Josh Peterson: Verizon Reveals More About Federal Spying on Customers
Verizon updated its transparency report Monday to include orders issued by the nation's spy court. During the first six months of 2013, the nation's spy court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, ordered Verizon between zero to 999 times to hand over content for 4,000 to 4,999 customer selectors. During that same time, the court issued the company between zero to 999 "non-content" orders to hand over information affecting zero to 999 customer selectors. Verizon notes in its report the government uses the term "selector" to refer to account identifiers, such as phone numbers. Josh Peterson reports that Verizon released the data in response to loosened government strictures on such disclosures, and the company called on the government to do the same.
