Google – AFP, 18 June 2013
|
The Yahoo
logo is displayed in front of the company's headquarters on
July 17, 2012 in
Sunnyvale, California (Getty Images/AFP/File, Justin
Sullivan)
|
WASHINGTON
— Internet giant Yahoo! said in a letter to users that it has received up to
13,000 requests for information from US law enforcement agencies in a six-month
period ending May 31.
The letter
titled "Our Commitment to Our Users' Privacy" was posted on the
company's Tumblr page late Monday, and was signed by Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer
and the company's top lawyer, Ron Bell.
Yahoo!,
along with Facebook, Microsoft and Apple, have come under heightened scrutiny
since word leaked of a vast, covert Internet surveillance program by the US
government, which it insists targets only foreign terror suspects and has
helped thwart attacks.
Between
December 1, 2012 and May 31, 2013 "we received between 12,000 and 13,000
requests, inclusive of criminal, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA),
and other requests."
According
to the letter, the most common requests "concerned fraud, homicides,
kidnappings, and other criminal investigations."
"Like
all companies, Yahoo! cannot lawfully break out FISA [US Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act] request numbers at this time because those numbers are
classified; however, we strongly urge the federal government to reconsider its
stance on this issue."
Major
Internet firms have faced a public backlash since government contractor Edward
Snowden leaked details of PRISM, a vast program that saw nine high-tech
companies turn over user data to the US National Security Agency.
The
companies have denied claims the NSA could directly access their servers. US
authorities have said the program was legal and limited.
Yahoo! said
that it will issue in the next months "our first global law enforcement
transparency report, which will cover the first half of the year. We will
refresh this report with current statistics twice a year."
Snowden's
leaks have reignited debate over the trade-offs between privacy and security
more than a decade after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United
States.
Related Articles:
No comments:
Post a Comment