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Google Transparency Report now breaks out US court orders
Google has frequently expanded the coverage of its Transparency Report with each update, and it's not about to stop today. The search giant's latest report now illustrates US court orders by type, including wiretaps, pen registers (phone routing info) and potentially life-saving emergency disclosures. As you'll see both above and in charts after the break, these specialized court orders make up just nine percent of government requests -- the bulk are either subpoenas or warrants, not all of which require a judge. Meanwhile, things aren't looking good for those who've been hoping for less state surveillance. Google says that the volume of government data requests worldwide has more than doubled in the past three years, with about 42 percent of the latest batch coming from the US. The company also notes that this is only what it can report; without the legal authority to disclose FISA requests, it can only provide an incomplete picture at best.
Lavabit was under FBI pressure to decrypt Snowden connections, court reveals
When Lavabit shut down in the wake of Edward Snowden's leaks, it left a big question unanswered: just what did the US government want that was supposedly so egregious? Thanks to newly unsealed court documents obtained by Wired, we now know much more of the story. The FBI had served Lavabit an order requiring that it hand over Snowden's encryption keys, helping the agency install a device that would collect metadata from its suspect's email connections. Lavabit repeatedly turned down the requests since it could have given access to data from every user of the service -- at one point it did serve up the SSL keys, but printed out on 11 pages in 4pt type -- which led to threats of criminal contempt charges and fines. We all know what happened afterward -- company founder Ladar Levison chose to shutter Lavabit rather than comply with the FBI's demands. While the new details aren't shocking given the government's desire to catch Snowden, they help explain Levison's past statements; he felt that it was better to defend Lavabit in court than risk violating the privacy of his customers.
