Several major Internet companies this week published the number of requests for user data they received from the National Security Agency, information they’d been previously barred from airing. Facebook said “a small fraction of 1 percent” of its user accounts were the subject of government data requests over a year, and Microsoft said that such requests affected between 15,000 and 15,999 accounts. The disclosure reflects a compromise the companies reached with the government last week, but a Google’s executive said still “more transparency is needed so everyone can better understand how surveillance laws work and decide whether or not they serve the public interest.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Home Depots are the new epicenters of ICE raidsIn the Spotlight The chain has not provided many comments on the ongoing raids
-
Why does Trump keep interfering in the NYC mayoral race?Today's Big Question The president has seemingly taken an outsized interest in his hometown elections, but are his efforts to block Zohran Mamdani about political expediency or something deeper?
-
The pros and cons of banning cellphones in classroomsPros and cons The devices could be major distractions
