US to allow firms to disclose data on NSA requests

The Obama administration has reached an agreement with a group of technology companies over disclosure of requests for customer data in the cloud, but the agreement puts severe limits on what the companies are able to disclose. It also fails to provide assurances that there would not be further broad requests for data.

The companies - including Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, would now be allowed to publish information about the number of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court orders they received for customer data. They would also be able to reveal more about National Security Letters (NSLs), the secrecy of which had been weakened by the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act in 2006.

Unlike Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants, NSLs provide for only revelation of metadata including phone numbers dialed or e-mail addresses communicated with.

Since NSA leaker Edward Snowden spilled the beans on the PRISM programme that allowed the NSA and the FBI to access data of cloud providers' customers under a sweeping FISA warrant.

Technology companies had been pushing the US government for permission to share more information about disclosures in their bid to reassure customers about their privacy.

The new agreement would, however, not do much to address customers' concerns, as it would still not allow the companies to reveal information about requests as regards specific customers.

The Obama administration would allow internet companies to give customers a better idea of the frequency of government demands for information, but would not allow companies to disclose what was being collected or how much.

The new rules, that led to Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook dropping their lawsuits before the nation's secret surveillance court - also contain a provision barring companies less than two years old from revealing information about government requests for two years.

According to attorney general Eric H Holder Jr and James R Clapper, director of national intelligence, the new declassification rules were prompted by president Obama's speech on intelligence reform this month.

''Permitting disclosure of this aggregate data addresses an important area of concern to communications providers and the public,'' Holder and Clapper said in a joint statement.