For several years, major Internet companies such as Twitter, Facebook, Google and others have been filing "transparency reports" showing how often the government requests data from its users. As of yesterday, the US National Security Agency began issuing "transparency reports". The information service first released this Friday (PDF), with full charts showing its goals NSA.
The report came from the office of the director of the National Security Agency following orders from President Barack Obama, in response to leaks by Edward Snowden. Of course, it still leaves a lot of dark spots - and the numbers it does not reveal can hide much more than those it does reveal.
"This report is inherently unreliable," said Amie Stepanovich, senior policy adviser on the Digital Access Rights Group. "Each number in this report could be much smaller than it actually is, or changed to protect the intelligence community, their methods and resources."
That report states that (according to the government), the agency was monitoring more than 90.000 foreign targets in 2013 under the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The government also said it was tracking 248 US citizens or residents who had information stored in telecommunications companies.
But none of these numbers represent how many people are actually being monitored by the NSA. In NSA parlance, the word "target" can include individuals, groups, or wholes countries. The agency also uses an executive order to spy on foreigners en masse, and if it believes there is a reason it can collect information from Americans' communications. Of course, there is no indication of how many records are being collected under this executive order.
"The actual number of people whose information has been exposed could be incredibly large because of the word 'target' they use," Stepanovich said.
An interesting point that the report does not seem to reveal is that all 90.000 foreign targets were being monitored with a single warrant issued by a court of MinistryForeign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees a large part of NSA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) surveillance.
“Πώς μπορούν κάποιοι να παρακολουθούν 90.000 στόχους μόνο με με μία δικαστική εντολή;” αναρωτιέται ο Jennifer Granick, διευθυντής των πολιτικών ελευθεριών στο Stanford Center for Internet and Society. "It really raises questions about what this court approves"
Stepanovich also mentioned, is that the NSA runs a massive mass data collection program to spy on a relatively small number of Americans. He also questioned why a more targeted data collection program could not work.
The government, however, with this report, has done what it promised, and probably needs a good will from us to believe the data given to the public by a secret service.
It is very natural for the government to make moves to reassure the public after Snowden's leaks. The question that arises, however, is whether there are still people who trust them….
