The U.S. government sought user data from Google 6,730 times from July to December, 2011, and got what it wanted 93% of the time, new Google data shows. That is 77% more than the first half of 2009 and 38% higher than 2010.

The 6,730 requests covered 12,240 users/accounts. The U.S. requests were nearly triple those of the next-highest country on Google’s list — India. 

Government requests tallied in Google’s semi-annual “transparency” reports “primarily cover requests in criminal matters,” Google notes with little more specificity. So it’s difficult to tell whether any of those might  involve national security matters or cases.  

Noted the ACLU in a blog post yesterday: “This means that the statistics very likely don’t cover the most troublesome surveillance authorities passed after 9/11, such as National Security Letters, Patriot Act orders under Section 215, and the increasingly opaque FISA Amendments Act of 2008… 

“It wouldn’t be surprising if those unreleased statistics dwarf the very limited statistics that Google released.”

Google’s complete transparency report, including downloadable data, for not only these government requests, but also for copyright take-down.