Google Fighting to Lift FISA Court Gag Orders

Challenging on First Amendment grounds to release number of people affected

Credit: halilgokdal / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

Google is filing a petition to try to use the First Amendment to claim that it has a right to speak about the information the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is demanding from it. Via The Washington Post:

Google is preparing to ask the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government.

The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic.

Google, one of nine companies named in NSA documents as providing information to the top-secret PRISM program, has demanded that U.S. officials give it more leeway to describe the company's relationship with the government. Google and the other companies involved have sought to reassure users that their privacy is being protected from unwarranted intrusions.

Google isn't actually asking to release details, just the specific number of FISA court requests upon them and the actual number of users affected.

In March, a federal judge ruled that the gag orders that came with National Security Letters were unconstitutional violations of free speech, though her ruling is currently suspended so the government can mount an appeal

Comments

[Warrren]

Can they get rid of FIFA while they are at it?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Google isn't actually asking to release details, just the specific number of FISA court requests upon them and the actual number of users affected.

This is going to help their PR problem?

[Agammamon]

Google should just "leak" the documents.

[Pro Libertate]

They're ungodly rich. Why not pay someone to "steal" the information and leak it?

[DesigNate]

Fuck Google. They didn't have to give the damn information over in the first place.

[Pro Libertate]

I agree, though they're as easily cowed into submission as we are. Maybe even more easily, since they're supposed to maximize shareholder equity. Hard to do that when the man is fining you to death.

[CE]

Stop being wusses and just publish the metadata about the requests on the Google home page.

What are they going to do, arrest Google?

[My Dog Bites Better Than Yours]

Of course. Wait for a board meeting, swoop in and grab all the big shots they can their hands one. Better yet, co-ordinate the arrests in several locations around the country.

Even give it a cute name, like "Zero-out Google".

Maybe no charges will stick (or even be filed) but the message is clear.

[Dweebston]

In March, a federal judge ruled that the gag orders that came with National Security Letters were unconstitutional violations of free speech, though her ruling is currently suspended so the government can mount an appeal

I don't know anything about federal law. Does a civilian plaintiff get his sentence suspended while appealing the judge's ruling?

[Dweebston]

^Defendant, gorramit.

[Matrix]

There's a FYTW clause written in invisible ink in the Constitution. Everyone knows that!