US intelligence wants to make a key foreign surveillance law permanent

The directors of America's federal intelligence agencies appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday in an effort to convince the governing body to permanently extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law...

US surveillance court didn’t reject a single spy order last year

For years, critics have claimed that the US' Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is a pushover: it's allegedly so reluctant to reject spying orders that it's little more than a speed bump for the FBI and NSA. True or not, that reputation isn't a...

Lawsuit asks Justice Department to reveal decryption orders

Do you want to know whether or not US officials have ever forced a company to decrypt data to aid in an investigation? So does the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The civil liberties group has sued the Department of Justice to make it reveal whethe...

Dropbox backs petitions to disclose exact national security request numbers

Dropbox petitions court for right to disclose national security requests

The call for greater US government transparency just got louder: Dropbox has filed a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court brief that endorses petitions to disclose exact national security request numbers. Much like LinkedIn, Dropbox believes that limiting disclosures to broad ranges hurts transparency by implying that smaller firms get as many requests as larger rivals. The ban on exact figures also violates a First Amendment right to publish specific information, according to the cloud storage provider. We likely won't know the effectiveness of the brief for some time -- or ever, if the court proceedings remain a secret -- but Dropbox can at least say that it made its case.

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Source: Dropbox

LinkedIn petitions court to provide more details regarding government data requests

LinkedIn petitions court for more transparency in government data requests

It's not just the heaviest of the internet heavyweights pushing for greater government transparency. LinkedIn has filed its own petition with the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court asking for the ability to publish the exact number of national security requests that it gets. The social network argues that restricting data request numbers to vague ranges is not only pointless, but misleading -- the figures imply that the government wants as much data from LinkedIn as it does from larger firms. There's no certainty that the court will grant the company's wish, but its petition adds volume to an increasingly louder chorus.

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Source: LinkedIn

Google, Facebook and Yahoo petition court to disclose government data requests

Google, Facebook and Yahoo petition court to disclose government data requests

It's not every day you see Google, Facebook and Yahoo aligned on a issue, but a push toward increased governmental transparency is just the sort of cause that'll put competing web companies on the same outraged page. All three noted today through their respective channels that they've filed petitions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to disclose the number of requests the government has issued for user data under national security statutes. Says Yahoo general counsel Ron Bell:

We believe that the U.S. Government's important responsibility to protect public safety can be carried out without precluding Internet companies from sharing the number of national security requests they may receive.

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Source: Google, Facebook, Yahoo