#google publishes eight secret #data requests from the FBI

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In a post today, Google published a series of eight National Security Letters, in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation secretly requested subscriber information on specific accounts. The letters range from 2010 to 2015, but follow a nearly identical format, identifying a number of accounts and sometimes a specific time frame but providing no evidence or suspicion to justify the request.

Google was legally prohibited from disclosing the requests when they were first issued, but that prohibition has since been lifted. The letter lifting each so-called “gag order” is also included in the post. Google first acknowledged the declassification in a transparency report earlier this year, updating the range of “NSLs received” from 0-499 to…

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