The National Security Agency has a notorious record when it comes to gathering information. In the past, the agency has forced many tech companies and telcos to divulge private data of the users. It is being reported now that Verizon has also been ‘secretly’ asked by NSA to provide customers records.
The worst thing about such moves by NSA and the U.S. government is that customers are never notified. This means that not only is their privacy breached and confidential information leaked, they are also kept in the dark about it.
Verizon was recently a target of such secret surveillance measures by NSA. The telecom giant was handed a ‘top secret’ court order, which came straight from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. According to this court order, Verizon was to provide details of the calls made by the customers.
These details included the duration of the calls, unique identifiers pinpointing the exact user making the call and the identity of the people involved in a given call. Apparently, data from calls made over a period of three months had to be provided to NSA, as per the court order.
The order itself originated from FBI and was handed out by Judge Roger Vinson. Verizon, naturally, was forced to provide the data, and it did that without registering any protest. The trend is very disturbing, because the U.S. government is increasingly using security to violate all forms of digital privacy of the users and is a grim reminder of ‘1984.’
Source: The Guardian
Courtesy: Slashgear
[ttjad keyword=”security”]
