online surveillance Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Others Unite to Oppose the FBI's New Spying Powers

[vissha]

Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Others Unite to Oppose the FBI's New Spying Powers

 

 

FBI wants to expand the powers of National Security Letters

 

Quote

Thirty-seven privacy rights groups and private companies such as Facebook, Foursquare, Google, and Yahoo have banded together and signed a letter opposing the new surveillance powers that the FBI is set to receive.

 

These organizations are worried that a proposed amendment to the 2017 Intelligence Authorization Act. If approved, the amendment would broaden the type of data the FBI would be able to collect using National Security Letters (NSLs).

 

NSLs are legal documents issued by the FBI that can force a company to reveal details about one of its clients without a court warrant. The EFF claims that the FBI issued more than 300,000 NSLs in the last ten years since NSLs were introduced.

 

FBI wants NSLs to better cover online activities

 

Until now, the FBI could use NSLs to collect information on suspects such as "name, address, length of service, and local and long distance toll billing records."

 

US Senators have proposed a new amendment to the Electronic Communication Transactional Records (ECTRs) via the 2017 Intelligence Authorization Act that would expand the types of data that could be collected through NSLs without the need of a court-issued warrant.

 

This update would allow the FBI to solicit data such as "browsing history, email metadata, location information, and the exact date and time a person signs in or out of a particular online account."

 

Collected data can give clues about the target's personal, offline life

 

Privacy groups and tech companies argue that this could allow the FBI to infer information about their clients' "political affiliation, medical conditions, religion, substance abuse history, sexual orientation, and [...] movements throughout the day."

 

The FBI has gotten a lot of bad reputation after many companies had admitted they were gagged by subpoenas about the number and the contents of the NSLs they received.

 

Recently, Yahoo revealed the content of a National Security Letter for the first time, along with information about the total number of NSLs it received and the number of targeted accounts.

Below is the full letter, signed by organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now, American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, Government Accountability Project, and more.

 

Read Complete ECTR Coalition Letter Here

 

 

Source

[steven36]

They all sound like a bunch of hypocrites  to me if they were not collecting  you're data to begin with the FEDs wouldn't have nothing to get .  Almost everyone of these  help in Prism for the NSA . NSLs have been around for years and tell the patriot act expired these companies  never even was allowed to disclose them and Google or Facebook still never disclosed any only yahoo did witch is for sale anyways .

 

the cops are already using Google  to track people down  with a warrant.

There's no  data retention laws in the USA its the fact they do it to sell you're data and improve there ads is the whole reason the cops are after it . As long as they harvest data cops will be able to get it one way are the other so ether way were screwed .   These companies already work with law enforcement  everyday  . If you dumb enough to trust corporate America with you're life  you're dumb enough to get threw under the bus  if you  mess up because if it's the law there not going risk there butt for you and the Feds and the NSA  will  get you're data ether way. it's not hard for them to get a judge to sign a piece of paper if you are on there radar regardless if you done something or not  they have the legal means to investigate you .  

 

[OrbingStorm]

Surely by now everyone can see where this is all headed to.You would have to be naive to not know we all will be totally surveilled  by the government so they have total control of the citizens.

[steven36]

12 hours ago, OrbingStorm said:

Surely by now everyone can see where this is all headed to.You would have to be naive to not know we all will be totally surveilled  by the government so they have total control of the citizens.

People think EFF is going help them to investigate Microsoft   how naive EFF is working with the Hippocrates of corporate America .Microsoft is involved in this case as well

https://redmondmag.com/articles/2016/06/07/microsoft-corporate-data-legal-protections.aspx

 

Here's a statement from the EFF were there fighting in court on behalf of Microsoft  to stop the DOJ from having access to data  thats stored  in offshore data centers.

https://www.eff.org/document/eff-amicus-brief-support-microsoft

 

The thing about it , if the data is stored in a USA Microsoft data center the DOJ already have access to it and when you use M$ services you dont know were it's being stored they cant stop whats already happening  there trying to make it were the government dont have complete control . But the fact is if they didn't use data retention and keep you're info forever there be nothing to get so there at fault  more really ..its ther fault it exits to begin with.