Daily Policy Journal – by JayA fascinating article from the New York Times is just making the rounds, detailing for the first time the means by which the tech companies cited in the PRISM program negotiated government access to their data. It also gives context to their denials of providing the government with “back-door access” to their servers:
“The U.S. government does not have direct access or a ‘back door’ to the information stored in our data centers,” Google’s chief executive, Larry Page, and its chief legal officer, David Drummond, said in a statement on Friday. “We provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law.”
Statements from Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, Apple, AOL and Paltalk made the same distinction.
Well that’s reassuring, thanks guys. How about the front door? Or any other window or portal, or doggy-door, or whatever else you might want to call a means for government to access our data in a manner we definitely didn’t know about and certainly wouldn’t approve of?
But instead of adding a back door to their servers, the companies were essentially asked to erect a locked mailbox and give the government the key, people briefed on the negotiations said. Facebook, for instance, built such a system for requesting and sharing the information, they said.
Now we’re making some progress. So, you’ve built a doggy-house for government to crawl into and chew on the bone, rather than letting them have it in the dining room. Please, reassure us about this.
The data shared in these ways, the people said, is shared after company lawyers have reviewed the FISA request according to company practice. It is not sent automatically or in bulk, and the government does not have full access to company servers. Instead, they said, it is a more secure and efficient way to hand over the data.
“The people said.” Really? That’s what we’re supposed to hang our hats on? That being the case, I’m quite certain now that this sure as hell is a more secure and efficient way to hand over the data, just as the NYT describes. But of course, that’s precisely why they didn’t want any of us to know about it, isn’t it?
Tech companies might have also denied knowledge of the full scope of cooperation with national security officials because employees whose job it is to comply with FISA requests are not allowed to discuss the details even with others at the company, and in some cases have national security clearance, according to both a former senior government official and a lawyer representing a technology company.
Oh, now that’s just precious! Now the excuse for the tech giants is that their lawyers know more about company operations than CEOs are allowed to know! How simultaneously convenient for CEOs and disturbing for shareholders! Pray tell, what else are these anonymous sources spoonfeeding the NYT, to be mindlessly repeated without qualification or clarification?
FISA orders can range from inquiries about specific people to a broad sweep for intelligence, like logs of certain search terms, lawyers who work with the orders said. There were 1,856 such requests last year, an increase of 6 percent from the year before.
Really? That’s the Hail Mary? Playing that numbers game… again? Sorry, Wired has already covered this (but surely this is nothing the NYT would want to note):
You see, while the feds are required to disclose the number of orders they apply for and receive (almost always the same number, by the way), they aren’t required to say how many people are targeted in each order. So a single order issued to Verizon Business Solutions in April covered metadata for every phone call made by every customer.
So 1 order resulted in literally millions of peoples’ phone information being collected…
Are we supposed to be reassured by the fact that, as it pertains to these PRISM spy programs, as NYT tells us, only “1,856 such requests” were made last year? Because if I’m reading correctly — and I believe I am — each of these “1,856 such requests,” separately and by themselves, could plausibly have resulted in the collection and retention of millions of emails, photos, Facebook posts, messages, and other online data from millions of citizens who would otherwise have had some expectation privacy for all of these items.
This is disgusting. Insane. Absurd. Orwellian.
There aren’t enough adjectives to describe how awful this is.
And to think that Obama feels like he’s “struck the right balance.”
What a disgrace. An absolute, unequivocal, total disgrace.
http://www.dailypolicyjournal.com/nyt-tech-companies-concede-on-participation-in-nsa-scandals/
“Statements from Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, Apple, AOL and Paltalk made the same distinction.”
Of course they would, but hopefully we know better than to believe any of the trash that spews from the mouth of a politician or corporate executive.
Lying is their job. If you listen to them, it’s because you’re an idiot. (“fooled you twice”…or a hundred times?)
“The U.S. government does not have direct access”
The key phrase here is ‘direct access.’
‘CIABook’ head Zuckerberg is at the Bilderberg confab this weekend, I’m sure he’ll get told what else needs to be done to protect the wealthy elite’s control of the world.