Comment by lawnchair_larry | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lawnchair_larry | Hacker News Reader

lawnchair_larry

It sounds like this employee was not even aware that Google's "Transparency Report" specifically does not include the number of FISA orders that they have received:

"Update 2013-06-07: at the time that we wrote this post, we asked Google whether its Transparency Report included data about secret FISA court orders that would send data to the NSA. The response we received was extremely vague, but seemed to possibly be "no". In the wake of yesterday's revelations that the NSA was harvesting data from Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, Facebook, AOL, PalTalk, Skype, Youtube and Apple, Google has now clearly confirmed that the numbers in its Transparency Report do not include the number of orders or targets for NSA surveillance."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/new-statistics-about-n...

This is especially interesting, because it means Google has acknowledged the distinction between NSLs, which include a gag order, and some other even more secret directive, which services NSA surveillance.

It's also worth noting that if Google was willingly supplying anything PRISM-like, this employee would not be allowed to know without a Top Secret clearance. Any Google employees who do have such clearance face the threat of prison if they tell him or anyone else.

> It sounds like this employee was not even aware that Google's "Transparency Report" specifically does not include the number of FISA orders that they have received

Are you concluding that from this statement?

> "I'm not sure what the details of this PRISM program are, but I can tell you that the only way in which Google reveals information about users are when we receive lawful, specific orders about individuals -- things like search warrants. And we continue to stand firm against any attempts to do so broadly or without genuine, individualized suspicion, and publicize the results as much as possible in our Transparency Report."

He may be ignorant of that fact...however, that last statement, "as much as possible", would cover that. However, his assertion that "the only way in which Google reveals information about users are when we receive lawful, specific orders about individuals" would still cover FISA, because FISA, as far as we know, is specifically for the targeted surveillance of individuals.

Moreover, FISA, as it applies to Americans, requires a court-approved warrant for that surveillance. So again, what the OP is claiming is non-contradictory, because FISA requests are both legal actions that target individuals that go through an approval process.

This is entirely different than what PRISM is alleged to be, which, well, we don't know exactly what it is, but involves the warrantless surveillance of Internet usage with the collaboration of Internet companies...currently, Google is outright denying being a part of that.

Some relevant links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellige...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/30/obama-fisa-warrantl...

Also worth noting, national security letters, which Google does oppose, are controversial because, among other things, they do not require a warrant. This is not the case with FISA and American citizens.

Ah, you are right on the PRISM distinction, I mixed up details with the "metadata" thing, which I'm sure is not accidental. A lot of the responses from government officials are to the effect of "these aren't a concern, because to get the metadata we need to go through FISA courts for every individual", which is just a red herring now.

So, there are:

1. NSLs, published on the transparency report

2. FISA orders, which are "through a court", but is by all accounts just rubber stamping, not on the transparency report

3. PRISM, which is intended to bypass FISA entirely, according to the Guardian article. Either Google is lying, the NSA is doing it without Google's knowledge, or there is subtle wordplay involved (so, lying). Or, that it's been grossly misreported.

He said "as much as possible".

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