Governments demanded information on 38K users, among them protesters and political activists on Facebook
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[RT] Facebook received about 26,000 government requests for information about 38,000 users in the first six months of 2013, with half of the orders coming from the United States government.
The social networking service published the numbers on Monday, following the release of customer information data requests from Microsoft and Google. Facebook said government agents from 74 countries demanded information about its users, but the vast majority of these requests came from the US, the Associated Press reported.
Classified documents leaked to the Guardian newspaper recently revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) paid millions of dollars to keep tech companies – including Facebook – cooperating with the US government. US federal law allows the government to demand Facebook data without a warrant, and companies must fight such requests in secret court hearings if they deny them. Facebook provided user data in response to about 60 percent of such requests, AP reports. And out of all US government information requests, the social networking service released some data about 79 percent of the user accounts in question.
But because the US government prohibits companies from releasing exact numbers on how often they have been forced to turn over information, Facebook has been unable to specify exactly how many of the 38,000 user information requests came from the US. Facebook has announced the exact number of requests for all other countries, but simply provided a number range for the US.
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Source: http://www.mainwashed.com/2013/08/governments-demanded-information-on-38k.html
