U.S. issues 320,000 requests for Verizon customer data

[FarCenter]

IDG News Service - Verizon Communications received more than 320,000 requests for customer information from U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in 2013, more than 100 times the number of requests from any other country, the telecom carrier said in its first surveillance transparency report.

The number of law enforcement requests to Verizon dwarfed the number of requests to some large tech vendors. Google received about 11,000 law enforcement requests in the first half of 2013, while Yahoo received about 12,000 and Apple less than 2,000 in the same time frame.

Verizon received more than 164,000 subpoenas from U.S. law enforcement agencies and nearly 71,000 court orders, including more than 6,300 pen register or trap and trace orders and nearly 1,500 wiretap orders last year, Verizon said. A pen register order requires a carrier to provide law enforcement with real-time access to phone numbers as they are dialed, while a trap and trace order requires them to provide real-time access to the phone numbers from incoming calls.

With Verizon's main business based in the U.S., the numbers of law enforcement requests from other countries were tiny in comparison. Germany made nearly 3,000 requests to Verizon last year, France made about 1,300, and Belgium about 500. U.K. law enforcement agencies made about 400 requests for Verizon customer information.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245622/U.S._issues_320_000_requests_for_Verizon_customer_data

[RobertEarl]

1. Figure many DUers are included

320,000 taps.... that's a lot. DU sticks out like a sore thumb we have so many here who are questioning the status quo. The feddies would be remiss to not look at DU and pick more than a few to 'observe'. So, if you have been posting here, be aware that your other communications are also being stored.

And remember, not all government people are goody-two-shoes like Obama is imagined to be.