I was going to write about this yesterday but then the stupid Republicans just had to shutdown the government. Still though:
http://thehill.com/...
A group of 72 tech companies and advocacy groups are asking Congress to move quickly on surveillance reform bills that would let companies tell their users how often they hand over user data to the government.
The group — including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Twitter and Yahoo — sent a letter Monday to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, voicing support for two bills that would give companies “the right to publish basic statistics about the government demands for user data that they receive.”
The two bills — The Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013, authored by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), and the Surveillance Order Reporting Act, from Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) — would allow companies to publish the number of requests they receive under national security and foreign intelligence laws, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. - The Hill, 9/30/13
Here's a little more info about Franken & Lofgren's bills:
http://www.pcworld.com/...
The letter endorsed two pieces of legislation, the Surveillance Transparency Act in the Senate and the Surveillance Order Reporting Act in the House, both of which would allow companies to publish information about the number of surveillance requests they receive from U.S. agencies.
The Senate bill is sponsored by Senator Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, with 11 co-sponsors, including Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, and the House bill is sponsored by Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, with nine co-sponsors.
The Senate bill would require the U.S. government to issue annual public reports on surveillance requests made through the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Companies receiving surveillance requests could publish numbers every six months.
The House bill would allow Internet firms and telecoms to report the number of surveillance requests they receive every three months.
Companies signing Monday’s letter included AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter and Yahoo. Other organizations signing on were the American Civil Liberties Union, BSA, Consumer Action, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mozilla, Public Knowledge and TechFreedom. Some of the tech companies signing on to the letter have previously asked the government to allow them to report surveillance request numbers. - PC World, 9/30/13
The call for transparency from the tech industry has been growing:
http://news.cnet.com/...
Tech companies have been increasingly pushing for the right to be transparent about the number and type of government requests for user data in recent weeks and months. Earlier this month, LinkedIn joined a group of companies that included Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and others in "filing a petition in the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking the ability to publish the specific number of national security-related requests we receive (if any) under each of the various provisions of FISA."
The urgency for transparency has grown since revelations earlier this year that the US government has been stepping up its efforts to tap into the servers of leading tech companies in a bid to mine users' data and information about their behavior. Some Internet companies have been pushing for the right to publish information about how often the government has made requests for such data.
In an on-stage interview earlier this month at TechCrunch Disrupt, for example, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talked about his company's efforts to let the public know about the number of requests it gets from the government. Zuckerberg said he hoped to tell Facebook users how often those requests had come, and whether the number was in the thousands or millions. He added that the number was much closer to 1,000. - CNET, 9/30/13
Here's the letter that was sent to Senators Patrick Leahy (D. VT) and Charles Grassley (R. IA) and Congressmen Bob Goodlatte (R. VA) and John Conyers (D. MI):
Here's what the letter says about Franken and Lofgren's bills:
http://techcrunch.com/...
The two pieces of legislation in question are S.1452, the Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013, and H.R. 3035, the Surveillance Order Reporting Act of 2013, “each of which would clarify that companies have the right to publish basic statistics about the government demands for user data that they receive.”
This would pertain to records from Internet, telephone and web-based service providers for information about their users and subscribers. In the past, officials have said the issue of spying in this way pertained only to non-U.S. nationals who were deemed security risks; more recently, however, there has been information coming to light that appears to indicate that ordinary people are very easily part of that net, too.
“Such transparency is important not only for the American people, who are entitled to have an informed public debate about the appropriateness of that surveillance, but also for international users of U.S.-based service providers who are concerned about privacy and security,” the letter notes. Interestingly, the call to action also includes a note to “urge the Committees to hold hearings on the issue of surveillance transparency as a prelude to the markup of these bills,” which could end up providing further revelations on how these practices work. The ramifications, of course, could end up being wider-ranging as a precedent for how data gets handled in other countries, as well. - Tech Crunch, 9/30/13
The timing may have been bad but it's very encouraging to hear the tech industry speak out against the NSA and calling for disclosure. With growing support for NSA reform in the House and Senate, hopefully Franken and Lofgren's bills can get passed once Congress is back in session (whenever that may be). If you would like more information on the Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013, you can leave your messages for Senator Franken here:
http://www.franken.senate.gov/...
And if you want more information about the Surveillance Order Reporting Act, you can contact Rep. Lofgren here:
http://forms.house.gov/...