that was a stretch too far, we can all be reasonable can't we? So was it about security in the first place? or not?
- leoc 13y agoCNN's news report is pretty good, with coverage of MS' and Google's responses. http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/15/politics/data-tech-giants/ http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/15/politics/data-tech-giants/
- pdevr 13y agoThe "less than one percent" claim is based on the total number of GLOBAL users and the total number of requests made by U.S. officials. It is misleading.
- seanp2k2 13y agoBased on everything else I've read, NSA is still sniffing traffic off the wire or something similar. It's nice that Facebook is pushing for a little more transparency, but they could be telling the absolute truth here and the NSA could still be getting all the data.