Tech Giants Ask US Government For More Post-PRISM Transparency

Facebook, Google and Microsoft, three of the tech titans who have been caught up in the PRISM controversy, have urged the US government to let them be more open about the information requests they receive from law enforcement agencies.

Tech companies were put on the spot when the Guardian and the Washington Post released a slide deck claiming to show that they have given US officials direct access to their servers. Since then, they have been out in force defending their records on privacy, and denying any knowledge of the PRISM initiative.

PRISM openness demanded

Yesterday evening Google revealed it had sent a letter to the Attorney General and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, asking for permission to reveal requests made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The PRISM programme covers requests under FISA, which relate to communications made by foreign citizens. All such requests come with a gagging order, so service providers like Google are not allowed to say whether they received them. It’s also obvious that, since communication is a two-way process, some US citizens’ data would be included in FISA, if it covers  conversations between a non-US person and a US contact.

“Assertions in the press that our compliance with these requests gives the US government unfettered access to our users’ data are simply untrue. However, government nondisclosure obligations regarding the number of FISA national security requests that Google receives, as well as the number of accounts covered by those requests, fuel that speculation,” wrote David Drummond, chief legal officer at Google.

“We therefore ask you to help make it possible for Google to publish in our Transparency Report aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures—in terms of both the number we receive and their scope. Google’s numbers would clearly show that our compliance with these requests falls far short of the claims being made. Google has nothing to hide.”

Microsoft issued a similar statement to media, as did Ted Ullyot, Facebook’s general counsel: “We urge the United States government to help make that possible by allowing companies to include information about the size and scope of national security requests we receive, and look forward to publishing a report that includes that information.”

The PRISM fallout doesn’t seem like abating anytime soon. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against four government officials, claiming the agreement with Verizon to share communications data with the National Security Agency (NSA) is unconstitutional.

And a letter signed by a number of major organisations, including Mozilla and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has demanded US Congress reveal the extent of the NSA’s spying programmes.

The leaker, Edward Snowden, has been officially fired from his role at government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, “for violations of the firm’s code of ethics and firm policy”. It is believed he has left Hong Kong, where he had chosen to hide.

Alongside the FISA requests made to Internet giants, the NSA also issues much more blanket demands: at around the same time , it was revealed that Verizon had been asked to provide details of all customer calls, both within and outside the US.

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