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>Tell users about government data requests. To earn a star in this category, Internet companies must promise to tell users when the government seeks their data
by x1798DE 12y ago
>Tell users about government data requests. To earn a star in this category, Internet companies must promise to tell users when the government seeks their data unless prohibited by law, in very narrow and defined emergency situations,[2] or unless doing so would be futile or ineffective.[3]
Those caveats make this a meaningless category, particularly the first one. Nearly all the data requests that people are concerned about have been coming with gag orders attached. Not to mention, how can the EFF even verify this? One assumes the criteria are assessed by the companies' policies, not by their actions, and that's clearly meaningless if the government is essentially compelling them to lie, keep silent or "massage the truth".
- lukesandberg 12y ago> Nearly all the data requests that people are concerned about have been coming with gag orders attached. citation? most data requests are run of the mill subpoenas (in non-criminal cases), gag orders only apply to a fairly small subset of user data requests.
- x1798DE 12y agoI'm talking about the requests people are concerned about, not nearly all the data requests that are made. I may be way off-base here, but I think that most people are not particularly uncomfortable with the idea that law enforcement could get a warrant to seize their data from a judge based on probable cause and would do so without putting the company under a gag order - that's what we expect from the constitution. I think people are much less comfortable with being caught in a suspicionless surveillance net based on a warrant issued by a FISA "court" with no transparency and no adversarial hearing process, and those are generally issued with national security gag letters.