[Infowarrior] - Tech lobbying reports barely scratch NSA issue

[Richard Forno]

Tech lobbying reports barely scratch NSA issue
By: Tony Romm
July 24, 2013 05:02 AM EDT
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=155E68AE-0F6A-4B2B-BA1D-79BC01647000

Tech companies have publicly petitioned Washington for the ability to disclose more about their work with the National Security Agency — but lobbying reports don’t show the industry’s giants making a play for sweeping changes to U.S. law.

Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft together spent more than $8 million to canvass lawmakers from April to June on issues like immigration and cybersecurity, according to newly released federal disclosures. But the documents also reflect they’ve largely avoided an all-out offensive on the government’s powers to seek foreign suspects’ Internet communications, tech insiders tell POLITICO.

Only two of those tech leaders — Facebook and Microsoft — even mentioned the related laws in their latest lobbying reports, due Monday.

The industry’s top lobbyists say the silence speaks only to the sensitivity of the surveillance fight. “They’re engaged on the issue on Capitol Hill, more in the sense they’re there to answer questions,” one insider told POLITICO, “but I wouldn’t say it’s a lobbying push.”

Tech companies find themselves at the center of the political war over surveillance because of their connection to PRISM, the NSA-led program tracking Internet communications first brought to light by The Guardian.

In the aftermath, companies have pleaded with Washington for the ability to disclose more information. And they’ve notched some basic victories: The government has permitted many tech companies to reveal broad data about local and national investigators’ record requests.

But Google and Microsoft are among those still fighting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for permission to publish more about their relationship with the NSA. In the meantime, those companies and others have joined with civil liberties groups in asking Congress for more transparency.

“We further urge Congress to pass legislation requiring comprehensive transparency reporting by the federal government and clearly allowing for transparency reporting by companies without requiring companies to first seek permission from the government or the FISA Court,” they wrote in a letter last week.

For all of the tech set’s legal and rhetorical manuevering, however, Silicon Valley’s biggest brands haven’t made much of a peep for sweeping restrictions on the scope of federal surveillance, multiple sources tell POLITICO.

There’s no mention of any push to gut the NSA and its controversial programs in the second-quarter lobbying registrations filed by Yahoo and Google. Neither company returned comment for this story.

One of Google’s outside lobbying shops, JGB & Associates, did focus generally on “data privacy,” mentioning the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act briefly. The search giant spent $3.3 million in the second quarter, down a hair from the first three months of the year.

Facebook, by contrast, indicated it has lobbied for “more transparency and flexibility around national security-related orders,” according to its filing. The company, which spent just over $1 million to lobby on a full slate of issues from April to June, did not reveal whether it is backing new legislation. A spokeswoman did not comment to POLITICO.

Microsoft also pushed Congress on “transparency of the FISA,” while spending about $2.9 million in lobbying in the second quarter on an agenda that mostly included immigration reform. The company also had no comment.

Most of the tech leaders focused on the broader bucket of digital privacy issues. For example, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo and others indicated they continued lobbying in the second quarter on reforms to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which would extend to emails and other digital documents the same legal protections afforded to their paper-based predecessors. Many of those same companies also backed bills that safeguard cellphone location data, while keeping a close eye on other emerging issues, from cybersecurity to immigration.

“The tech companies have certainly stuck out their necks for transparency — and some have even sued for sunshine on the surveillance demands they’ve received,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology. “It remains to be seen, though, whether they will step up and support substantive changes to the PATRIOT Act to protect their customers’ privacy.”

© 2013 POLITICO LLC


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