An alliance has been formed of some of the United States largest companies, including Apple, that is calling for more transparency from the NSA and its surveillance efforts. The group which also includes Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook, will be publishing a letter sometime today calling for Internet, telephone and web-based service providers to report national security related requests with greater specificity. From AllthingsD:
Specifically, they ask that they are allowed to regularly report:
The number of government requests for information about their users
The number of individuals, accounts, or devices for which information was requested
The number of requests that sought communications content, basic subscriber information, and/or other information.
They also managed to obtain a copy of the letter, which makes for interesting reading. This is certainly one of the hot topics of the moment, and while we can't expect these companies in the alliance to ever disclose to the public who information is requested on, perhaps, one day, a broader view of just how much of this sort of thing goes on might be possible. We can hope.
Source: AllthingsD
Reader comments
Apple and other large companies coming together to call for more NSA transparency
Apple and the other companies, just want us to trust them in the wake of the whole PRISM leak, so either they've asked to tell us more lies, or tell us more have truths, neither of which is going to cause everyone to ever trust them again.
Still unbelievable for Europeans that there is no huge outcry in the USA. The government is observing ALL your private communication (email, social media, chats, snail mail, telephone calls) like in the worst 1984 scenarios and you and your media basically ignore it.
Sounds like we as individuals need to be more engaged in protecting our personal privacy. I've been hearing about devices like this new Cloudlocker; it's supposed to be like having a cloud in your house. Gotta start somewhere, might as well start with personal files.