
Facebook Releases Data, Including All National Security Requests - erict15
https://newsroom.fb.com/News/636/Facebook-Releases-Data-Including-All-National-Security-Requests
======
coreyja
I may be part of the minority here, but I have/see no reason to believe the
Facebook is lying about these numbers, or lying about the fact they actually
check every request, and don't have a NSA backdoor. If I am correct, they only
thing that shows Facebook has given the NSA/government agency access to their
servers is a leaked PowerPoint presentation. I believe it is more than likely
that one of the following two options is true. (1) The PowerPoint is just
wrong, and was made it up someone working for a government contractor. (2) The
PowerPoint is inaccurate in that these corporations have complied with the
government, when asked to and required by law too, through the use of
warrants, both secret and otherwise.

Personally I think option 2 is the most likely scenario. Facebook (and Google
and most of the other named corporations) have done nothing to lose my trust
in them. The only party that at this time, I know is to blame is the
NSA/government for conducting a cloaked surveillance operation on the entire
US population. Until there is proof, or a reasonable argument, showing that
these corporations willingly complies with the NSA and were a part of PRISM, I
don't think they have lost any substantial part of my trust.

~~~
moxie
The problem is that before these leaks, the Director of National Intelligence
was asked point-blank in a congressional hearing whether or not the NSA was
conducting surveillance on Americans, and he unequivocally said no. Given that
history, I think it's prudent to approach the veracity of further denials with
caution.

It's true that Facebook is not the US government, so perhaps we should be less
hesitant about the claims _they_ make. However, Facebook does have a history
in this area that gives me some pause. Their former CSO was Max Kelly, who is
ex-FBI, and would give talks about shit like the need for "uniting" military
and commercial "cyber defense." So to the extent that we're dependent on
Facebook's internal narrative to determine how they respond to the US
government, my sense is that at Facebook, much of that narrative was set by
someone who is largely sympathetic to government cooperation.

I think you're correct in pointing out that the NSA is ultimately to blame.
However, I think we should acknowledge that while companies like Facebook
obviously do not have malicious intent, they are still in the surveillance
business. What they are building does have some inherent danger, and will
continue to attract the interest of the US government, foreign governments,
and attackers.

~~~
iamdave
I wish I saw more people hammering home the point you made in the first
paragraph. Too many people are looking for ways around discussing what is just
as an important piece of this puzzle as the leak itself: The director of
National Intelligence _lied to the Senate_. To their faces, through his teeth,
on camera, in front of the American people.

I'm in the camp that Senator Wyden asked the question in such a way because he
_knew_ what the answer was going into the thing.

At this point, you need to start looking at everyone as a suspect. It's an
uncomfortable notion, we might not like it, but it's a reality pill ya gotta
swallow.

~~~
gasull
And also Obama promised no surveillance before winning the first election. It
took him weeks to change his mind.

~~~
iamdave
I'm sure it's all shrouded in "classified" and "top secret" tape, but I'm
intensely curious to know what President Obama knows that Candidate Obama
doesn't.

Maybe it's the same thing all presidents learn their first couple of months in
office. Maybe it's a memo that gets placed on the desk in the Oval Office by
some shadowy figure. Whatever the case, the honeymoon is over, folks.

~~~
Amadou
I suspect that it was much like the "too big to fail" scandal. President Obama
was new to the game and let the people who said they knew what they were doing
run the show. On one hand he's got the feel-good speeches he made as a
candidate and on the other hand he's got agencies and contractors with
billions of dollars of budget on the line all pushing as hard as they can to
justify their existence and their budgets. The inertia alone was probably
impossible to defeat given how divided his focus was (the economic collapse
and the two years of obamacare politics come to mind).

------
geuis
You can't believe anything these companies say. If they are ordered to
misreport info to the public, they will. Remember that companies are not
monolithic things. They are made of people, and if anyone or a group try to
make a stand they will be hunted down. It's easier to follow along than be
honest.

Personally, I won't trust any of these companies until the entire Homeland
security dept is dismantled and its component agencies restored to their
pre-9/11 statuses.

And although the TSA is not directly part of this spying issue, they need to
go away as well. It's all part of the same shadowy cabal and its time for a
clean slate.

I'm not against the principles of the FBI and NSA. They do a lot of good work.
But there's too much dry brush and weeds cluttering up their mandates and it
needs to be burned out.

~~~
kevando
And it's very easy to release misleading statements like this. It's great to
know about all the "user data requests" from law enforcement, but they mention
nothing about the allegation that NSA didn't need to submit these requests.

~~~
discostrings
If there's slipperiness in this statement, I think it's probably in the use of
the term "user data requests".

>The total number of Facebook user accounts for which data was requested
pursuant to the entirety of those 9-10 thousand [ _user data_ ] requests was
between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts.

Is a "user data request" a request for data about a specific user? Would the
request "give us the names and birthdays of everyone that has searched for
'discontent with government'" constitute a user data request? Or would that be
a "search term request"?

I'm not sure I think this is slippery language, but there's definitely room
for that interpretation.

~~~
startswithaj
If there is slipperyness it's the fact that the guy who wrote this and is
Facebook General Counsel, Ted Ullyot, use to be G.W Bush's right hand man.

~~~
mpyne
If character assassination is wrong when they do it to Snowden, why is it
right when you do it to Ullyot? Did he lie or did he not?

~~~
pyre
I don't view it as character assassination so much as suspicion by
association. He was part of the group (Bush + Obama Administrations) that
pushed for these programs. It makes him _more_ suspect to be lying than a
random person. It's not proof of a lie, just reason for scepticism (grain of
salt and all that).

The stuff about Snowden doesn't even make any sense. The fact that he's a high
school drop-out doesn't matter. Some people who drop out of high school have a
lower intelligence, but that doesn't imply the Snowden does. The fact that he
worked for the CIA, the NSA, and as a NSA contractor actually implies that he
is either intelligent or the CIA/NSA are incompetent. Even _if_ Snowden was of
lower intelligence, it would imply that there is less likelihood that the
documents are elaborate fakes, and more likely to the be the real deal.

------
skwirl
A great deal of the comments here border on being ridiculous conspiracy
theories. I know that when it was "revealed" to us that the NSA had direct
access to Facebook, it was a green light for many to share their formerly
private conspiracy theories as if they were now completely validated. With the
revealed claims being bogus, the "validated" conspiracy theories are once
again naked.

Of course, it comes as no surprise that when the sensationalized Greenwald
claims were walked back we'd hear that it was all a cover-up and the NSA is
threatening to throw Zuckerberg in jail and drone strike Snowden, etc. There
is literally nothing that could possibly happen that would convince some
people that Greenwald was full of shit.

------
peterjancelis
I hope Edward Snowden sees this. He and Glenn Greenwald should be proud.

The economics of surveillance have now changed because it comes with
reputation effects on US based companies.

~~~
ihsw
That's a massive load of shit, the 'economics of surveillance' is a drop in a
_very_ large bucket.

Most people don't give a shit about surveillance and half the people that do
care think it's great.

This blog post is damage control to avoid getting banned across the world
since it's become painfully clear that Facebook is inseparable from the US
Government.

~~~
gwgarry
Most people don't give a shit because it does not effect them. If we can show
them that it does effect them, their opinions will change. And it does effect
everyone, because if you have to worry about explaining what you say to other
people or face consequences then freedom of speech and freedom of conscience
is effectively dead.

------
telecuda
From first-hand experience, Facebook is overly protective of user data when it
comes to state and local law enforcement requests (I obviously don't know
about the NSA side). They provide very little on initial subpoenas and require
warrants for anything more. In fact, most law enforcement are angry at how
little Facebook will reveal about a suspect.

~~~
coreyja
If you don't mind me asking, what level of law enforcement are you involved
in? Are you a officer or are do you work more on the DA/attorney side?

Just curios, that's all.

~~~
telecuda
I support Crimes Against Children investigators on the tech side. I'm a
civilian.

------
javajosh
With all of the secrecy and secret gag orders, and all of the blatant, proven
lies, how on earth are we supposed to trust anything anyone says about this
issue?

Why aren't people getting fired and prosecuted for lying to the American
public?

~~~
noir_lord
Because the American public simply doesn't care.

As a Brit this is the attitude the US is currently projecting.

Of course as a brit I suspect our programs are far more invasive than anything
the NSA has cooked up (so far).

~~~
fieryeagle
*insert reference to 'Spooks' here.

------
kefs
While I've never believed their statements...

..by their own account this is ~50 "intercepts" per day, on facebook alone...
that's more than 2 per hour, every hour, for 6 months.

~~~
tzs
That's a remarkably low rate, considering that it includes all levels of law
enforcement. For instance, around 2000 children are reported missing in the US
every day. I would expect a lot of those to lead to local police to ask to see
the child's Facebook data, and that alone could account for most of the
requests.

Now throw in all the other ordinary crime local police deal with every day,
and I'm completely astonished that Facebook only deals with 50 requests a day.

------
abalone
All this conspiratorial thinking is all very X-Files "I Want to Believe" and
stunningly short on rational thinking. Consider:

1\. Let's accept that Facebook, Google, Yahoo et al are rapacious profit-
oriented corporations who could give a crap about anything but their own self
interest. Fine.

2\. At this point, given the statements made, in order for there to still be
some kind of "back door" direct access to all of their DBs by the NSA, it
would involve direct, bald-faced, massive lies to the public about its
existence by top management.

3\. What would the _cost_ be to these companies be if these were revealed to
be massive lies? I'm not talking about the government granting immunity from
prosecution, which most commentary seems to focus on. I'm asking, how would
customers react?

Answer: _Their business would blow up._ Revelations of lying at this scale,
completely destroying their credibility, would literally threaten the entire
existence of their companies. It would be a stupendous business risk to take
on.

4\. What is the _probability_ that such a massive lie would be revealed?
Consider that to facilitate broad access to company datasets there would need
to be a bunch of technical staff in on the conspiracy -- and not just at one
company. This allegedly involves _most_ of the major Internet companies. A
whistleblower at any _one_ of them would blow it for everyone.

So, in order for any one company to participate in the conspiracy, they would
need to take a bet-your-company risk that _all the other companies_ would keep
a lid on it.

5\. Finally, now that we've reviewed the downsides, what's the upside? What
would the _benefit_ to these companies be of lying? Some commentary has
suggested they obtained privileged information about competitors or foreign
attackers (e.g. Google & China). Ok. How does that benefit compare to the risk
of _nuking billions of dollars in value overnight_ if your company's
credibility with customers is utterly destroyed?

I am all for more public oversight of the secret courts governing these
requests for data. The Verizon order is extraordinarily broad, and we can't
have much confidence that even the relatively small number of monitored
Facebook accounts aren't abuses. But this idea that Facebook, Google etc. are
lying to the public about their role just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

~~~
ianstallings
Large companies keep government secrets every day. What do the employees have
to gain? It's called not going to prison. There are ~4M cleared individuals in
the US right now. They keep secrets every day. It would not be hard to put a
team into place of cleared workers and literally seal them away in contained
rooms and tell everyone else to go away. They're called SCIFs. You go in and
leave your cell phones outside with any other electronics and do your top
secret work. On the outside they appear as normal offices. My point is, this
industry already knows how to work without you knowing anything. You're basing
your hunches on faith and naivety about how intelligence agencies work.

~~~
abalone
I think frankly it is you who doesn't understand how intelligence agencies
work. Massive conspiracies have leaks. No agency would set up something as
broad and involving as many people as you describe and expect it to stay
secret.

Also problematic is your theory about motivation. That Mark Zuckerberg and his
chief legal officer are compelled to take bet-the-company risks and lie to
their shareholders under threat of prison. There is no such law. They are only
restricted in how much they can reveal about the requests for info.

~~~
ianstallings
1\. It wouldn't have to be a massive conspiracy. It would just require access
to the data through a few people. It's called compartmentalizing and it's how
they work.

2\. There certainly _are_ laws that govern classified information and the
gathering of it. Leaking US government secrets is against the law, period. Are
you arguing that's not the case? Verizon was _required_ to assist the
government by law. What makes FB and Google+ exempt from the same rules?

You can dig further and find out I'm not just making stuff up. This really is
how they work, frankly.

------
dmazin
A fraction of a percent of US citizens are wrongly incarcerated. I'm not sure
what relative numbers even mean here. 19,000 people under scrutiny is still
scary to me.

~~~
adventured
Unfortunately it's not a fraction of a percent.

2.2 million people in prison in the US at the moment.

That's probably about 1.5 million that are "wrongly" incarcerated
(extrapolating based on the number of people in prison before the war on drugs
began, and what it should be today based on population growth). They're
political prisoners.

This graphic nicely sums up the obviousness of that:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/US_incar...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/US_incarceration_timeline-
clean-fixed-timescale.svg)

~~~
dmazin
Well that's my whole point; half a percent of the population, which is what I
also calculated when writing my original comment and consider a fraction,
being wrongly incarcerated is an atrocity so Facebook's "fraction of a
percent" means nothing to me.

------
bicx
The trust is gone. They shouldn't have waited until they were caught red-
handed to come up with some numbers. Doesn't even matter if it's correct now.
No one will believe them.

~~~
mpyne
If there is no way for them to regain trust, or make people whole in any way
at all, then what reason do you leave for them trying to improve transparency?
What should the Zuck do, commit seppuku? Is that what would make people happy
_going forward_?

~~~
fragsworth
There is no way.

The government has already shown us how they are fully capable of lying, and
even worse - forcing companies under their control to lie.

~~~
declan
Yes, it's pretty clear that the DNI lied to Congress. But it is untrue that
FedGov can force companies to lie. Neither AT&T nor Verizon lied:
[http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589012-38/nsa-
surveillan...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589012-38/nsa-surveillance-
retrospective-at-t-verizon-never-denied-it/)

~~~
fragsworth
Did you read the PRISM denials?

It was very obvious that the companies were told exactly what to say. They
might not be lying in a grammatical legal sense if you parse their words, but
they were clearly told by someone how to deny everything.

~~~
declan
I've read all of them. I've written about them. They're categorical.

------
genwin
> 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.

Nice try, Facebook. Key words, _in the past six months_. The NSA could've
requested a continuously updated copy of all user data more than six months
ago.

~~~
marshray
But it says " _were the subject_ ... in the past six months".

~~~
genwin
"were the subject of [a] request", not necessarily the subject of the data the
NSA is reading.

------
discostrings
I'm pretty surprised they've been given the go-ahead to release this.
Typically, these agencies would never consider such a thing, especially under
pressure.

If I were more trusting, I suppose I would see this as a nice evolution toward
a more transparent state of affairs. But it's uncharacteristic of these
agencies and the state of affairs that has been going on.

I find it hard to believe they would move so quickly to pull back some of the
secrecy they've imposed if they weren't expecting a great deal of scrutiny for
what we've yet to learn.

~~~
brown9-2
It's already been reported that you can expect to see more disclosures from
the DNI and NSA next week. I think the government understands that the past
week has been bad for them - and that it's bad for all of us if Americans have
recent to doubt their government.

You can also look at it as they would like a chance to correct bad impressions
given by inaccurate or incorrect reporting (we can't really judge this yet).

------
aspensmonster
Am I to understand that this:

>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.

Is global? As in, 19,000 accounts in total across the globe over the past six
months? The description of the requests is "all U.S. national security-related
requests (including FISA as well as National Security Letters)." Or is this
just the number of persons 51% likely to be a US citizen?

~~~
travisp
It says " the total number of user-data requests Facebook received from any
and all government entities in the U.S. ", which I take to mean the target
accounts may or may not be US citizens, but the requests came from US
government agencies.

International government agency requests, which I assume they also comply with
in certain situations, would be not included.

------
startswithaj
Ted Ullyot, Facebook General Counsel

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Ullyot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Ullyot)

"From January 2003 to January 2005, Ullyot worked in the White House as
associate counsel and as a deputy assistant to President George W. Bush. He
then served as chief of staff to U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales."

~~~
coreyja
What point are you trying to make here? Are you just saying that Facebook's
general counsel has ties to the Government? Because if so I fail to see how
that relates to the current controversy. Many people have connections, and
previously worked for the Government, and didn't have any knowledge or control
over any of this.

~~~
startswithaj
People were discussing the legitimacy of this release. I read the release,
googled the authors name and I thought his history relevant to the
conversation. Not just ties 'deputy assistant to President George W. Bush'.

------
jarek
Is there any practical way for them to actually prove this is the complete
number, rather than the number they're allowed to tell us about?

~~~
moskie
What would you accept as proof?

~~~
jlgreco
Vivisection. Public vivisection.

Strap these organizations down and cut them the fuck open with no regard for
their wellbeing. If the procedure kills them, then so be it.

There is a threshold past which live dissection
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Recovery_of_the_Stasi_fi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Recovery_of_the_Stasi_files))
is the only way that trust can be restored. I assert we have _run_ across that
threshold. _And before anyone whines about it_ ; no, we are not as bad as the
Stasi yet. The Stasi do not represent the position of the threshold, they were
miles past it.

~~~
jarek
Incidentally, this would be a great advance on Zuckerberg's professed goal of
making the world a more open place. Safer or better would be arguable - more
open would not be.

~~~
jlgreco
Oh, don't get me wrong, we certainly should not start with Facebook.

Going after Facebook would probably be unnecessary after we were through with
the accused government organizations. At that point Facebook's innocence would
either be clear, or it would be clear that Facebook was a victim in this. If
we found reason to believe both of these were not true, then we could pursue
them as well.

------
anologwintermut
Assuming we believe the numbers, it seems pretty clear PRISM was not the drag
net it was originally portrayed as. 19k accounts over 9k requests is not mass
access.

There is,however, a readily confirmable and some what plausible alternative:
Facebook's numbers are low because no one the NSA is interested in (e.g. AQ,
China, Wikileaks, maybe even Occupy) uses Facebook heavily.

If Google and Microsoft aren't allowed to release numbers, than we should
actually be concerned about this possibility.

------
zmmmmm
It makes me kind of cynical that suddenly the security agencies get all
friendly and start being "flexible" when they suddenly realise it's in their
own political interest to do so. Until exactly this point they would have put
people in jail for even mentioning these numbers. Now, oops, that was a
stretch too far, we can all be reasonable can't we? So was it about security
in the first place? or not?

------
krek
The issue to me is if the so-called "upstream" actually stores all the raw SSL
data, and how fast it's decrypted. This is apart from any corporate
cooperation, except for the Mark Klein AT&T splitter variety. (Unless of
course Google, Facebook, etc are handing over their private SSL keys.)

------
lambda
> a local sheriff trying to find a missing child

As worthy as these cases might be... this is not a national security issue.
This kind of case should never use any law regarding national security. This
is a regular police investigation, and as such, should require a regular old
subpoena or warrant.

~~~
tzs
They did not say that those requests use national security laws. They are just
giving us the total number of accounts they have released information on
regardless of what law was used to compel release.

~~~
lambda
Ah, you're right, now that I read it closer, that is the case. Thanks for the
clarification.

------
B0Z
> "We hope this helps put into perspective the numbers involved, and lays to
> rest some of the hyperbolic and false assertions in some recent press
> accounts about the frequency and scope of the data requests that we receive"

God Damnit! When did we start using the total number of violations of the
fourth amendment as the yardstick by which we measure it's importance or
relevance to a reasonable expectation of privacy? "Hey, hey, hey... we _ONLY_
violated 'x' number of people's rights. Not the 'x' times 'y' you are accusing
us of doing, therefore..."

Putting that aside for just a moment, their response lumps in and equivocates
the well-intentioned, and IMHO well-justified, search for a missing child with
fourth amendment violations of millions of American's under the guise of
national security and terrorism.

They still don't get it. The government still doesn't get it. Feigning outrage
is not a good transparency policy.

I've never once considered myself a Libertarian. It's never so much as crossed
my mind. I'm not even an excitable or rash person. But the recent exposure of
the breadth and scope of the shielded activities of the NSA has caused me to
give a long, hard, well-reasoned review of how I vote.

~~~
B0Z
[http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/15/4432368/google-opts-out-
of...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/15/4432368/google-opts-out-of-fisa-
disclosure-deal-made-by-facebook-and)

Apparently, it was an agreement based on negotiating between the companies in
question and the US Government. It makes me sick to my stomach that in spite
of the relative uselessness of the exact count of requests, that the
Government is just as interested in presenting a positive spin as they are
claiming that the acknowledging the mere existence of the requests presents a
risk to national security.

------
eightyone
"the total number of user-data requests Facebook received from any and all
government entities in the U.S."

It's common for 3 letter agencies to set up a corporation to handle their
dirty work. I wonder if a front organization would be considered a government
entity?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_organization#Intelligence...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_organization#Intelligence_agencies)

~~~
greiskul
But Facebook does not need to answer any request from a non government entity.

~~~
declan
More than that, they vigorously oppose such requests in court, as my article
here revealed: [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57518086-38/facebook-
fight...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57518086-38/facebook-fights-for-
deceased-beauty-queens-privacy/)

------
grey-area
Great to see these numbers from Facebook - hopefully now Google can do the
same, and report numbers that should have been public in the first place (and
that they probably would have liked to make public). I can't see any
justification for saying that they're lying, and frankly think it is verging
on conspiracy theory to say they are, why would they bother releasing anything
at all? Though broader in scope than many (including myself) would like, this
tallies with their initial statements, and with a system as described in the
PRISM documents (which are pretty vague anyway). Of course this isn't the
entirety of the information the NSA is collecting, and probably not the
entirety of data from FaceBook if they are also harvesting traffic, but it
could very well be everything FaceBook knows about.

The thing that worries me most about all this collection is that the NSA
probably never deletes any of its data (as evidenced by their massive storage
facilities being built), so eventually they can build up quite a large store
of complete data on people if they just keep collecting from various sources
gradually over time.

~~~
Zr40
Google already publishes this:
[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/US...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/US/)

~~~
grey-area
They don't publish all requests including fisa requests, I think they're still
negotiating about that. See the first sentence of the page you linked.

------
gaborcselle
I wonder if this is something that Google and Co. will also be allowed to do?

~~~
nly
They already do. Google have been publishing statistics and reports about this
stuff for a while:

[https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/](https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/)

None of this is relevant though. These are _legal_ requests. The issue that
people should remain focused on is whether or not the NSA has _illegal_ ,
ongoing, unfettered access to wholesale data under PRISM or other programmes.

~~~
LoganCale
Google does not publish information about requests which come with a gag
order. They were the first to request the ability to publish that data several
days ago, followed by Facebook and others shortly after. Facebook is the first
to publish updated statistics with the numbers from National Security Letter
and FISA warrants included after being granted permission. Google presumably
will do so soon as well.

~~~
declan
Incorrect. Google disclosed NSL summary stats months ago. As you say, FISA
stats are next. I'd expect them this evening.

~~~
LoganCale
I stand corrected. They do indeed have the NSL stats, in the somewhat useless
0 – 999 range, here:

[https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/U...](https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/US/)

~~~
declan
Yep, but it was more than any other company in the history of this country has
ever disclosed. And give them another 48-72 hours from now to divulge more
info.

~~~
LoganCale
Oh, I agree. I think it's great they're disclosing what they can and pushing
to be able to disclose even more. The "somewhat useless" remark was directed
more at the restrictions preventing them from divulging more than at Google
themselves.

------
Canada
The whole concept of a secret warrant is repugnant. A pox on both of them.

------
runn1ng
They don't have to be lying.

19k over 6 months is still quite a large number, I think.

------
aml702
All you need to remember about Zuckerberg and Facebook from his quotes here:

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS Friend: What? How'd
you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks

~~~
mcintyre1994
Zuckerberg, perhaps. Facebook, as in the current Facebook entity, absolutely
not.

~~~
jarek
The principle still applies: the information has been submitted, collected,
and is accessible to those who ask persuasively enough.

~~~
mcintyre1994
You say those who ask persuasively enough, but we only know they've given data
to governments, they are legally obliged to do so. I wouldn't say that's the
same in any way as giving it to friends.

------
gasull
I'm waiting to see what the EFF says about this. Is all the information there?
I hope that's the case.

~~~
MattyRad
Good call. This whole situation is so messed up that the EFF is one of the few
agencies I trust. I'm glad to see there's healthy skepticism about the
validity of this release though.

------
eightyone
Why are they only offering figures for the last 6 months?

------
whyme
If it's anything like the last 6 months stock market volumes well it doesn't
mean shit; it's probably intended to mislead everyone from the mega volume
spikes that often do occur. 5 years data might be worthwhile.

------
unclebucknasty
It is interesting to note what the number of requests is, however, it
shouldn't put anyone's mind at ease. This is as much about what the government
_can_ do than it is about what they _have done_.

Even if the program has been used "judiciously" by the government to this
point (if such a case can be made), it is ripe for abuse. Our protection
should come by the law itself, not by the judgment and whim of the Executive
(i.e. those executing the law).

Otherwise, we are not much different than a monarchy, hoping for a just king
or queen.

------
fauigerzigerk
I would be interested in what Facbook and other internet companies (or anyone
else who has a clue) have to say to this article:

"PRISM: Here's how the NSA wiretapped the Internet"
[http://www.zdnet.com/prism-heres-how-the-nsa-wiretapped-
the-...](http://www.zdnet.com/prism-heres-how-the-nsa-wiretapped-the-
internet-7000016565/)

It's a very convoluted and speculative article, but I wonder how much of it is
realistic.

------
leoc
CNN's news report is pretty good, with coverage of MS' and Google's responses.
[http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/15/politics/data-tech-
giants/](http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/15/politics/data-tech-giants/)

------
declan
I'm surprised that Microsoft's own statistics released about an hour ago
haven't made their way to the HN front page:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5883894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5883894)

------
seanp2k2
Based on everything else I've read, NSA is still sniffing traffic off the wire
or something similar.

It's nice that Facebook is pushing for a little more transparency, but they
could be telling the absolute truth here and the NSA could still be getting
all the data.

------
Myrmornis
From Mark Zuckerberg:

    
    
      > I want to respond personally to the outrageous press reports about
      > PRISM. ...
    

Mark Zuckerberg should apologize for calling the activities of the free press
"outrageous".

------
lighthazard
1% of 1.1 billion is ~ 10 million? Doesn't seem like a tiny amount.

~~~
simonk
A fraction of 1% the release says.

------
pdevr
The "less than one percent" claim is based on the total number of _GLOBAL
users_ and the total number of _requests made by U.S. officials_. It is
misleading.

------
john_w_t_b
I think these are true numbers. I assume that everything I put on Facebook is
prone to public dissemination anyhow. The whole point of site is to share your
data.

------
bengtan
> from things like a local sheriff trying to find a missing child

So ... why do they need to hide a request for something as 'innocent' as this?

~~~
jarek
They don't, but were either not allowed or not willing to publish the number
of requests excluding the non-secret ones or the breakdown of the total number
into "innocent" and otherwise.

------
lsiebert
So if people don't trust them, figure out how to verify this. Hint: they are
publicly traded companies.

------
bobwaycott
Those numbers seem odd. So almost 2 persons are the subject of every request?

~~~
mpyne
"Submit profile data for user $FOO and all users $FOO has messaged from
$DATE_1 to $DATE_2". I'm assuming it's something like that.

------
cpdean
How much longer till a similarly-worded release from Google?

------
nly
Everybody here seems to be distracted. The law abiding requests disclosed here
could still be served alongside a covert operation. This has no impact on the
PRISM scandal.

------
Flying_Dwarf
I think this is intended to be comforting, especially for corporate entities
as they feel scrapegoated into bad light by the government, but there's very
little for the public to acknowledge these numbers. I'm not saying Facebook is
lying, I'm saying the people giving Facebook the numbers are probably lying.
There's no way to tell.

~~~
mcintyre1994
Facebook know how many requests they've responded to. If there is any
dishonesty here, it's coming from Facebook. They might have been told to give
false numbers, but they've got the correct numbers.

~~~
jarek
There's the shared-private-keys argument, by which they wouldn't actually know
how many requests were made. I haven't been followed very closely so I don't
know if private keys thing was specifically denied - was it?

~~~
mcintyre1994
As far as I know, they deny any sort of blanket availability of data - so a
shared private key would seem to be denied under that guise. I think claiming
a number as they have, and a number of affected users, would also be denial of
that. Circular logic, but we can't do much better. If they're lying and just
made up these numbers, there's nowhere to really go with that.

------
humanspecies
Well this is 100% bullshit

