DOJ Announces New Methods For Reporting National Security Requests

As the NSA metadata collection scandal has developed, a number of technology and communications companies have fought to increase the transparency of the data collection process by publishing reports on how much data government agencies are asking them for. These transparency reports have been limited, however, because most government requests are entwined with a gag order. In a speech two weeks back, President Obama said this would change, and now the Dept. of Justice has announced new, slightly relaxed rules about what information companies can share. According to an email from the U.S. Deputy Attorney General (PDF) to the General Counsel of Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Yahoo, the companies can publish: how many Criminal Process requests they received, how many National Security Letters they received, how many accounts were affected by NSLs, how many Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act orders were received (both for communications content and 'non-content'), and how many customers were targeted by FISA requests. The companies still aren't allowed to give specific numbers, but they can report them in bands of 1,000 — for example, 0-999, 1,000-1,999, etc. Information requests for old services cannot be disclosed for at least six months. The first information requests for a new service cannot be disclosed for two years. The companies also have the option of lumping all the NSL and FISA requests together — if they do that, they can report in bands of 250 instead of 1,000.

Comments

Normalization of the Police State

[shiftless]

This is to be expected. Instead of repealing the police state, they are normalizing it. Welcome to the new Normal.

Re:Normalization of the Police State

[vikingpower]

Mod parent up. This is going on in several European countries, too ( UK, NL ). Congratulations, BTW, for inventing a new terminus technicus: the normalized police state. As much as I hate the thought, I can not but admire the term. Yes, that is what we are going to live in, for the next years.

Re:Normalization of the Police State

[Jane Q. Public]

The reason I wrote the above is because it has a real impact on our lives.

Let's take Obamacare for an example, because it's a recent and good example. Congress passed, and Obama signed, some things into law.

When events did not go as planned, Obama announced that they were going to ignore certain parts of the law. (Which, in fact, he has no legal authority to do.)

But that means the law is still in place. If he can ignore it by degree at any time, then he can reinstate it by decree at any time.

If the law isn't changed, but just some bureaucrat is deciding to ignore the regulations today, who is to say they won't stop ignoring it again tomorrow?

Answer: nobody. And that's why it's important to know.

This country is supposed to be subject to The Rule Of Law. It isn't run by "whatever the fuck I feel like doing today".

Keep the number of requests below 1000

[DickBreath]

Keep the number of requests below 1000.

Vastly expand the scope of each request.

First amendment

[Hatta]

Any gag order at all is incompatible with the First Amendment's prohibition on infringement of free speech.