Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Publishes Opaque Transparency Report
Mark Wilson writes: Post-Snowden there is great interest in just what involvement the government has with technology firms. There are frequent requests from government agencies for information about users and the likes of Google, Snapchat and even the NSA itself have all released transparency reports that reveal, in broad strokes, the number of requests for data they have received. Amazon is the latest company to release a transparency report — although the term really should be used in the loosest possible sense. The report includes scant details about the number of subpoenas, search warrants, court orders, and national security requests received in the first five months of 2015. The report is so vague as to be virtually meaningless.
Amazon AWS is full of commercially sensitive business data.
Its worth remembering Lavabit, had to close down over these requests to understand what they ask for:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit
"The court records show that the FBI sought Lavabit's Transport Layer Security (SSL) private key. Levison objected, saying that the key would allow the government to access communications by all 400,000 customers of Lavabit. He also offered to add code to his servers that would provide the information required just for the target of the order. The court rejected this offer because it would require the government to trust Levison and stated that just because the government could access all customers' communication did not mean they would be legally permitted to do so. Lavabit was ordered to provide the SSL key in machine readable format by noon, August 5 or face a fine of $5000 per day.[23] Levison closed down Lavabit 3 days later."
So these requests can be so broad that *1* request would be one too many. It requires Amazon trust the FBI who in turn hand the process over to the NSA to implement, who in turn keep all the data anyway regardless of any promise the FBI made to the court.