I don’t harbor any illusion about security officials bothering listening to my phone calls or snooping on my messages. But I don’t like the idea of government agents intruding into private activities of people. That’s one of the reasons I chose Blackberry.
But one of the exposes of American IT expert Edward Snowden, formerly with the Central Intelligence Agency who is now in Hong Kong uncertain of his future, revealed that Blackberry is not at all that secure.
Last Friday, Facebook confirmed that it has released data related to national security requested by law enforcement agencies.
A statement by Ted Ullyot, Facebook General Counsel revealed that “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. The total number of Facebook user accounts for which data was requested pursuant to the entirety of those 9-10 thousand requests was between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts.”