Apple Reveals How Authorities Nibbled Into Customers' Private Information
NEW YORK — Apple says it received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement for customer data for the six months ended in May.
The company, like some other businesses, had asked the U.S government to be able to share how many requests it received related to national security and how it handled them. Those requests were made as part of Prism, the recently revealed highly classified National Security Agency program that seizes records from Internet companies.
Prism appears to do what its name suggests. Like a triangular piece of glass, Prism takes large beams of data and helps the government find discrete, manageable strands of information.
Prism was revealed this month by The Washington Post and Guardian newspapers, and has touched off the latest round in a decade-long debate over what limits to impose on government eavesdropping, which the Obama administration says is essential to keep the nation safe.
Apple Inc. said that between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in data requests between Dec. 1, 2012, and May 31 from federal, state and local authorities and included both criminal investigations and national security matters.
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Yahoo Was Reportedly Forced To Join PRISM By A Secret Court
Yahoo fought PRISM, and PRISM won.
Court records obtained by The New York Times show that Yahoo had fought back against the National Security Agency's broad requests for user data in 2008. The company, which provides email service to hundreds of millions of people, argued that the order violated Yahoo account holders' constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizures. The secret court didn't buy Yahoo's argument, and compelled the company to give the NSA digitally stored email and photos at its beck and call.
Since the bombshell revelation of NSA's so-called PRISM program last week, the public has learned more about how the nine participating Internet companies let the government collect broad swaths of personal information from Internet users for national security purposes. The secret 2008 decision seemed to put a dark cloud over Silicon Valley: cooperate with the government to fight terrorism abroad, or you'll find yourself in court.
One firm that more successfully resisted the NSA's advances was Twitter. That's partially because the young microblogging service has less data on users compared to Google or Facebook, according to The Verge, so it's less desirable to government snoops. But that hasn't stopped the company and its top lawyer, Alex Macgillivray, from fighting the government in court when it has asked for people's private information.
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