Ride the Lightning

Apple Reports a Blitz of National Security Requests

June 1, 2017

CNET reported on May 24^th that the number of national security orders issued to Apple by U.S. law enforcement doubled to about 6,000 in the second half of 2016, compared with the first half of the year. As part of its biannual transparency report, Apple said those requests included orders received under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as well as national security letters, the latter being issued by the FBI – and they don't require a judge's sign-off.

Critics of national security letters, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, say they "allow the FBI to secretly demand data about ordinary American citizens' private communications and Internet activity without any meaningful oversight or prior judicial review." Companies that receive national security letters are subject to gag orders, which means they can't even disclose they've received such orders unless the letters become declassified.

That's what happened in Apple's case. It disclosed, as part of its most recent transparency report, that one of the national security orders it received came in the form of a declassified national security letter. It didn't provide any more information about the letter, including when it originally received the order or what the order involved. Other companies have shared more information about the requests when they're declassified.

Apple declined to comment beyond its transparency report, as did the US Department of Justice.

National security letters were enabled by the USA Freedom Act, which passed in 2015. As part of the regulations, the FBI has to re-examine past national security letters and decide which can be declassified. Those started being reported by recipients a year ago.

Apple is not the only company that has received national security letters. Twitter disclosed in January that it received two from the FBI in the last two years that previously came with gag orders not to discuss them. Google, Yahoo and Cloudflare also have published national security letters received from the FBI, some dating back to 2013.

As attacks on government surveillance have multiplied, and as more requests are received, Apple has increasingly taken a very strong stance in favor of its users' privacy, which I heartily applaud.

E-mail: Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Information Security/Information Technology
https://www.senseient.com
https://twitter.com/sharonnelsonesq
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharondnelson
https://amazon.com/author/sharonnelson