Should we have the right to know how often the FBI demands information on individuals from companies? LinkedIn and other internet companies have been fighting to reveal how often they give out people’s data to the FBI and other agencies. Not surprisingly the government does not like this idea. The Electronic Frontier Foundation argues “Americans have the right to know how pervasive the FBI’s use of this largely unchecked power has become. Since the first national security letter statute was passed in 1986, the FBI has issued hundreds of thousands of such letters seeking private telecommunications and financial records of Americans without any court approval whatsoever. The broad gag orders prevent recipients from even being able to acknowledge receipt of one—making them ripe for abuse—and the FBI has, on multiple occasions, been excoriated by government watchdogs for exceeding their powers.” Of course I am by default for more information from the government on issues like this but here I don’t see what the benefit is. Do we really need to know the exact number of demands rather than to the nearest thousand? We are not going to be told which individuals have had their details demanded by the FBI (nor should we – but the individual involved probably should) so why does the exact number matter? Can someone tell me what it is I’m missing? https://eff.org/deeplinks/2013/09/linkedin-commendably-fights-surveillance-transparency-court-multiple-fronts idebate.org/blog-post/should-we-have-right-know-how-often-fbi-demands-information-individuals-companies
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 09:32:40 +0000