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Tag: national security letter

  • Reddit Has Never Received a National Security Letter

    Reddit Has Never Received a National Security Letter

    Reddit has just released its first ever transparency report, detailing governmental requests for user information, content removal requests, and more.

    What’s striking about reddit’s first report is the low volume of requests – only 55 total user info requests and 218 content removal requests in all of 2014.

    According to reddit, it complied with 58 percent and 31 percent of those, respectively.

    One of the more interesting aspects of the report is this nugget:

    “As of January 29, 2015, reddit has never received a National Security Letter, an order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or any other classified request for user information. If we ever receive such a request, we would seek to let the public know it existed,” says reddit.

    For a site with as many users and as much traffic as reddit, this is rather surprising.

    Of course, what it would be able to say about any hypothetical National Security Letter would be limited, at best. Most NSLs come with a gag order riding piggyback, so the companies who received the letter can’t discuss it with the users whose information has been requested.

    Some companies, like Google and Facebook, are allowed to disclose incredibly vague NSL information to users. How vague? Well, Google, for instance, can tell us that it received somewhere between 0 and 999 NSLs last year, representing between 1,000 and 1,999 user accounts.

    So, pretty vague.

    “Many government requests we receive contain demands to withhold notice from users that carry no legal weight. We actively disregard these non-binding demands.”

    If an NSL ever comes its way, reddit’s going to have a much tougher time “actively disregarding” its terms and conditions.

    You can check out the full report here.

    Images via reddit, reddit on Facebook

  • LinkedIn Challenges Government Secrecy in Court

    LinkedIn Challenges Government Secrecy in Court

    With the recent revelations surrounding the U.S. National Security Agency’s (NSA) widespread surveillance of the internet, online privacy concerns have become more widespread in recent months. This is especially true for social media, as the open nature of websites such as Twitter and Facebook makes it even easier for governments to compile information about citizens.

    LinkedIn this week released its bi-annual Transparency Report, something it and a handful of other social media websites do on a regular basis. However, with the nature of NSA surveillance now public, LinkedIn is attempting to come forward with the part it plays in the U.S. government’s national security-related demands for company information. Unfortunately, the government not only prevents companies from releasing such information, but it also prohibits those same companies from even acknowledging how many of those requests have been made. It’s an issue that even Google has had to deal with in recent years.

    Erika Rottenberg, general counsel for LinkedIn, revealed in a LinkedIn blog post this week that the company has been fighting to release the exact number of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests it receives. From the blog post:

    Unfortunately, our Transparency Report doesn’t include requests related to U.S. national security-related matters. This is because the U.S. government prohibits us from doing so. We believe our members and the LinkedIn community deserve to know this information, especially in light of recent revelations about the nature of U.S. government surveillance. We’ve been in discussions with the U.S. government for months in an effort to convince them to allow us to release these numbers as part of our Transparency Report and these discussions recently reached an impasse.

    With no other options, LinkedIn has decided to take legal action against such secrecy. The company this week filed a petition with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for permission to publish the exact number of FISA requests it receives. LinkedIn has also requested that its petition hearing be public. A similar request has also been filed with the FBI.

    In addition to the petition, LinkedIn has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The brief is regarding a case about the gag orders that accompany National Security Letters, and argues that such restrictions are not required to maintain national security.

  • Google Fights to Keep User Info Private Against National Security Letters

    Since 9/11 and the implementation of the Patriot Act, the FBI’s use of National Security Letters to obtain info has skyrocketed.

    National Security Letters (NSL) are a form of a demand letter that are used by the U.S. Government (mostly the FBI) to extract information from an organization in the name of national security. The kind of info requested in NSLs includes stuff like transactions, phone numbers, and email addresses.

    And it shouldn’t surprise you that a company like Google finds itself at the receiving end of many of these letters.

    But according to a report, Google is fighting back against them in court.

    Last week, Google filed papers in the case In Re Google Inc. Petition to set aside Legal Process. Although most of the documents are sealed, Bloomberg reports that Google is in fact challenging Section 2709 of Titles 18, which deals with National Security Letters. Section 2079 gives the FBI the ability to issue NSLs that force services like Google to give up user info that “relevant to an investigation” into national security issues.

    The law also allows NSLs to come complete with gag orders, barring the recipients from even discussing them with their users.

    The case is in front of US District Judge Susan Illston, who just a couple of weeks ago ruled NSLs unconstitutional.

    Last month, Google began to include National Security Letter requests (demands?) in its Transparency Report, which also discloses users data requests made by governments using search warrants and subpoenas, as well as content removal requests. The NSL info is vague – Google reported somewhere between 0 and 999 NSLs affecting between 1000 and 1999 users last year. This info is vague because of the laws concerning NSLs and their inherent secrecy.

    Google said that they worked with the FBI to lossen this secrecy ever so slightly to allow for their inclusion in the Transparency Report.

    “You’ll notice that we’re reporting numerical ranges rather than exact numbers. This is to address concerns raised by the FBI, Justice Department and other agencies that releasing exact numbers might reveal information about investigations,” said Google.

    But it appears that Google is now actually fighting the NSLs in court.

    “The people who are in the best position to challenge the practice are people like Google,” said EFF attorney Matt Zimmerman. “So far no one has really stood up for their users.”

    Google has declined to comment.

  • Google Now Includes National Security Requests in Its Transparency Report, But It’s Really Unspecific

    Google has added another metric to its Transparency Report so users can identify one more manner in which the government is requesting their information.

    Starting today, Google is now including data about National Security Letters on its U.S. Transparency Report.

    National Security Letters (NSL) are a form of a demand letter that are used by the U.S. Government (mostly the FBI) to extract information from an organization in the name of national security. The kind of info requested in NSLs includes stuff like transactions, phone numbers, and email addresses.

    In the period following 9/11, the FBI’s use of National Security Letters dramatically increased with the implementation of the Patriot Act.

    The thing about NSLs is that they also come complete with a gag order (most of the time), so the companies who received the letter can’t discuss it with the users whose information has been requested. For the Transparency Report, Google has worked with the FBI to loosen this secrecy – ever so slightly.

    The first thing that you’ll notice when looking at the new NSL stats is that they are unspecific – to a ridiculous degree. For instance, Google is only reporting the number of NSLs received in batches of 1,000. That means that every year on record (2009-present) has logged between 0 and 999 NSLs.

    “You’ll notice that we’re reporting numerical ranges rather than exact numbers. This is to address concerns raised by the FBI, Justice Department and other agencies that releasing exact numbers might reveal information about investigations. We plan to update these figures annually,” says Google.

    I guess something is better than nothing. Still, it’s a good step forward for the Google Transparency Report.