Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve covered various transparency reports before, but now the whole notion takes on a different feel in our post-PRISM world. Microsoft’s latest report details that it received 37,196 requests from law enforcement agencies between this January and June, which impacted 66,539 of its accounts. Seventy-seven percent of those requests were for data like a user’s name, IP history and billing address, and with 21 percent of requests, no data was disclosed at all. However, in 2.19 percent of queries by law enforcement, Redmond disclosed “at least some” customer content. What does that mean? Well, the company’s definition includes the subject or body of an email, photos stored in SkyDrive and address book info. According to the document, the info was all obtained via lawful warrants and court orders.

While National Security Letters also fall under the guise of law enforcement requests — which primarily come from the FBI in order to obtain records such as phone numbers and email addresses — Microsoft is only allowed to publish these statistics on an annual basis. Hence, they’re absent this time around, and will be published in the company’s next Law Enforcement Requests Report. To see just how deep the rabbit hole goes, do check out the source. We suggest putting on a pot of coffee, though — it’s not a quick read.

Filed under: Internet, Microsoft

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Microsoft

It’s not just the heaviest of the internet heavyweights pushing for greater government transparency. LinkedIn has filed its own petition with the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court asking for the ability to publish the exact number of national security requests that it gets. The social network argues that restricting data request numbers to vague ranges is not only pointless, but misleading — the figures imply that the government wants as much data from LinkedIn as it does from larger firms. There’s no certainty that the court will grant the company’s wish, but its petition adds volume to an increasingly louder chorus.

Filed under: Internet

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Source: LinkedIn

It’s not every day you see Google, Facebook and Yahoo aligned on a issue, but a push toward increased governmental transparency is just the sort of cause that’ll put competing web companies on the same outraged page. All three noted today through their respective channels that they’ve filed petitions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to disclose the number of requests the government has issued for user data under national security statutes. Says Yahoo general counsel Ron Bell:

We believe that the U.S. Government’s important responsibility to protect public safety can be carried out without precluding Internet companies from sharing the number of national security requests they may receive.

Filed under: Google, Facebook

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Source: Google, Facebook, Yahoo

President Obama’s order to the intelligence community is starting to produce results. On Friday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper announced on Tumblr that the intelligence community will begin issuing annual transparency reports… on Tumblr of course.

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Back in June after the first reports based on Edward Snowden’s leaks were published, President Obama boldly defended the NSA spying programs. He even called them "transparent." But boy oh boy have the folks over at the NSA let him down on that count.

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