Google Hits Back At U.S. Snooping | ET | NSA secret data gathering 'transparent': Obama

Google Thinks It's Its First Amendment Right To Publish Info On FISA Requests

Google is taking its fight for transparency and image rehabilitation one step further in the wake of the revelation that the government is collecting people's digital data in a sweeping program called PRISM.

The Washington Post reported late Tuesday that Google is preparing to challenge a clandestine court's long-standing gag order over publishing the number of data requests the National Security Agency makes to collect emails, photos and other files people send over the Internet.

Though Google has published transparency reports since 2009, the company has long thought the current level of transparency doesn't go far enough. Earlier this year, Google won the right to tell the public the number of times it was sent "national security letters," or the federal requests to look at Americans' "metadata" (like who emailed whom) but not the files themselves (what the email said).

Under pressure, the federal government last week gave major Internet companies permission to publish the numbers of requests authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to gather online correspondence, but only if that data was coupled with other requests made by local authorities. At the time, Google sent a letter to the FBI and Attorney General Eric Holder asking for permission to disclose more.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/18/google-fisa-first-amendment_n_3461572.html

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NSA secret data gathering 'transparent': Obama

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama
defended top secret National Security Agency spying programs as legal in a lengthy interview, and called them transparent - even though they are authorized in secret.

"It is transparent," Obama told Public Broadcasting Service's Charlie Rose in an interview broadcast late Monday. "That's why we set up the FISA court," he added, referring to the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that authorizes two recently leaked programs: one that gathers US phone records and another that is designed to track the use of US-based Internet servers by foreigners with possible links to terrorism.

Obama added that he has set up a privacy and civil liberties oversight board to help in the debate over just how far government data gathering should be allowed to go - a discussion that is complicated by the secrecy surrounding the FISA court, with hearings held at undisclosed locations and with only government lawyers present. The orders that result are all highly classified.