Tech companies continue their push to reveal more details about how often the U.S. government collects user information for national security purposes. Yahoo and Facebook have now filed motions with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, asking for the right to publish more statistics about national security requests. Microsoft and Google filed suits in August, and Google filed an amended motion on Monday. Currently, tech firms are allowed to reveal aggregate statistics about government requests for user data. However, they are not allowed to break down how many of those requests are related to national security. All requests, whether they come from a city police department or from the NSA, are lumped together. The big distinction is that U.S. intelligence agencies don’t have to go through the traditional court system to get a court order. Instead, these agencies can get a special warrant from the FISA Court, whose proceedings are held in secret. The requests are rarely turned down, and revelations about the NSA’s Prism program have alleged extensive data collection from major tech companies. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Continue reading at 'PC World'
[ PC World | 2013-09-10 00:00:00 UTC ]