Google Takes on Rare Fight Against National Security Letters

[Vehl]

Google has filed a rare petition to challenge an ultra-secret national security letter issued by the government to obtain private data about one or more of its users.

The extraordinary petition, which was filed under seal in the U.S. District Court of Northern California on March 29, comes just days after a U.S. District Judge in California ruled in a case brought by an unnamed company and the Electronic Frontier Foundation that so-called NSLs that come with a gag order on the recipient are an unconstitutional impingement on free speech.

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In early March, Google signaled an interest in becoming more transparent about the NSLs it has received by releasing a report for the first time showing a “range” of times that it received NSL’s from the FBI.

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In filing its recent court challenge, Google has joined a very small club of NSL recipients who have taken on the civil liberties interests of users by fighting back against orders that until now have been issued under the cloak of secrecy and generally without oversight.

more here
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/google-fights-nsl/

on related news

Google Says the FBI Is Secretly Spying on Some of Its Customers
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/google-nsl-range/

You will not see any other Major company(Apple, MS) do anything even remotely similar to this.

[sandym]

1. Really?

According to this source, Google has been providing the government with access to their data for years. Why challenge it now?