Justice Department opposes company requests to publish surveillance statistics

The U.S. Department of Justice has opposed requests by Facebook, Google, Microsoft and other companies to publish the number of surveillance requests they receive from the National Security Agency and other agencies. Requests from five Internet companies, also including Yahoo and LinkedIn, would hurt the NSA’s ability to conduct surveillance on “particular” Internet communications, the DOJ said in a brief filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Monday. If Internet communications providers publish statistics about surveillance requests, that information could drive terrorists to other providers, the DOJ said. “Releasing information that could induce adversaries to shift communications platforms in order to avoid surveillance would cause serious harm to the national security interests of the United States,” DOJ lawyers wrote in the brief. The U.S. intelligence community would not object to a release of the total number of surveillance requests made per year, not divided up by company, said James Clapper, U.S. director of national intelligence, speaking at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday. But identifying the surveillance requests by company would allow terrorists to go “shopping around for providers that aren’t covered” by U.S. surveillance efforts, he said. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Continue reading at 'PC World'

[ PC World | 2013-10-02 00:00:00 UTC ]

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