Google Breaks Silence On FBI's National Security Letters That Demand Its Users' Data

Informer · 2013-03-07T12:22:00+00:00

March 07, 2013 | Forbes National security letters are the Fight Club of government data surveillance. Thanks to the gag orders that accompany those FBI requests for users private information, the first rule for any company that receives an NSL is that it doesnt talk about receiving an NSL. Now Google is doing its best to blurif not quite breakthat rule. In a new section of its bi-annual Transparency Report on government censorship and surveillance of its data, Google on Tuesday issued its first ever accounting of how many NSLs it has received for the last four years along with how many users were affected, albeit in extremely broad terms. For each of those years, for instance, Google says it has received less than one thousand NSLs. In 2012, those requests for users data targeted somewhere between one and two thousand of its users, the same numbers as 2011 and down from between two and three thousand users affected in 2010. Vague as those revelations may be, they start to give some sense of the scale of how often NSLs are used to obtain user data in investigations of purported national security threats. In the second half of 2012, for instance, Google says that it received requests for at least some data from 14,791 accounts. More than 10,000 of those users were targeted with subpoenas, and another 3,000 had their information requested with a search warrant. But Google previously labeled another 1,249 accounts as having had their data requested by other means. With more than a thousand users affected by NSLs sent to Google in 2012, it seems a significant chunk of those users had their data taken from Googles servers using the FBIs un-discussable letters. Correction: Google spokesperson Chris Gaither writes to me in an email that those NSL numbers arent in fact included in the other category of Googles Transparency Report, but have simply been left out of the Transparency Reports statistics until now. The other category, according to Gaither, consists of court orders issued under [the Electronic Communications Privacy Act] by a judge and other court-issued legal process. The FBI has the authority to prohibit companies from talking about these requests, reads a blog post about the new numbers on Googles public policy blog. But weve been trying to find a way to provide more information about the NSLs we getparticularly as people have voiced concerns about the increase in their use since 9/11. Starting today, were now including data about NSLs in our Transparency Report. Were thankful to U.S. government officials for working with us to provide greater insight into the use of NSLs. NSLs have come under fire not just for their secrecy, but for their lack of judicial review; They require far less oversight than a search warrant or even a subpoena, can be issued by any FBI field office, and have been applied much more widely in the post-9/11 era. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has called NSLs one of the most frightening and invasiveof all the dangerous government surveillance powers that were expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act. Google specifies in an FAQ included with its report on NSLs that the letters can only legally seek the name, address, length of service, and local and long distance toll billing records of a Google user. Those outmoded legal terms mean that the FBI shouldnt be able to get actual content data such as Gmail messages or private YouTube videos. Perhaps surprisingly, even IP addresses are off limits, Google says. But Julian Sanchez, a research fellow at the Cato Institute who has tracked the NSL issue, says that NSLs sent to an Internet service like Google could still be used to de-anonymize Internet content when the FBI knows an IP address but not a name or other identifying details. These kinds of requests are supposed to to be limited to less sensitive information, says Sanchez. But if the point is to de-anonymize anonymous information, its not clear thats less sensitive. Googles numbers also indicate that the use of NSLs might be far more widespread than previously thought. Sanchez refers to the governments own tally of NSLs issued in 2011 that excluded the kind of non-content requests sent to Google. Those letters targeted information about 7,201 people that year, according to the Department of Justice. According to Googles new report, the company received requests that targeted more than a thousand people that same year. So either Googles alone received NSLs that affected close to one out seven of the people targeted by NSLs in total, or far more likely, the Department of Justice tally represents only a small fraction of requests actually sent. This is a tool that can be sued to strip away online anonymity, says Sanchez. And extrapolating from these numbers its being used on a much larger scale than the official numbers would lead one to believe. Read Googles full blog post here.

Thread starter Informer
Start date Mar 7, 2013

Informer

JamiiForums uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.

Accept Learn more…

Back

Top Bottom

Forums

New posts

Google Breaks Silence On FBI's National Security Letters That Demand Its Users' Data

Informer

JF-Expert Member

Our Community

Regional Communities