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Title: NSA Secrecy Prompts a Pushback
Source:
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URL Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nsa-s ... rompts-pushback-005000472.html
Published: Jun 12, 2013
Author: m
Post Date: 2013-06-12 07:50:09 by PSUSA2
Keywords: None
Views: 104
Comments: 3
The secrecy shrouding the National Security Agency's collection of electronic data is coming under attack, with major Silicon Valley companies seeking to make public more information about the programs and the American Civil Liberties Union filing a lawsuit aimed at halting some of the efforts. Getty Images Attorney General Eric Holder Bloomberg News Google's David Drummond, shown, has asked Attorney General Eric Holder if the company can publish data about secret federal court requests. Google Inc. said Tuesday it had asked the U.S. government for permission to publicly report on the volume and scope of secret federal court orders that require it to hand over information about its users to federal authorities. Google's request, made in a public letter from its chief legal officer, David Drummond, came after the government acknowledged Saturday that Internet-content companies had received secret requests under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act relating to the activities of some users. Other technology companies, including Twitter Inc. and Microsoft Corp., voiced support for Google's move. Twitter's general counsel, Alex Macgillivray, who previously worked as a lawyer for Google, posted on Twitter that he "completely agree[s]" with Google in trying to get "more...transparency" over government requests for data. Facebook Inc.'s general counsel, Ted Ullyot, said the company would like to disclose information about government requests for information about users, but that such reports would be "necessarily incomplete and therefore potentially misleading to users" because of U.S. restrictions on what it may disclose about the requests. "We urge the United States government to help make that possible by allowing companies to include information about the size and scope of national security requests we receive," Mr. Ullyot added in a statement. A Justice Department spokeswoman said the agency was reviewing Google's request. The moves came as the ACLU filed the first major legal challenge to the NSA phone-data collection program. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, alleges the NSA violated the ACLU's constitutional rights, citing the Obama administration's acknowledgement of a secret court order that allows it to collect information about calls made by customers of Verizon Communications Inc. The ACLU said it is a Verizon customer. The Justice Department declined to comment on the suit. The challenge to the secrecy surrounding the NSA's activities stands in contrast to the reaction in Washington, where forces including the White House and senior members of both parties in Congress have rallied behind the status quo, saying the programs strike a balance between protecting privacy rights and combating terrorism. [Well that was unexpected -psusa] The NSA's activities were disclosed in articles published last week based on documents provided by Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the NSA and self-described whistleblower. The two programs recently disclosed are used to thwart terror attacks, according to the Obama administration and supporters in Congress. One, falling under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, allows the NSA to collect records from major telephone-service providers of customer-call "metadata," according to U.S. officials. For every call made by the majority of Americans, the NSA gets a record of the location of the caller, the number called, the time of the call and the length of the conversation, these people said. It doesn't authorize eavesdropping on calls, President Barack Obama has said. The second program monitors Internet and email traffic belonging to foreigners, Mr. Obama said. The ACLU suit seeks a court order declaring the call logging a violation of federal law that governs foreign intelligence surveillance, as well as a violation of constitutional free speech and search-and-seizure protections. Jameel Jaffer, ACLU's deputy legal director, called the NSA metadata collection a "dragnet" in violation of privacy. "It is the equivalent of requiring every American to file a daily report with the government of every location they visited, every person they talked to on the phone, the time of each call, and the length of every conversation," he said. Google's Mr. Drummond, in his letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller, said Google would like to publish information on FISA court requests as part of its "transparency report," published twice a year, in which Google lists the number of requests for user data that it receives from authorities around the world. Mr. Drummond said "assertions in the press that our compliance with these requests gives the U.S. government unfettered access to our users' data are simply untrue," and that government gag orders on recipients of FISA court requests "fuel that speculation." Peter Nicholas and Amir Efrati contributed to this article. Write to Evan Perez at evan.perez@wsj.com
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#1. To: All (#0)
Dear Mr / Mrs Politician, You know how you're telling citizens 'if you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear'? I say that to you now. If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. ------------------------------------------ Why should we worship in God what we detest in man? -Robert Ingersoll
That is very dangerous. It's like a puzzle where all the pieces are a uniform square that can be arranged to form any picture you want, discarding any inconvenient pieces as necessary. Don't have a case? No problemo, just discard some pieces, fill in the blanks with speculation, and voila! Terrorist. Playboy magazine does that sometimes with past magazine covers. Arrange several hundred in a collage to form a completely different image. And no, I don't read the articles. I just like the pictures. So there. Suck on that you spying bastards. Godfrey Smith: Mike, I wouldn't worry. Prosperity is just around the corner. Every day I receive a phone call at 7:55AM, the calltimes are variable, usually short (<1 min). Every night I receive a phone call at 7:57PM, except Sunday when the call comes in at 7:55PM, the calltimes are variable, usually short. It's always the same number, a residential line, has been happening for several years now, but it was only in the morning when it started, the night calls began about a year and a half ago. If the call goes unanswered (toggles to voicemail), the entity will then call my mobile number. So what's going on? Godfrey Smith: Mike, I wouldn't worry. Prosperity is just around the corner.
#2. To: PSUSA2 (#0)
(Edited)
metadata
Mike Flaherty: Yeah, it's been there a long time. I wish I knew which corner.
My Man Godfrey (1936)
#3. To: 4um (#2)
(Edited)
Here's some metadata for you to figure out:
Mike Flaherty: Yeah, it's been there a long time. I wish I knew which corner.
My Man Godfrey (1936)
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