FBI Director Robert Mueller told a congressional panel today that his agency is using drones for surveillance on U.S. soil and has not yet developed policies for privacy protections. “We have very few (drones) of limited use, and we’re exploring not only the use, but the necessary guidelines for that use.”
Here’s the motion that Google filed today with the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court saying it has a First Amendment right to release aggregate data on the number of requests it receives from the court for data and the number of accounts or users affected. It already releases similar details in its regular “transparency reports” about National Security Letter requests from the FBI.
“Google’s reputation and business has been harmed by the false or misleading reports in
the media, and Google’s users are concerned by the allegations,” the petition says, referring to stories in the Guardian and Washington Post about the NSA’s PRISM program involving major online companies. “Google must respond to such claims with more than generalities. Moreover, these are matters of significant weight and importance, and transparency is critical to advancing public debate in a thoughtful and democratic manner.”
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court – Motion for Declaratory Judgment by Liz Gannes of All Things D.
Below is a summary of the latest data provided by the major online companies about how many requests they’d received from U.S. law enforcement agencies for user information. Google, Microsoft and most recently Twitter had regularly been releasing “transparency reports” with such data; Apple, Facebook and Yahoo released general data in recent weeks in response to the controversy over National Security Agency monitoring activities. Sources for each company are listed at the bottom.
| COMPANY | TIME PERIOD | REQUESTS | ACCOUNTS | NOTES |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| APPLE | 12/1/2012 to 5/31/2013 | 4,000-5,000 | 9,000-10,000 | From federal, state and local authorities and included both criminal investigations and national security matters. The most common form of request comes from police investigating robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer’s disease, or hoping to prevent a suicide. |
| 7/1/2012 to 12/31/2012 | 9,000-10,000 | 18,000-19,000 | From any and all government entities in the U.S. (including local, state, and federal, and including criminal and national security-related requests). These requests run the gamut – from things like a local sheriff trying to find a missing child, to a federal marshal tracking a fugitive, to a police department investigating an assault, to a national security official investigating a terrorist threat. | |
| 7/1/2012 to 12/31/2012 | 8,438 | 14,791 | Via Google Transparency Report. 69% from subpoena; 22% search warrant; 9% other, including court orders. Google is among the most forthcoming in details on government requests. | |
| GOOGLE (NSL) | 2012 | 0-999 | 1000–1999 | Google is among a few who release National Security Letters data. The data can only legally be released in aggregate tiers of 999. |
| MICROSOFT | 7/1/2012 to 12/31/2012 | 6,000-7,000 | 31,000-32,000 | Criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders from U.S. governmental entities (including local, state and federal). Microsoft had been releasing regular transparency data, along with Google and most recently, Twitter. |
| MICROSOFT (NSL) | 2012 | 0-999 | 1000–1999 | Microsoft, like Google, releases annual data on National Security Letters. The data can only legally be released in aggregate tiers of 999. |
| 7/1/2012 to 12/31/2012 | 815 | 1,145 | Via Twitter Transparency report. 60% from subpoenas; 19% warrants; 11% court order. | |
| YAHOO | 12/1/2012 to 5/31/2013 | 12,000-13,000 | N/A | Includes criminal, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and other requests. The most common of these requests concerned fraud, homicides, kidnappings, and other criminal investigations. |
Well worth a read this morning if you’re interested in the intersection of government, law enforcement and privacy and civil liberties issues: A detailed Washington Post report on what is effectively becoming a national database of individual photos available for law enforcement use.
The faces of more than 120 million people are in searchable photo databases that state officials assembled to prevent driver’s-license fraud but that increasingly are used by police to identify suspects, accomplices and even innocent bystanders in a wide range of criminal investigations . . .
The increasingly widespread deployment of the technology in the United States has helped police find murderers, bank robbers and drug dealers, many of whom leave behind images on surveillance videos or social-media sites that can be compared against official photo databases.
But law enforcement use of such facial searches is blurring the traditional boundaries between criminal and non-criminal databases, putting images of people never arrested in what amount to perpetual digital lineups. The most advanced systems allow police to run searches from laptop computers in their patrol cars and offer access to the FBI and other federal authorities.
Click on the image below to visit an interactive version on the Post site, which gives you information by state as you hover your cursor.
This just in, from my Storify.
Selected important and interesting developments within the past day or so related to the PRISM and Verizon monitoring uproar. From my Storify.
