{"id":2549,"date":"2014-02-17T00:17:47","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T00:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=2549"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:53:56","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:53:56","slug":"inside-the-numbers-latest-round-of-transparency-reports-are-most-revealing-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/inside-the-numbers-latest-round-of-transparency-reports-are-most-revealing-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Numbers: Latest Round of Transparency Reports are Most Revealing Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Technology companies including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo have recently given the first look at secret data requests made by the government in regards to national security issues.\u00a0 These new details were published this past week and revealed both the scope and volume of requests that were made. The data requests by the government were made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (\u201cFISA\u201d).\u00a0 FISA is an act passed in 1978 by Congress which establishes the procedures for gaining authorization for foreign intelligence surveillance; the government requests for data from technology companies come from the FISA court<\/a> pending approval of the request. \u00a0Many web companies, including Microsoft and Google, had sued the government for the ability to disclose more information regarding the court orders for user information which they receive.\u00a0 As a result of this lawsuit, the Department of Justice (\u201cDOJ\u201d) relaxed their current rules and introduced new guidelines which would allow general information about FISA requests to be published.\u00a0 This move was also recently backed by President Obama in a speech<\/a> regarding intelligence reform and privacy concerns.<\/p>\n

‘[T]he public interest in disclosing this information now outweighs the national security concerns that required its classification.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The publication of these disclosures comes at a time when, as Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper stated<\/a>, \u201cthe public interest in disclosing this information now outweighs the national security concerns that required its classification.\u201d <\/b>Despite the fact that the companies may not release precise numbers, but rather ranges regarding the amount of FISA requests received from the government and the amount of affected accounts, these new disclosures are still the most comprehensive transparency reports to this date.\u00a0 Google\u2019s lawyer, Richard Salgado, noted this in his statement<\/a> that \u201cfor the first time, [their] report on government requests for user information encompasses all of the requests [they] receive.\u201d\u00a0 The technology companies had pushed for the ability to release more comprehensive transparency reports in order to rid themselves of suspicions regarding their involvement in surveillance programs \u2013 especially following the controversial public revelations made by Edward Snowden. \u00a0In addition to being prohibited from releasing precise numbers, the companies must also report the number of requests in increments of thousands and after a six-month delay from the reporting period.
\nThe numbers in the transparency reports reveal that Google received under 1,000 FISA requests during the period of July to December 2012, and that these requests involved between 12,000-13,000 accounts.\u00a0 For its latest reporting period which spans from January to June of last year, Google again received under 1,000 FISA requests which this time affected between 9,000-10,000 accounts.\u00a0 Microsoft received FISA court orders requesting content relating to between 15,000 and 16,000 accounts from January to June of last year.\u00a0 Yahoo reported receiving information requests for between 30,000 and 31,000 accounts during its most recent period.\u00a0 Facebook\u2019s requests for information affected between 5,000 and 6,000 accounts.\u00a0 Holding the least number of account information requests was Linkedin, which received requests for under 250 of its accounts.\u00a0 These transparency reports were published via the blogs of each company.
\nWhile these newest transparency reports give increased insight into the scope and volume of secret FISA requests which the government submits, many of these technology companies\u2019 representatives feel that transparency needs to be extended (as a Constitutional<\/a> right)to allow for precise numbers in order to reveal \u201cthe degree to which the governments seek access to data….\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Technology companies including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo have recently given the first look at secret data requests made by the government in regards to national security issues.\u00a0 These new details were published this past week and revealed both the scope and volume of requests that were made. The data requests by the government were …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2549"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7504,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2549\/revisions\/7504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}