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Apple Reports 400 Percent Rise In National Security Requests (thenextweb.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Next Web: Apple received a record number of national security orders this year, according to its bi-annual report published this week. The company stated it received more than 13,250 national security requests affecting over 9,000 accounts in the first half of 2017. Compared to the same period in 2015, this represents a threefold increase. National Security Requests are subpoenas by the government which oblige companies or individuals to share their data for national security purposes. The requests are usually made in the form of National Security Letters and are demanded only when it's indispensable to an investigation. The reason for this rise in numbers is still unclear. The company also revealed it provided data in 44 non-civil governmental cases, information which hadn't been revealed in its previous reports.
[...] National Security Letters [...] are demanded only when it's indispensable to an investigation.
This is demonstratively untrue, as has become clear even through the usually attached gag orders on the NSLs: An NSL is simply more convenient to issue, carries a lower burden of proof on the requester, and neatly shuts up the requestee. Oh, and NSLs aren't "requests" as there's basically no way to decline. But hey, at least they're overseen by a court, right? By a secret court, in secret, following secret rules. Such "requests".
These things are highly corrosive to due process and that thing so elusive you don't even have a word for it, but the Germans and Dutch call "rechtsstaat". Go look it up. It means that NSLs prove the government entirely untrustworthy.
Yes, if Mr. Orange would want to really MAGA, he could do worse than just forbid NSLs entirely.