Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and many other companies have signed a letter to the United States Congress supporting a bill to disclose details about government requests for classified information. Under the bill, companies would have the option to disclose when and how often they receive national security requests to hand over personal data to the government.
In the wake of the PRISM scandal , companies are under intense pressure to be more transparent with their users. The argument is that failing to disclose the number of requests they receive from the government is inconsistent with the right to free speech. This is not the first time such a letter has been created, however, as in mid-July Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and 59 other technology companies, non-profit organizations and investors joined forces to demand full transparency into the government's surveillance practices.
It should be noted, however, that although the companies are requesting the right to publish the exact number of applications they receive, the bill does not provide for this. Instead, it allows for mixed estimates of hundreds of applications divided into categories (again in hundreds) without specifying the rounding to any specific number. However, if the applications do not exceed 500 in a given period of time, they cannot be more specific than that. Considering that the companies have stated that they do not receive a large number of applications, we do not know whether lifting this restriction will be useful.
The bill is still under consideration by a special committee.
Source: techgear.gr
