US Internet giants to pursue lawsuit against government

Two US Internet giants plan to move forward with a lawsuit against the US government in relation to its massive spying programs.

Google and Microsoft are seeking the right to publish information on official requests they receive from the US government for conducting secret surveillance on their users.

In a company blog post, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel said, “We believe it is vital to publish information that clearly shows the number of national security demands for user content, such as the text of an email”.

“To followers of technology issues, there are many days when Microsoft and Google stand apart,” Smith wrote. “But today our two companies stand together. We both remain concerned with the Government’s continued unwillingness to permit us to publish sufficient data relating to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) orders.”

Also, in a recent letter, Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, asked the US attorney general and the FBI “to help make it possible for Google to publish in our Transparency Report aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures-in terms of both the number we receive and their scope.”

“Google’s numbers would clearly show that our compliance with these requests falls far short of the claims being made. Google has nothing to hide,” he added.

The two companies filed a lawsuit in June asking a federal court for permission to release statistics about government requests they receive for customer data after whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked documents showing that the National Security Agency runs a program called PRISM that accesses information from Google, Microsoft and other Internet giants.

Under PRISM, US technology companies hand over user data pertaining to all people across the globe after they receive orders from the FISA court.

According to the law, US telecommunications companies are required to comply with lawful surveillance orders, including the FISA court orders and national security letters.