Google Report Details Secret FBI Surveillance RequestsNewsy Lora Vlaeva Googles bi-annual Transparency report released Tuesday broke the silence on the FBIs warrantless requests to access Google users data. The FBI has the authority to prohibit companies from talking about these requests. But weve been trying to find a way to provide more information about the NSLs we getparticularly as people have voiced concerns about the increase in their use since 9/11. And the numbers are pretty impressive. Heres the transparency report: In just the second half of 2012, Google said it received from the FBI information requests for more than 14,000 accounts and just about a fifth of the requests resulted from search warrants. The BBC compares the figures to the other countries requests. That was a higher percentage than for any other country () By contrast all of Turkeys 149 requests and Hungarys 95 applications were rejected outright. But Googles decision to release information on the NSLs is just a small step towards transparency. The NSLs are kept big secret and there is little nationwide information existing on them. Yet, what DOES exist can be a bit off-putting. In 2010, the Washington Post noted, The FBI between 2003 and 2006 issued more than 192,500 letters an average of almost 50,000 a year. But how much information can the FBI get with this controversial technique? The Wall Street Journals Digit blog explains. These letters allow the government to seek financial, phone and Internet data without going before a judge or grand jury, if its relevant to a national security investigation. A pretty loose definition of what the FBI can do armed with an NSL. Research fellow Julian Sanchez at the Cato Institute, a public policy research organization, told Forbes: These kinds of requests are supposed to to be limited to less sensitive information () but if the point is to de-anonymize anonymous information, its not clear thats less sensitive. Information released by Google remains quite vague as in 2012 report, and The Verge says thats intentional. Google says it can not offer anything more accurate because the FBI, the Justice Department, and others claim that releasing exact numbers might reveal information about investigations. linkwithin_text=Related Articles: 