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Google Publishes Eight National Security Letters (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google dropped a single National Security Letter into its most recent transparency report without much fanfare, but today the company published eight more NSLs in an attempt to shed more light on government surveillance of Google users. The eight letters published today were sent to Google from FBI offices across the country. Cumulatively, the NSLs seek broad access to content for around 20 user accounts. The names of the targets are redacted, but most of the letters seek access to Gmail accounts. The NSLs were sent to Google over a five-year period, from 2010 to 2015, with the majority coming from the Charlotte, North Carolina field office of the FBI. Others came from Florida, Arizona, New York, and California. "In our continued effort to increase transparency around government demands for user data, today we begin to make available to the public the National Security Letters (NSLs) we have received where, either through litigation or legislation, we have been freed of nondisclosure obligations," Richard Salgado, Google's director of law enforcement and information security, wrote in a blog post. Google has fought to make the letters public in part because the FBI can issue them without prior judicial oversight.
Twenty users they're allowed to disclose that the FBI was able to request without judicial oversight. The need for search warrants is pretty well enshrined in the Bill of Rights, that law enforcement is able to compel this information without a warrant is what's disturbing, not that law enforcement is requesting information.
Requests for access to 20ish user accounts in five years from Google?
That has to be on the order of the likelihood of a Powerball winner.
20ish user accounts from a handful of NSLs where the gag order has been lifted. There are many other NSLs that Google is still gagged over, I'm sure. And the transparency reports document tens of thousands of requests for similar numbers of accounts, requests made through search warrants or subpoenas.
NSLs get highlighted because, unlike the other instruments to compel information, can be issued without judicial oversight and are kept secret.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
The NSA is a military organization with a chain of command.
No, it is civilian, and supposed to be quite separate from the military. They do of course support the military in time of war.
While Manning had a court-martial, Snowden would have a plain civilian kangaroo court.