DOJ Rejects Transparency Request by Microsoft, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn

Last week the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the primary federal criminal investigation and enforcement agency in the U.S., rejected a request made by Microsoft, Google, Facebook and LinkedIn to be allowed to share more details on what data the companies are providing to the U.S. government. The rejection was made in the name of national security and filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court (FISCA).

The DOJ's petition to FISCA claims:

The companies’ contemplated disclosures risk significant harm to national security by revealing the nature and scope of the government’s intelligence collection on a company-by-company basis throughout the country. 

Such information would be invaluable to our adversaries, who could thereby derive a clear picture of where the government’s surveillance efforts are directed and how its surveillance activities change over time. If our adversaries know which platforms the government does not surveil, they can communicate over those platforms when, for example, planning a terrorist attack or the theft of state secrets.

FISCA now needs to rule on this.

There is more - other tech people (Twitter, Apple, Tumblr, Yahoo, etc) are getting involved with 72 companies and non-profit organizations signing a letter on September 20, 2013 to the U.S. Senate and House Judiciary Committee chairs supporting two surveillance bills (S. 1452 and H.R. 3035) currently moving though the Senate and the House of Representatives. Here's the full titles of those bills:

S.1452 - To permit periodic public reporting by electronic communications providers and remote computer service providers of certain estimates pertaining to requests or demands by Federal agencies under the provisions of certain surveillance laws where disclosure of such estimates is, or may be, otherwise prohibited by law. 

H.R. 3035 - To permit periodic public reporting by electronic communications providers and remote computer service providers of certain estimates pertaining to requests or demands by Federal agencies under the provisions of certain surveillance laws where disclosure of such estimates is, or may be, otherwise prohibited by law.