While surfing today I came across Google's updated policies and what I read was very unsettling to say the least. A quote from one of Google's blog posts,
"In a year in which government surveillance has dominated the headlines, today we’re updating our Transparency Report for the eighth time. Since we began sharing these figures with you in 2010, requests from governments for user information have increased by more than 100 percent. This comes as usage of our services continues to grow, but also as more governments have made requests than ever before. And these numbers only include the requests we’re allowed to publish."
"Over the past three years, we’ve continued to add more details to the report, and we’re doing so again today. We’re including additional information about legal process for U.S. criminal requests: breaking out emergency disclosures, wiretap orders, pen register orders and other court orders.
We want to go even further. We believe it’s your right to know what kinds of requests and how many each government is making of us and other companies. However, the U.S. Department of Justice contends that U.S. law does not allow us to share information about some national security requests that we might receive. Specifically, the U.S. government argues that we cannot share information about the requests we receive (if any) under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But you deserve to know. "
So far America has sent over 80% of the total data requests and under American law Google cannot disclose most of the information being requested or even admit it was requested in the first place. To counteract this Google is asking for support from other countries to put pressure on the US to uphold a fair Digital Due Process system.
google blog post -
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/government-requests-for-user.htmlTransparency Report -
http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/Digital Due Process -
http://digitaldueprocess.org/index.cfm?objectid=37940370-2551-11DF-8E02000C296BA163
