14 DAY TRIAL // Following the NSA spying scandal, which continues to unfold, Google came out and asked the US Department of Justice and the US government for permission to reveal more about the type of requests for user data it receives via the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
These requests are secret in almost all cases, and Google can't even acknowledge their existence. Recently, the search giant scored a major win in this department when it started publishing a rough count of how many National Security Letters it gets from the FBI.
Now, it's asking to be able to do the same for FISA requests. Google would want to be able to reveal how many of these requests it gets in a certain timeframe and how many users they affect.
"Assertions in the press that our compliance with these requests gives the U.S. government unfettered access to our users’ data are simply untrue," David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer wrote in an open letter to the US Attorney General and the FBI.
"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," he added.
Google doesn't actually say that it does receive FISA requests; to do so would be illegal. But it does say that the Director of National Intelligence did acknowledge that Internet companies to receive such requests.
And, while Google says it wants the right to disclose the number of requests it gets, that number could be zero. Obviously, if it was zero, it would be legally able to say so.
"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," Drummond said.
If the government complies, Google plans to publish the new data in its Transparency Report which already lists the number of requests it receives from law enforcement agencies around the world and a rough number of the secretive National Security Letters it receives.
Obviously, the search giant believes that, had it able to say just how many of these requests it gets, people would realize the problem is much smaller than it's made out to be.
After Google made the request, both Microsoft and Facebook asked for permission to disclose some of this data as well. There is also a proposed bill which would make the secret court orders public and open to scrutiny.