Expand
Gigaom Gigaom Logo Skip Navigation
  • Newsletter
Become a Client
  • Contact
  • Sign in
  • Subscribe
Gigaom Logo
Skip Navigation
  • Newsletter
Become a Client
  • Blog
  • Analysts
  • Webinars
  • Research
  • Podcasts
  • Contact
  • Sign in
  • Subscribe
  • Blog
  • Analysts
  • Webinars
  • Research
  • Podcasts
  • Contact
  • Sign in
  • Subscribe
  • Cloud Infrastructure
  • Analytics, BI & ML
  • Dev & Ops
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Security & Risk
  • GigaBrief
Stay on top of emerging trends impacting your industry with updates from our GigaOm Research Community Join Research Community

Blog Post

Microsoft, Google & friends urge passage of USA Freedom Act

Barb Darrow Nov 17, 2014 - 8:12 AM CST
  • Apple
  • Cloud Infrastructure
  • Europe
  • Technology
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Post

Stay on Top of Enterprise Technology Trends

Get updates impacting your industry from our GigaOm Research Community
Join the Community!

In an open letter to the U.S. Senate, nine tech heavyweights are imploring the body to pass the USA Freedom Act, which would curb much of the massive data collection by the NSA and other agencies. The activities were originally brought to light by Edward Snowden.

According to the letter:

The legislation prevents the bulk collection of internet metadata under various authorities. The bill also allows for transparency about government demands for user information from technology companies and assures that the appropriate oversight and accountability mechanisms are in place.

The letter was signed by [company]Apple[/company], [company]AOL[/company], [company]Dropbox[/company], [company]Evernote[/company], [company]Facebook[/company], [company]Google[/company], [company]LinkedIn[/company], [company]Microsoft[/company], [company]Twitter[/company] and [company]Yahoo[/company]

The fate of that bill, introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), is very much up in the air given Republican gains in the midterm elections. As Gigaom’s Jeff Roberts has pointed out, many Republicans, citing national security concerns, object to data gathering reforms.

One thing has changed over the past year is that tech companies are disclosing more about the requests they’re getting from the government. But those demands have grown. In September, Google reported that demand for user data in U.S. criminal inquiries rose 19 percent in the first half of 2014 compared to the previous six months. The total increase from a six-month period in 2009, when Google started tracking this information, was 250 percent.

The U.S. government’s data scooping has put these U.S.-based companies in a tight spot vis-a-vis customers in the U.S. and abroad who don’t relish the idea of a third party snarfing up their data or meta data.  Much of the information gathered relates to people without any links to crime or terrorism.

Advertisement
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Post
  • Apple
  • Edward Snowden
  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Microsoft
  • NSA
  • Patrick Leahy
  • USA Freedom Act
Advertisement
Advertisement

More Posts

Host data and technology

Blog

Storage Options for the Distributed Enterprise

A Few Thoughts On Global File Systems
Enrico Signoretti Feb 10, 2021 - 2:23 PM CST
Advance Of Data Cloud – Cloud storage – data storage – object storage

Blog

Object Storage Is Heating Up

Forget About That Old and Cold Data Repository
Enrico Signoretti Feb 4, 2021 - 7:11 AM CST
Cloud computing concept of cloud services icon with internet data center room

Blog

What’s New at DRYiCE? How Do They Fit In the Emerging Multi-Cloud Enterprise?

David S. Linthicum Jan 18, 2021 - 10:51 AM CST
Advertisement

Related

Corridor Of  Server Room With Server Racks In Datacenter. 3D Ill

Report

SQL Transaction Processing, Price-Performance Testing

Microsoft SQL Server Evaluation: Azure Virtual Machines vs. Amazon Web Services EC2
William McKnight and Jake Dolezal Mar 2, 2021 - 3:48 PM CST
Sponsored by
Corridor Of  Server Room With Server Racks In Datacenter. 3D Ill

Live Webinar

High Performance Cloud Data Warehouse Vendor Evaluation

Mar 24, 2021 - 12:00 PM CDT
Register
Sponsored by
040 – DL Observability featured

Podcast Episode

Voices in Innovation – David Linthicum on the Key Criteria for Evaluating Observability

Johnny Baltisberger
Listen
Advertisement

Podcasts

Podcast

Voices in AI

Byron Reese
  • iTunes
  • Google Play
  • Spotify
  • Stitcher
  • RSS
Listen
voices-in-data-storage-cover

Podcast

Voices in Data Storage

Enrico Signoretti
  • iTunes
  • Google Play
  • Spotify
  • Stitcher
  • RSS
Listen

More Podcasts

Advertisement
  • Blog
  • Analysts
  • Webinars
  • Research
  • Podcasts
Gigaom
  • About
  • Contact
  • Press Room
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS Feed
  • Newsletter
© 2021 GigaOm All Rights Reserved.
This website uses cookies; by continuing you are a agreeing to our Privacy Policy Accept
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Necessary
Always Enabled

This is an necessary category.

Save & Accept