The Obama administration says it will allow Internet companies to give customers a better idea of how often the government demands their information, but will not allow companies to disclose what is being collected or how much.The new rules — which have prompted Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook to drop their respective lawsuits before the nation’s secret surveillance court — also contain a provision that bars start-ups from revealing information about government requests for two years.
www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/business/government-to-allow-technology-companies-to-disclose-more-data-on-surveillance-requests.htmlAlso see:U.S. frees tech companies to give more spying data
U.S. technology companies may give the public and their customers more detail about the court orders they receive related to surveillance under an agreement they reached on Monday with the Obama administration.Companies such as Google Inc and Microsoft Corp have been prohibited from disclosing even an approximate number of orders they received from the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. They could give only an aggregate number of U.S. demands that combined surveillance court orders, letters from the FBI, subpoenas in run-of-the-mill criminal cases and other requests.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/28/uk-usa-security-data-idUKBREA0Q1O720140128
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/01/28/usa-security-data-idINDEEA0Q0LQ20140128
U.S. Relaxes Some Data Disclosure Rules
The Obama administration says it will allow Internet companies to give customers a better idea of how often the government demands their information, but will not allow companies to disclose what is being collected or how much.