Google Asks Government For More Transparency, Other Groups Push Back Against NSA 323
Nerval's Lobster writes "In an open letter addressed to U.S. attorney general Eric Holder and FBI director Robert Mueller, Google chief legal officer David Drummond again insisted that reports of his company freely offering user data to the NSA and other agencies were untrue. 'However,' he wrote, 'government nondisclosure obligations regarding the number of FISA national security requests that Google receives, as well as the number of accounts covered by those requests, fuel that speculation.' In light of that, Drummond had a request of the two men: 'We therefore ask you to help make it possible for Google to publish in our Transparency Report aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures—in terms of both the number we receive and their scope.' Apparently Google's numbers would show 'that our compliance with these requests falls far short of the claims being made.' Google, Drummond added, 'has nothing to hide.'"
Another open letter was sent to Congress from a variety of internet companies and civil liberties groups (headlined by Mozilla, the EFF, the ACLU, and the FSF), asking them to enact legislation to prohibit the kind of surveillance apparently going on at the NSA and to hold accountable the people who implemented it. (A bipartisan group of senators has just come forth with legislation that would end such surveillance.) In addition to the letter, the ACLU sent a lawsuit as well, directed at President Obama, Eric Holder, the NSA, Verizon and the Dept. of Justice (filing, PDF). They've also asked (PDF) for a release of court records relevant to the scandal. Mozilla has also launched Stopwatching.us, a campaign to "demand a full accounting of the extent to which our online data, communications and interactions are being monitored." Other reactions: Tim Berners-Lee is against it, Australia's Foreign Minister doesn't mind it, the European Parliament has denounced it, and John Oliver is hilarious about it (video). Meanwhile, Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked the information about the NSA's surveillance program, is being praised widely as a hero and a patriot. There's already a petition on Whitehouse.gov to pardon him for his involvement, and it's already reached half the required number of signatures for a response from the Obama administration.
Re:So how aren't they spying on US citizens? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I feel confident...
Re:It should be illegal but isn't, that's the prob (Score:3, Informative)
"If the citizens are not vigilant, I fear we shall be frequently misquoted [monticello.org]" --George Washington
Seriously, Do Something Part II (Score:5, Informative)
I actually made most of this comment in another post about the NSA but it bears repeating.
ACLU Petition to Stop Massive Government Spying Program [aclu.org]
Please sign that petition. Or go through the EFF action page [eff.org]. Or Write your Representative [house.gov] or Write your Senators [myrepresentatives.com]. They are easy enough to find [usa.gov]. Seriously. If you aren't telling the people that represent you how wrong, awful, and downright unacceptable the NSA actions are they have no reason to stick their neck out to change it.
Nobody is asking you to fight a war, like previous generations of Americans have. Just sign a petition. Write a letter. It is that easy to improve this country. Whether you think that is true or not, remember that an outcry from a small group of people have altered politics before and it can happen again. The only thing preventing this country from getting better is silence.
Re:It should be illegal but isn't, that's the prob (Score:5, Informative)
One you missed:
"Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry." -- Thomas Jefferson
That doesn't really make any sense. I don't think any reasonable... make that any sane person would claim that individual citizens should be able to own nuclear weapons, nor for that matter arrest people and hold them for questioning. I'm not going to call that tyranny.
The "quote" is almost certainly apocryphal even if it is popular in certain political spheres.
Quotation: "Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry." [monticello.org]
Variations: None known.
Earliest known appearance in print: No known appearances in print.[1]
Other attributions: None known.
Status: This quotation has not been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson.
Re:Petition (Score:5, Informative)
Another poster used the word "quisling [wiktionary.org]" to describe those who are falling all over themselves to defend the actions of the US government right now. I think that suits you well. You have been all over these articles in the last few days trying so hard to paint this twisted picture that the US government spying on its own citizens is a good and noble action. Exposing the treachery of our supposed representatives is what makes the United States stronger. Licking boots has never made one stronger.
Re:It should be illegal but isn't, that's the prob (Score:2, Informative)
Moderators: modding down to 0 or -1 is supposed to be trolls and flamebait, not opinions you don't agree with.
Posting AC as I'm moderating. I modded the parent up and it's still at 0. I modded it up despite the fact that I vehemently disagree with everything in it, but it's not a troll or flamebait.
Re:https (Score:3, Informative)
Google is using ECDHE for HTTPS. Unless NSA has been running an incredibly good MITM that nobody has detected and has never once had a single outage or issue, HTTPS to Google has been uncompromised since 2011.
Sadly more people aren't using ECDHE yet, though, so the same can't be said of most sites which could very well have compromised certs. Perhaps this can be used to help push ECDHE more broadly, although I kind of doubt anyone will really care, sadly.