The Government Is Still Trying to Spy on a Lot of Your Twitter and Google Data
Rebecca Greenfield 4,319 ViewsJan 28,2013
On the occasion of Data Privacy Day, Twitter has released its second
biannual Transparency Report and - what do you know? - Twitter is
still giving away more user information requested by the U.S.
government than ever, and without a warrant. It's the continuation of a
frightening trend that's as frightening as it is growing; as the likes of
Google and Twitter tell us more about how we're being spied on, we're
still not sure how much of our data the government's actually getting
back.
According to Twitter's data - housed on a new dedicated site but
focusing on information requested from the government rather than
granted by the site - in the last six months more than 80 percent of
the U.S. government's asks on user data came without a warrant:
Pen;entag&
User where Userl Court Search
Country Information 30m~orall Accounts $ubJloenas OrdeR Warrants Oth&rs
Re.qu~sts infonnatlon Specifled
pmduced
United States 815 69% 1145 60% 1% 19% 10%
http://www.theatlanticwire.comltechnology/... 2/5/2013
The Government Is Still Trying to Spy on a Lot of Your Twitter and Google Data - Techn... Page 2 of 3
According to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, authorities
only need a warrant for electronic communications that are six months
old or newer. For everything else, including IP and email addresses,
a subpoena, which doesn't involve a judge at all, will still suffice as far
as the law is concerned. It's hard to tell if the warrantless search
number represents an increase from six months ago, when Twitter put
out its first transparency report. The company didn't break down the
types of requests last year when looking into its media-sharing
numbers. But it did get more overall notices from the government in
the last six months, with 815 total requests in the last six months,
compared to the 679 Twitter got in the first half of 2012.
Google, too, has seen an uptick in government requests, including a
number of warrantless searches. Its transparency report from last
week reported a total 21 ,389 requests for information, 68 percent of
which were subpoenas. This was also the first time Google broke
down government info requests by type, so the warrantless-request
uptick remains difficult to measure. But, again, the overall notices
increased from 20,938 government requests in Google's 2011 report.
U.S. officials are asking for more of what we're doing from more of our
daily Internet activities - and more often than not, they're doing so
without getting a court's permission. The privacy act is part of that, and
so is a growing database of government eyes. Google, however, is
hoping to change that. The search giant has increased its lobbying
efforts to get the outdated privacy changed, reports Bloomberg's Eric
Engleman. In 2012, Google spent $16.5 million on lobbying, up from
$9.7 million the year before. This year, the Senate will vote on an
updated version of the ECPA that requires a warrant for all email and
private communication stored over the cloud. Google is in talks with
other advocacy groups to creating a coalition to get those reforms
passed, a Google spokesman told Bloomberg.
Want to add to this story? Let usknow in comments or send an email
to the author at rgreenfield@theatlantic.com. You can share ideas for
stories on the Open Wire.
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On the occasion of Data Privacy Day, Twitter has released its second
biannual Transparency Report and - what do you know? - Twitter is
still giving away more user information requested by the U.S.
government than ever, and without a warrant. It's the continuation of a
frightening trend that's as frightening as it is growing; as the likes of
Google and Twitter tell us more about how we're being spied on, we're
still not sure how much of our data the government's actually getting
back.
According to Twitter's data - housed on a new dedicated site but
focusing on information requested from the government rather than
granted by the site - in the last six months more than 80 percent of
the U.S. government's asks on user data came without a warrant:
Pen;entag&
User where Userl Court Search
Country Information 30m~orall Accounts $ubJloenas OrdeR Warrants Oth&rs
Re.qu~sts infonnatlon Specifled
pmduced
United States 815 69% 1145 60% 1% 19% 10%
http://www.theatlanticwire.comltechnology/... 2/5/2013
The Government Is Still Trying to Spy on a Lot of Your Twitter and Google Data - Techn... Page 2 of 3
According to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, authorities
only need a warrant for electronic communications that are six months
old or newer. For everything else, including IP and email addresses,
a subpoena, which doesn't involve a judge at all, will still suffice as far
as the law is concerned. It's hard to tell if the warrantless search
number represents an increase from six months ago, when Twitter put
out its first transparency report. The company didn't break down the
types of requests last year when looking into its media-sharing
numbers. But it did get more overall notices from the government in
the last six months, with 815 total requests in the last six months,
compared to the 679 Twitter got in the first half of 2012.
Google, too, has seen an uptick in government requests, including a
number of warrantless searches. Its transparency report from last
week reported a total 21 ,389 requests for information, 68 percent of
which were subpoenas. This was also the first time Google broke
down government info requests by type, so the warrantless-request
uptick remains difficult to measure. But, again, the overall notices
increased from 20,938 government requests in Google's 2011 report.
U.S. officials are asking for more of what we're doing from more of our
daily Internet activities - and more often than not, they're doing so
without getting a court's permission. The privacy act is part of that, and
so is a growing database of government eyes. Google, however, is
hoping to change that. The search giant has increased its lobbying
efforts to get the outdated privacy changed, reports Bloomberg's Eric
Engleman. In 2012, Google spent $16.5 million on lobbying, up from
$9.7 million the year before. This year, the Senate will vote on an
updated version of the ECPA that requires a warrant for all email and
private communication stored over the cloud. Google is in talks with
other advocacy groups to creating a coalition to get those reforms
passed, a Google spokesman told Bloomberg.
Want to add to this story? Let usknow in comments or send an email
to the author at rgreenfield@theatlantic.com. You can share ideas for
stories on the Open Wire.
More at The Atlantic Wire
Why Tina Turner
Won't Be an
American Citizen
Anymore
Forget the Flu: The
Norovirus Is Taking
Over America
Why 'Zero Dark
Thirty' Crashed
Just Outside the
Compound
Elsewhere on the Web
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/... 2/5/2013
