[governance] Fwd: PRISM - is it about the territorial location of data or its legal ownership

[Declan McCullagh]

On Monday, June 24, 2013 at 2:13 PM, Ian Peter wrote:
> I think one point here is whether any of the companies actually challenged in court any of the rulings or requests for data, and to my knowledge they did not. This suggests that either they were too scared of the government to challenge the rulings, or they were in political agreement with them.


The fact that you're unaware of the companies challenging these requests in court should not lead you to -- falsely -- assume they have not.

I disclosed* last month, pre-NSA spying flap, that Google is litigating two cases against the U.S. government, one in NYC and one in SF, over national security requests. Google has additionally since squared off against the DOJ before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Yahoo also mounted** a legal challenge before the FISC. Google, Yahoo, Facebook (from memory) have insisted the police get warrants for archived email, even though the law does not require police to do so. When DOJ sent Google a subpoena for search logs, Google fought it in court. These companies are lobbying Congress to enact a law to increase privacy standards, including mobile privacy.

Twitter successfully fought for the ability to notify the Wikileaks crew of an order it received, who then fought it in court with the help of EFF and ACLU. Facebook fought the state of Virginia. Amazon.com fought the DOJ in court in Wisconsin and fought the North Carolina tax collectors in court in Seattle.

This is the opposite of the approach taken by telecommunications providers including AT&T and Verizon.***

None of this information is difficult to find. Would you like it if someone said: "To my knowledge you haven't denied being a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan. This suggests you are in political agreement with them?" :)

-Declan

---

* http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57587005-38/justice-department-tries-to-force-google-to-hand-over-user-data/
** http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/technology/secret-court-ruling-put-tech-companies-in-data-bind.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0
*** http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589012-38/nsa-surveillance-retrospective-at-t-verizon-never-denied-it/



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