Microsoft, Facebook release stats to reassure users on NSA surveillance

Only a few days after revelations of the surveillance program  known as PRISM, which alleged major companies such as the social  networking giant Facebook and software maker Microsoft, as well  as others, had provided the NSA direct access to their server  data, both companies released statements denying such  involvement.  

On Friday both Microsoft and Facebook released more information  regarding requests made by federal, state and local police in an  effort to reassure users. The new information provided by  Facebook and Microsoft detail the number of legal orders they  received to disclose user data.  

According to Microsoft, in the last six months of 2012 it  received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security  warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and  32,000 consumer accounts.  Facebook, meanwhile, has divulged a similar number of requests  during the same period of time.  “For the six months ending  December 31, 2012, the total number of user-data requests  Facebook received from any and all government entities in the  U.S. (including local, state, and federal, and including criminal  and national security-related requests) – was between 9,000 and  10,000. These requests run the gamut – from things like a local  sheriff trying to find a missing child, to a federal marshal  tracking a fugitive, to a police department investigating an  assault, to a national security official investigating a  terrorist threat.

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