Category: PRISM

Last Friday, Facebook confirmed that it has released data related to national security requested by law enforcement agencies.

A statement by Ted Ullyot, Facebook General Counsel revealed that “For the six months ending December 31, 2012, the total number of user-data requests Facebook received from any and all government entities in the U.S. (including local, state, and federal, and including criminal and national security-related requests) – was between 9,000 and 10,000. These requests run the gamut – from things like a local sheriff trying to find a missing child, to a federal marshal tracking a fugitive, to a police department investigating an assault, to a national security official investigating a terrorist threat. The total number of Facebook user accounts for which data was requested pursuant to the entirety of those 9-10 thousand requests was between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts.”

“With more than 1.1 billion monthly active users worldwide, this means that a tiny fraction of one percent of our user accounts were the subject of any kind of U.S. state, local, or federal U.S. government request (including criminal and national security-related requests) in the past six months. “

Facebook said,”Requests from law enforcement entities investigating national security-related cases are by their nature classified and highly sensitive, and the law traditionally has placed significant constraints on the ability of companies like Facebook to even confirm or acknowledge receipt of these requests – let alone provide details of our responses.”

They assured that they don’t release data indiscriminately. “We’ve reiterated in recent days that we scrutinize every government data request that we receive – whether from state, local, federal, or foreign governments. We’ve also made clear that we aggressively protect our users’ data when confronted with such requests: we frequently reject such requests outright, or require the government to substantially scale down its requests, or simply give the government much less data than it has requested. And we respond only as required by law,” the statement said.

For Facebook users, it’s a good reason to be discriminating with one’s posts.

The concern over FB’s release of information about their members comes after the Snowden expose.

Early this month, American Edward Joseph Snowden, 29 years old, shared with the UK-based Guardian and The Washington Post, classified material on top-secret National Security Agency programs including the PRISM surveillance program and orders under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Snowden had access to those materials as an infrastructure analyst for NSA in Hawaii under Booz Allen Hamilton, a strategy and technology consulting firm.

Before that he was “systems engineer, systems administrator, senior adviser for the Central Intelligence Agency, solutions consultant, and a telecommunications informations system officer.”

PRISM, according to reports that were not denied by the US government, provides the NSA and FBI with the ability to siphon data directly from the servers of major Internet companies such as Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

Snowden is currently in Hongkong and is resisting extradition requested by US authorities.

Snowden said his intention in exposing PRISM was not to destroy the US.”If I had just wanted to harm the US? You could shut down the surveillance system in an afternoon,” he said in the interview with The Guardian.

“I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded..The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to … My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them,” he said.

Snowden fears that “Some new and unpredicted threat, we need more authority, we need more power.’ And there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it. And it will be turnkey tyranny.”