Another Reason to say: "Thank You, Edward Snowden!"

[KoKo]

Consumer Concerns over Govt Spying Fueling Industry Defiance
In the post-Snowden era, companies are now competing for customers based on their ability to protect private information from the government's spying eyes
- Jon Queally, staff writer

Tech companies are becoming increasingly defiant of government orders to deliver customer information and more transparent in terms of informing their users about these requests. (Public domain)In a sign that consumer concerns about the level of government surveillance of electronic media are having an impact on the nation's tech giants, Facebook, Google and many other technology companies are reportedly rethinking and reforming how they respond to government requests for private customer data.

According to the Washington Post on Friday, companies are becoming increasingly defiant of orders to deliver customer information and more transparent in terms of informing their users about these requests.

The Post reports:

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, officials at all four companies said. Yahoo announced similar changes in July.

As this position becomes uniform across the industry, U.S. tech companies will ignore the instructions stamped on the fronts of subpoenas urging them not to alert subjects about data requests, industry lawyers say. Companies that already routinely notify users have found that investigators often drop data demands to avoid having suspects learn of inquiries.

“It serves to chill the unbridled, cost-free collection of data,” said Albert Gidari Jr., a partner at Perkins Coie who represents several technology companies. “And I think that’s a good thing.”

Acknowledging the importance of the revelations made possible by Snowden as well as the work of online civil liberties groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Post describes how the landscape surrounding online privacy has changed dramatically in recent years, but especially since last summer when the first large-scale reporting on NSA spying began.

Experts interviewed by the Post say the changes are being driven by an attempt to fulfill demands by customers that their privacy be protected.

“Post-Snowden, there is a greater desire to compete on privacy,” said Marc Zwillinger, founder of ZwillGen, a Washington-based law firm that has major tech companies as clients. “Companies have had notice policies and cared about these issues for years. It’s only now that it’s being discussed at the CEO level.”

EFF is now preparing the release of its annual "Who Has Your Back?" scorecard, which tracks the privacy policies and performance of the industry's biggest players. "Last year," according to CNET, "neither Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, nor Yahoo got a gold star in the 'Tells users about government data requests' column of the report card, though Twitter and others did."

If the Post's reporting is accurate, it appears that the scorecards this year—despite outstanding concerns about the role these same companies are playing in mass surveillance and the use of "big data" for their own purposes—might show improvement.

https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/02-0

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[JaneyVee]

1. Great. Now who will save us from corporations.

[freshwest]

41. Not the Oathkeepers or Rand Paul. And so it goes... n/t

[L0oniX]

2. ...but but but ...the NSA is there to keep us from revolting against the corporations.

[SidDithers]

3. ...but but but ...it's not about Snowden...nt

Sid

[sheshe2]

4. Until it is~

Hi Sid

[whatchamacallit]

8. Obviously it's only about Snowden for YOU

Irrational hate has blinded you to seeing any possible good from the exposure of NSA crimes. Yeah, it's "all about Snowden" alright.

[sabrina 1]

12. It is about the importance of Whstle Blowers, Snowden being only the latest in a long

line of them since Bush first began the destruction of Americans' Constitutional Rights. And it is a demonstration of how seriously Americans take those rights.

There will most likely more Whistle Blowers until these massively important issues begin to be resolved.

And the recent and growing demand for Whistle Blower protections is yet another demonstration of how we here in America take those Constitutional Rights very, very seriously.

Thanks for weighing in on this most important topic, as always your opinions are welcomed, well, by me at least! :Hi:

[Charlos]

14. The recs continued to pile up after your post

I wonder why your one-liner was unpersuasive.

[Dragonfli]

15. Coming from Sid, that one-liner is practically a thesis

Nearly all of his posts have fewer or no words at all, half his post count consists of nothing but a "." for the subject line and, in the body, and no, I am not exaggerating.

Well, I suppose you could count his favorite sig line (that he changes from time to time) which mentions something about how we should all enjoy enimas as much as he does, if you think we should count a graphic with text photoshopped onto it.

[SidDithers]

22. Wow, seriously?...nt

Sid

[Number23]

40. Yeah, man! 37 now!!

Though in all honesty, Snowden threads have been dropping like flies after a bug bomb. Recs and post counts for those things used to be in the hundreds, now they're doing good to crack 50. Interesting that on this matter, DU is much more aligned with the rest of the nation despite a very loud, very shrill minority that act as though he is the second coming of Jesus. That view is not shared by majorities anywhere else.

The vast majority of people posting in these threads now are his supporters who do nothing but type "WHERE ARE THE SNOWDEN HATERS NOW??!" while wildly scanning the thread for infidels totally oblivious to the irony and unintentional hilarity.

[rhett o rick]

18. Maybe you got confused. Discussions about reforming the NSA are not about Snowden

even though those that support the dictatorial powers of the NSA/CIA/FBI like to use him as a distraction. I hope that helped.

[dionysus]

23. leave the little bebe jesus alone Sid! it was never about him!11!!1!111!1

[Hissyspit]

24. There's a whole bunch of substance in the OP.

Care to address it?

[rhett o rick]

30. Good luck. Why address issues when you simply can give ad hominem comments

and ridicule.

[whatchamacallit]

29. Of course it's about Snowden

for unhinged haters. It's never about anything else. Don't let that stop you from the silly business of projecting your unhealthy obsession.

[Bobbie Jo]

34. lol

Stop crashing the fan club gathering, they seem to take it very personally.

[dionysus]

35. you now must say 7 hail snowdens and 10 praise greenwalds for penance...

[Bobbie Jo]

37. Well

I didn't genuflect before I posted, either.

[hueymahl]

5. But but Snowden BROKE THE LAW

And he likes Russia. And hates America. And is Rand Paul's pool boy! And some thing something something.

Just ask any ProStatism poster.

It truly is amazing to me that people who call themselves liberal, call themselves democrats, call themselves supporters of free speech and freedom, somehow think that what the NSA is doing is OK because team D is in office.

I just DON'T GET IT.

[wolfie001]

10. So right hueymahl!

So many legacy DU posters lecturing about the "newbies" here supporting Snowden and how "naïve" we are. As a 54 year old whose employment career was untethered during the Reagan era, I say f* them and their cavalier, condescending tone. Transparency was one of the major campaign promises that was the first to go right out the window. Snowden is a hero and the Pulitzer to Greenwald was a brave, defiant blow to the NSA and the spying industry.

[sabrina 1]

13. Well, I'm not a newbie and I agree with you. And it really is only a few people here

who support all this surveillance. DU has always been opposed to these Bush policies so don't be fooled by a few loud voices.

[rhett o rick]

17. Now to be fair sabrina, "you can hate Snowden and still want the NSA to be reformed."

That's the current meme. Of course I'd be interested in their definition of "reformed".

[grasswire]

26. yes, I enjoyed seeing that meme pop up.

I wonder what brainiac in the home office constructed that one.

[sabrina 1]

28. Lol, okay, I suppose you could waste your time hating Whistle Blowers and still 'fight'

for your rights. Wait, how do you do that? You join the attacks on Whistle Blowers from those they expose. That would seem to me to make it impossible to 'fight' against the policies they expose.

Sometimes my head spins with all the obfuscations, excuses, defenses etc. It is so easy to simply stand up for what you always claimed to stand up for. Which is why I'm glad I do!

[rhett o rick]

32. "Sometimes my head spins with all the obfuscations, excuses, defenses etc."

I think that's their objective. And I'm pretty sure they really want the NSA reformed. You never see them in the "Let's Reform the NSA" threads.

[HooptieWagon]

11. Its the Teen Beat chapter of the Obama Fan Club.

No worries, in a couple years they'll resume worshipping Justin Bieber.

[A Simple Game]

19. They think they are being patriotic, but...

you can't be patriotic if you put party before country and that's what they are doing.

[stonecutter357]

6. drip drip drip

I use my phone for a GPS and to find good places to eat so my phone knows where i am all the time.

[840high]

7. Yes.

[sabrina 1]

9. Well, it IS an acknowledgement of how important Snowden's revelations were. But this could just

be an attempt to regain the trust they need to keep their profits coming. They DID collaborate and it will take a very long time for any trust to be restored. However all these things could lead to strong legislation, in the future, world wide to reign in the abusers and restore here the rule of law regarding people's Constitutional Rights.

They must be getting huge reaction to all of this though for them to even acknowledge the complaints.

[Helen Borg]

16. The problem is...

They can say whatever they want. How do I or you verify anything of what they say? We cannot. Unless there is a method for us to find out when our encrypted message has been read by a non-intended entity, we will never know.

[rhett o rick]

20. Just drink the kool-aid. I here the cherry is the best. nm

[randome]

21. Oh, that's simply grand, you know?

A valid warrant comes to an IT company to turn over child porn images and the IT company refuses to comply! Thank you, Eddie!
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A 90% chance of rain means the same as a 10% chance:
It might rain and it might not.[/center][/font][hr]

[Hissyspit]

25. The "who'll think of the children!!" argument? Really?

I imagine in the case of a "valid" warrant involving child porn things will get worked out, these issues were in play since the beginning of the Internet.

[randome]

27. I believe most warrants of this nature don't specify what they're looking for.

That would be making a very public accusation. So yes, when a judge approves a warrant, a company should be good enough with it to not second-guess law enforcement.

Believing otherwise makes corporations defacto -and unaccountable- law enforcement entities in their own right.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A 90% chance of rain means the same as a 10% chance:
It might rain and it might not.[/center][/font][hr]

[rhett o rick]

33. Agree a dictatorship is so much easier for the government to do the right thing. Freedom

is messy.

[randome]

36. Um...what?

Do you not agree than in the 230+ years of this country's existence, going through judicial channels has been the norm? And that this is better than letting corporations decide on whether or not someone is a suspect?

Applauding a corporate decision to over-rule the judicial branch is insane on the face of it.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A 90% chance of rain means the same as a 10% chance:
It might rain and it might not.[/center][/font][hr]

[Fred Drum]

39. I believe you are wrong

A general warrant refers to a warrant providing a law-enforcement officer with broad discretion or authority to search and seize unspecified places or persons. A general warrant lacks a sufficiently particularized description of the person or thing to be seized or the place to be searched. General warrants are unconstitutional because they do not meet the Fourth Amendment's specificity

[sabrina 1]

31. Good for EFF. THIS is what is needed, holding their bottom line accountable:

EFF is now preparing the release of its annual "Who Has Your Back?" scorecard, which tracks the privacy policies and performance of the industry's biggest players. "Last year," according to CNET, "neither Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, nor Yahoo got a gold star in the 'Tells users about government data requests' column of the report card, though Twitter and others did."

If the Post's reporting is accurate, it appears that the scorecards this year—despite outstanding concerns about the role these same companies are playing in mass surveillance and the use of "big data" for their own purposes—might show improvement.

I hope more influential organizations start doing this. Even on an individual level people can help. Eg, I called our phone provider, Verizon, after the Snowden leaks and asked them why they were handing over my 'data' to the Government without my knowledge, AND if a warrant was issued, what was the PROBABLE CAUSE' presented to this 'secret court' that made a warrant for MY data, valid? 'No warrant shall be issued without probable cause'!

The Rep DENIED they had handed over any data. I guess someone was lying, but in a way I kind of liked her denial, it told me she KNEW it would be wrong.

So I think each year an organized blitz of calls and emails from consumers asking IF their providers are still providing their 'data' to the government without their knowledge would let them know that now WE are WATCHING THEM.

What could be a result of this is ads from big providers stating 'WE work for YOU, we will NOT hand over your data to the Govt without a clear, valid warrant showing PROBABLE CAUSE of wrong doing from a Reputable Court, not from any secret court'.

What a great marketing point that would be for a corporation now.

But this is GOOD NEWS that the Corps are getting the message from the people 'We DO care about our rights and won't do business with any Corp that violates them'.

[Agony]

38. Thank You, Edward Snowden!

say it loud, say it often