Microsoft follows Google in legal fight to disclose government FISA requests - gottsawspuld

Microsoft is seeking permission to divulge "collective statistics" about the number of requests for information it receives under the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, following a similar strike by Google earlier this calendar month.

FISA has been thrust into the national spotlight after leaks about the U.S. government's Optical prism surveillance program, which reportedly provides the National Security Delegacy with direct access to customer information stored by Microsoft, Facebook, Google and other big technology companies.

Currently, online firms can reveal how many FISA requests they incur only if they lout them together with all other requests from U.S. law enforcement agencies. That obscures the number of FISA requests those companies receive, so Microsoft, like Google before it, has asked for permission to break the numbers out. The FISA Amendments Act (FAA) is the police under which Prism's data compendium is carried out.

"To promote additional transparency concerning the government's lawful access to Microsoft's customer information, Microsoft seeks to report aggregate data about FISA orders and FAA directives separately from all another local, state and federal law enforcement demands," Microsoft's lawyers wrote in a motility filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Its end is partly to correct the impression that IT provides the government direct access to customer data in its servers, something that has led to unfavorable judgment of Microsoft and other online firms.

"Microsoft has sought—and continues to try out—to counterbalance the misimpression, furthered by such inaccurate media reportage, that information technology provides the U.S. government with direct accession to its servers and web infrastructure and, thereby, at random discloses Microsoft users' information to the government," Microsoft's attorneys wrote.

Microsoft has not received license from the FBI or the Department of Justice to disclose additional figures connate FISA requests in the aggregated, simply "there is no act ground below FISA or the FAA for precluding Microsoft from disclosing the sum data," the company aforesaid.

Prohibiting such a disclosure, Microsoft argues, violates its Prototypical Amendment right to free speech.

Companies care Facebook, Google and Twitter have also titled for greater transparency in disclosure of user data tied to government requests in the wake of Prism's revelations.

Yahoo, for instance, has disclosed the unconditional keep down of law enforcement requests it receives for customer data, but it likewise is ineffectual to offer greater transparency around FISA requests specifically.

Facebook has successful some requests public in modern weeks, simply was still criticized by others for not distinguishing between criminal and security info requests.

Microsoft disclosed its figures for the total number of requests it receives for client selective information happening June 14. For the last six months of 2012, the party received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts from U.S. governmental entities, Microsoft reported in a recent blog post.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/452638/microsoft-asks-to-disclose-fisa-requests-to-set-the-record-straight.html

Posted by: gottsawspuld.blogspot.com

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