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Facebook and Microsoft Disclose Government Requests For User Data
wiredmikey writes "Facebook and Microsoft say they received thousands of requests for information from U.S. authorities last year but are prohibited from listing a separate tally for security-related requests or secret court orders related to terror probes. The two companies have come under heightened scrutiny since reports leaked of a vast secret Internet surveillance program U.S. authorities insist targets only foreign terror suspects and is needed to prevent attacks. Facebook said Friday it had received between 9,000 and 10,000 requests for user data affecting 18,000 to 19,000 accounts during the second half of last year and Microsoft said it had received 6,000 to 7,000 requests affecting 31,000 to 32,000 accounts during the same period."
Meanwhile, an article at the Guardian is suggesting the government may have better targets to pursue than Edward Snowden. "[U.S. director of national intelligence James Clapper] has come out vocally to condemn Snowden as a traitor to the public interest and the country, yet a review of Booz Allen's own history suggests that the government should be investigating his former employer, rather than the whistleblower."
"[U.S. director of national intelligence James Clapper] has come out vocally to condemn Snowden as a traitor to the public interest and the country"
No. The people responsible for spying on American citizens are the ones who have betrayed their country and the public interest. They're the ones who should be caught, tried, and imprisoned. Government officials who violate the US constitution are traitors. People like Snowden are heroes.
No. It's the people responsible for spying on American citizens who have betrayed their country and the public interest. They are the ones who should be tried and punished for treason. People like Snowden are heroes. It's those who violate the US Constitution who are traitors.
Then Booz Allen was involved in scattered other irregularities and questionable dealings which are unfortunately typical for companies of that size, that have major dealings with the Pentagon and other agencies of the Federal government.
And you don't see a problem with that?
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"[U.S. director of national intelligence James Clapper] has come out vocally to condemn Snowden as a traitor to the public interest and the country"
I simply cannot wrap my head around this. How is it in public's interest to be constantly surveiled in violation of the bill of rights?
did the right thing. The truth is, I believe that MANY more Americans would be in favor of the government sifting through the information IF they were informed of such processes. The problem is transparency, or the lack of it actually. Covertly operating as they are doing, to me, is the real issue. That being said, I personally think that regardless of transparency, I've always assumed Big Brother was watching more than it should, but I've never let it bothered me because it would be just much ado about nothing.
Like a lot of folks on Wall Street, the Guardian sees two points and draws a trend line. Only it's more like one point so far. The US Government intentionally, across multiple departments & agencies, with malice aforethought, massively violating the US Constitution and the Rights of it's citizens in nearly every way possible. Well, except house troops in our homes. We can give them that. For now..
FTFY
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
If you read carefully, saying that specific requests have come in for 20000 users doesn't mean that there aren't other mechanisms in place to collect a lot more data without specific requests. For example, the NSA could be collecting data where Facebook's servers connect to the Internet. Past reports and disclosures on NSA activities (as well as the activities of other spy agencies) suggest that this is likely routine practice. Facebook doesn't even deny this, and of course even if they did, it's questionable whether such a denial was meaningful. In addition, it's clear that the NSA and other agencies actively collect data from all open sources that they can. And, of course, you have to assume that the Utah data center is going to be used to store something, and it ain't gonna be data obtained from just 20000 Facebook-related requests, because those would fit on my hard drive.
So I don't know what these disclosures are supposed to accomplish. They really don't change anything. At the root of the problem is really that there isn't enough transparency and that people have lost trust. What we need and should demand is complete legal, fiscal, and legislative transparency on our spy organizations, what they are legally allowed to do, who sets limits on them, and how much we're spending on it. I don't see why understanding in such general terms what these organizations do should hinder their ability to catch terrorists. And if such disclosures really interfere with their capabilities, that suggests by itself that they are doing something they shouldn't be doing.
well.. if nothing else it's highly relevant that the programs work pretty much as a funds siphoning device(in addition to being secret, useless and rights infringing).
you would think that if they had any brains they would legislate such programs to be done with governmental employees only, no? wouldn't it make sense that only military/police/nsa personnel would be allowed to work on the project? 200k/year for technicians! imagine how much the company was billing the government for that 200k - put it at mildly at 400k. for a technician in a role they shouldn't be buying from a private contractor in the first place in a project that should not be touched by private contractor hands in the first place.. now it runs on basis of "hey here's xxx million - do what you please with it! hire friends! give stupid support contracts!".
you know what's worse than a spy program? a spy program ran by dicks for money. it's as stupid as hiring your own veterans as private contractors for military operations.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snowden/Dp03vGYD
What are all of the three letter agencies so afraid of? I mean, If they aren't doing anything wrong they shouldn't be concerned with some reasonable transparency. As long as they don't have anything to hide, right?
Its always amazing how some federal agencies seem to think it is so important to have unfettered access to others information so they can "keep a vigilant eye out" yet they so detest anyone making sure that their own activities remain above board. Especially in light of the obvious revolving door between the private sector companies which stand to make billions, and the three letter agencies dolling out those fees. As noted in the Guardian article James Clapper the current director of National Intelligence, one of the loudest voices of "disapproval" against Snowden's actions, was Vice-President of Booz Allen Hamilton not too long ago. That coupled with his lies to congress in regards to these programs............ If we're looking for traitors I'm far more concerned with the ones who are fleecing the American taxpayers out of hundreds of billions of dollars and lying to government inquests than one individual who released classified documents in an attempt to inform the public about possibly illegal acts.
making public officials look bad.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Is it appropriate to report half a year's worth of data?
Though not unheard of, six months is an uncommon period to report; isn't the general expectation that they would report a full year's worth? Of course that would result in the requests being approximately doubled. My concern would be people will remember the amount as "9,000 and 10,000 requests per year".
This reminds me of politicians who also skew the time period to make dollar amounts appear larger or smaller.
To make dollar amounts appear larger, they increase the time period ("we're investing $4 billion over ten years").
An innovative approach recently used by Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus to convince Australians that politicians were only awarding themselves a tiny increase in public money was to use the following: the increase is only a dollar per vote per year.
I suspect the choice of "six months" was a deliberate attempt to skew the perception of the requests.
This sort of surveillance ("We need to look at these specific accounts") doesn't bother me: that's how search warrants are supposed to work. (Well, assuming they are looking for terrorists and not just harassing Tea Party people.) This seems quite different from some other recent disclosures, like the Verizon warrants: "Give us records of all calls made." Search warrants, to be constitutional, have to be specific. General warrants were abused by the British and are a specific reason the Fourth Amendment was written.
Also note that at the same time the federal government is conducting sweeping, general surveillance of all Americans in the name of fighting terrorism, "Since October of 2011, the FBI has been forbidden to covertly gather information or set up sting operations at mosques unless they've been reviewed and approved by something the DoJ has tagged the Sensitive Operations Review Committee." I guess the Department of Justice didn't consider sweeping surveillance of all Americans to be as much of a "sensitive operation" as looking for Islamic terrorists in places they are likely to be.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
A phrase that can be read two ways...
1) deny it.
2) deny it
3) disclose heavily scrubbed and minimized data
4) do damage control
5) repeat as needed.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
They legally can't disclose the FISA requests, they can however quite legally lie about them.
They can see their businesses going up in smoke, nobody can use the Cloud Services now if the NSA has access to them. Facebook will face worldwide probes and legal bars.
Occam Razor says, they are lying to save their business.
It's the one thing they can legally do under US law. As I wrote that a wave of despair went down my back.
http://www.vupen.com/english/
"defensive and offensive cyber security". Helsingin Sanomat, biggest newspaper in Finland, claims the company is selling security holes (most likely accompanied with easy way to use them) for governments and intelligence agencies.
In Finnish: http://www.hs.fi/ulkomaat/Tietoturva-aukoilla+tahkotaan+miljoonia/a1371264995752
... its a feedback loop for manipulation of the public via controlled media (Main Stream Media).
Silicon valley should know this and Hollywood certainly does about how feedback loops are used to promote one thing or another.
There is no way such a large amount of spying can be filtered as abstract language is only as useful as the definitions applied by those using it. In other words, a terrorist plot could be communicated in a manner of common conversation that is undetectable. But certainly spying on such a large amount of people would result in a good representation of teh attitudes of the masses from which controlled news media can then manipulate.
Slashdot moderation is like Wikipedia in edit mod, both have a degree of commonly biased mods. Its known Wikipedia has Israeli paid mods. With this in mind I can safely assume this post will be modded down regardless of obvious facts.
For years, the Carlyle Group has tried to shed its former reputation as a second home for government officials and a specialist in buying defense companies. But the recent fracas over the National Security Agencyâs surveillance programs highlights the private equity giant's remaining ties to government work: its majority stake in Booz Allen Hamilton, the employer of the whistle-blower, Edward J. Snowden.
AccountKiller
So, I'm clicking links and trying to RTFA with some dry, carefully constructed analysis of alleged data, but no actual fucking data? What kinds of people were spied upon? Has anyone got a copy of the list of which accounts? Are any of us on it? Do we know how much the gubberment knows?
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
"Facebook and Microsoft Disclose Government Requests For User Data"
Oh yeah, I believe everything that Microsoft and Facebook says about it being the nice guy here and "disclosure" of information.
I have seen scams run on T.V. at 2AM in the morning more convincing than that statement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWyHiV3l3MA
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.