Surveillance

Verizon is pleased to release our Transparency Report for the second half of 2017. This is our ninth Transparency Report. As in the past, this report describes the different types of demands we receive and the types of data that we disclose in response to those demands. The number of demands that we have received each year continues to be fairly stable since we released our first report.

British Appeal court judges have ruled the government’s mass digital surveillance regime unlawful in a case brought by the Labour deputy leader, Tom Watson. Liberty, the human rights campaign group which represented Watson in the case, said the ruling meant significant parts of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 – known as the snooper’s charter – are effectively unlawful and must be urgently changed. The government defended its use of communications data to fight serious and organised crime and said that the judgment related to out of date legislation.

Today more than 2.5 trillion images are shared or stored on the Internet annually—to say nothing of the billions more photographs and videos people keep to themselves. By 2020, one telecommunications company estimates, 6.1 billion people will have phones with picture-taking capabilities. Those are merely the “watching” devices that we’re capable of seeing.

Russian-linked bots on Twitter are pushing for the House Intelligence Committee to release a classified report written by committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA).  Some Republicans believe the report shows political bias in the FBI and the Department of Justice investigation of possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. #ReleaseTheMemo is the top trending hashtag among Twitter accounts believed to be operated by Kremlin-linked groups, according to Hamilton 68, a website which tracks Russian propaganda online.

The Senate passed an extension of a government surveillance program, sending the bill to President Donald Trump's desk, where he is expected to sign it into law. Senators voted 65-34 on the bill, which includes a six-year extension with minimal changes to the National Security Agency (NSA) program.

Freedom House's report, "Freedom in the World 2018: Democracy in Crisis" key findings:

[Commentary] The rules and incentive structures underlying how attention and surveillance work on the internet need to change. But in fairness to Facebook and Google and Twitter, while there’s a lot they could do better, the public outcry demanding that they fix all these problems is fundamentally mistaken. There are few solutions to the problems of digital discourse that don’t involve huge trade-offs—and those are not choices for Mark Zuckerberg alone to make. These are deeply political decisions.

The House of Representatives voted to extend the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program for six years with minimal changes, rejecting a yearslong effort by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to impose significant new privacy limits when it sweeps up Americans’ emails and other personal communications.  The vote, 256 to 164, centered on an expiring law that permits the government, without a warrant, to collect communications of foreigners abroad from United States firms like Google and AT&T — even when those targets are talking to Americans.

A yearslong debate over National Security Agency surveillance and protections for Americans’ privacy rights will reach a climactic moment on Jan 11 as the House of Representatives takes up legislation to extend a program of warrantless spying on internet and phone networks that traces back to the Sept.

In response to the massive outcry from people like you, we have a last-ditch effort for real, robust surveillance reform. But this won’t happen unless we continue to make a lot of noise. On Jan 11, the House will vote to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Unfortunately, the underlying bill is terrible and would actually work to expand government surveillance.