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posted by n1 on Friday May 02 2014, @10:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-actually-good-news dept.

In contrast to the recent story about canadian ISP's colluding with law enforcement to secretly hand over millions of customer records with little to no court supervision, a number of US internet companies have started to either insist on warrants or at least notify users. Credit goes to Snowden for raising general awareness of privacy issues and the EFF for their Who Has Your Back? campaign to report on corporate privacy and transparency policies.

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Canadian Law Enforcement Makes a Request for Telco Subscriber Data Every 27 Seconds 14 comments

Recent ATIP (Access to Information Act) requests for Canadian TSP (telecom sevice provider) privacy data have revealed that, on average, TSPs receive a request from law enforcement for subscriber data every 27 seconds, or about 1 out of every 35 Canadian citizens per year. Given the sheer volume of requests, it is likely that most have no judicial oversight and it also seems that TSPs rarely, if ever, exercise their legal right to deny a request without a warrant.

Even worse, there is legislation currently pending to permit TSPs to secretly disclose the same information to 3rd parties if they are investigating a contractual breach or possible violation of any law. So basically it would be a complete free for all. In true political fashion, the name of the bill proposing this change is the Digital Privacy Act.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday May 02 2014, @11:22PM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday May 02 2014, @11:22PM (#39113) Homepage

    From the article:

    " Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google all are updating their policies to expand routine notification of users about government data seizures, unless specifically gagged by a judge or other legal authority, officials at all four companies said. "

    Everything is a gag-order and rubber-stamped in America nowadays, because national security and state secrets, this is nothing but a ham-handed damage-control P.R. effort by The Big Four. Their contempt is evident in their insulting of your intelligence...or perhaps it speaks volumes of the average intelligence of those who choose to use their products and services.

    Fuck 'em.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by keplr on Friday May 02 2014, @11:39PM

      by keplr (2104) on Friday May 02 2014, @11:39PM (#39116) Journal

      I was hoping someone would mention this. Gag orders are just standard practice now. I wouldn't be surprised if the government is also forcing companies to lie and say that they are not getting requests for data. You simply can't trust an American company or servers on American soil these days. These companies are powerless when the NSA/FBI comes knocking. They're forced with the choice of full compliance or shutting down. The latter option is really only viable for small and independent companies like Lavabit. Apple, Google, MS, Facebook, et al don't have that kind of flexibility.

      --
      I don't respond to ACs.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Friday May 02 2014, @11:46PM

        by TheGratefulNet (659) on Friday May 02 2014, @11:46PM (#39117)

        pretty much, the US just shot itself in the foot this year and last year, in the world's eyes. we try to push this 'cloud stuff' but that means some/all data will be replicated in US systems and those can't be trusted, in the true sense of the word 'trust'.

        and so, we lost the cloud.

        I hope the NSA(etc etc) are happy that they cost US business in the billions of dollars. in fact, I can't even think of how to measure how much we lost due to over-eager spying on, well, pretty much the whole world.

        it should also be stated that the US is just the strongest and most prominent; but each country is on the same track and headed the same way. humans can't be trusted with this much power and we have already shown we will fuck stuff up if we are given half the chance.

        --
        "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
      • (Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Saturday May 03 2014, @12:10AM

        by Horse With Stripes (577) on Saturday May 03 2014, @12:10AM (#39123)

        This is why I don't secure our customers' data at all. Or even their customers' data on our servers. Why should the government be the only one to have it? That's just an unfair advantage as far as we're concerned.

        Our 'Free For All' data access plan is so popular we had to install a 2nd openssl process just to keep up with the heartbleed requests.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 03 2014, @12:31AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 03 2014, @12:31AM (#39129)

        You simply can't trust an American company or servers on American soil these days.

        Is this just a general American slam, or are there other countries that you could trust their companies and servers?

        • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday May 03 2014, @12:46AM

          by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday May 03 2014, @12:46AM (#39133) Homepage

          Many of them trusted their information to that "General American Slam" and realized too lately that the wool had been pulled over their eyes and that they looked stupid for it.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 03 2014, @12:49AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 03 2014, @12:49AM (#39134)

        > I was hoping someone would mention this. Gag orders are just standard practice now.

        Not according to TFA. There is a much more nuanced discussion there than the heavy-handed, aggressively ignorant posts made here so far.

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 03 2014, @02:34AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 03 2014, @02:34AM (#39146)

          TFA is incorrect, a National Security Letter(NSL) is automatically paired with a gag order, I suggest you read up on the Patriot Act and NSL's to understand how things work before saying people are being aggressively ignorant . here's a good place to start, https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-lette rs [eff.org]

          it isn't a slap on the wrist either, it's upto 5 years in jail, possibly longer depending on what else they want to tack on.

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Angry Jesus on Saturday May 03 2014, @04:22AM

            by Angry Jesus (182) on Saturday May 03 2014, @04:22AM (#39152)

            > TFA is incorrect, a National Security Letter(NSL) is automatically paired with a gag order,

            Really, so when the TFA said this:

            "The changing tech company policies do not affect data requests approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which are automatically kept secret by law. National security letters"

            They were incorrect?

            Shame on who ever modded you up. There is a LOT more to the story than just NSL's.

            Aggressively ignorant is spot on.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 03 2014, @06:48PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 03 2014, @06:48PM (#39298)

              you're right there is a lot more to the story than just NSL's, such as the fact that it's nothing more than a glorified puff piece for US companies attempting to save face.

              Fueling the shift is the industry's eagerness to distance itself from the government after last year's disclosures about National Security Agency surveillance of online services. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google all are updating their policies to expand routine notification of users about government data seizures, unless specifically gagged by a judge or other legal authority

              The changing tech company policies do not affect data requests approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which are automatically kept secret by law. National security letters, which are administrative subpoenas issued by the FBI for national security investigations, also carry binding gag orders.

              So if I understand this correctly, They are updating their policy which have nothing to do with the reason they are updating their policy, to appear to be sympathetic to those effected by US policy. absolutely brilliant, but changes nothing.

    • (Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Saturday May 03 2014, @07:24AM

      by AnonTechie (2275) on Saturday May 03 2014, @07:24AM (#39175) Journal

      Now, American Government wants to get access to data stored abroad as well !! This is not going to end well.

      --
      Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 03 2014, @10:22PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 03 2014, @10:22PM (#39334)

        they already can access data stored abroad if the company that owns or operates said data is a US company, that's why the UK and others are rejecting offerings from Microsoft for things like Office365 / Skydrive or whatever its called now.