Google, Twitter push to reveal number of national security related requests separately
While Microsoft and Facebook have both published information tonight about how many requests for customer info the government made over a six month period, Google and Twitter are apparently hoping to take a different route. As Google told AllThingsD and Twitter legal director Benjamin Lee tweeted, "it's important to be able to publish numbers of national security requests-including FISA disclosures-separately." Google went further, claiming that lumping the number of National Security Letters together with criminal requests would be a "step backwards." Clearly this post-PRISM revelations battle for more transparency on just what the government is doing behind the scenes isn't over, we'll let you know if any of the parties involved have more information to share.
We agree with @Google: It's important to be able to publish numbers of national security requests-including FISA disclosures-separately.
- Benjamin Lee (@BenL) June 15, 2013
Google:
We have always believed that it's important to differentiate between different types of government requests. We already publish criminal requests separately from National Security Letters: http://goo.gl/OCFck Lumping the two categories together would be a step back for users. Our request to the government is clear: to be able to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures, separately.
