Verizon Finally Releases Transparency Report Showing Many Requests, But Scale Of Those Requests Is Missing

from the details-please dept

Wed, Jan 22nd 2014 4:03pm — Mike Masnick

After quite a lot of pressure, both Verizon and AT&T agreed last month to issue transparency reports like those that Google has offered for years, and which most of the other large internet companies have started offering in the last year or two. Verizon released its first one today, showing that it's pretty busy handling government requests. These are the numbers from 2013:

Suboenas: 164,184
General court orders: 62,857
Pen Registers/Trap & Trace: 6,312
Wiretap orders: 1,496
Warrants: 36,696
"Emergency requests" from law enforcement: ~50,000
National Security Letters (NSLs): between 1,000 and 1,999

The report provides some further explanation. For example, it notes that over half of the subpoenas requested customer info -- i.e., the name and address of someone based on a phone number or IP address. Verizon does not say how often it refuses to provide information in response to a subpoena. In terms of getting access to content, Verizon notes that 14,500 of the warrants were for "stored content" which would be things like emails or text messages stored on Verizon's servers.

Of course, what this leaves out may be more interesting than what's included. While it lists the numbers for these requests, it gives no indication how many of its users are targeted. A single subpoena could, for example, request information on everyone. While that may be an extreme example, the point is that the number of requests doesn't really tell you very much overall. Or, perhaps not an extreme example. This report doesn't show, for example, what Verizon hands over under orders from the FISC under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act and Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. We already know that Section 215 has resulted in FISA orders for metadata on every Verizon mobile phone customers. That's probably counted as one single "court order" in that big list above. Similarly, as has been revealed in the past, the NSA works with telcos to directly tap the internet backbone for information. Where is that included in the list above?

Point being, this isn't all that "transparent," because bare numbers don't really mean that much.

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Filed Under: government requests, transparency, transparency report, warrants
Companies: verizon

12 Comments

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AricTheRed (profile), 22 Jan 2014 @ 4:22pm

As a Verizon customer, under duress...
I'm not surprised, and too disgusted to say more on the subject.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Jan 2014 @ 4:29pm

this is not "from the details-please dept".

This is from BS dept.

What kind of journmalism is that?:

"Verizon Finally Releases Transparency Report
[...]Emergency requests" from law enforcement: ~50,000"
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out_of_the_blue, 22 Jan 2014 @ 4:36pm

Oh, now it's bare numbers don't really mean that much."
But you've run puff pieces on Google going to court (with you implying it has "First Amendment right") to be able to put out some numbers as if meaningful.

Here's related examples -- BOTH of which were censored by the free-thinking, dissent-welcoming, always-polite fanboys here at Techdirt:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131008/12415724799/tech-companies-lawsuit-over-transpar ency-concerning-nsa-surveillance-put-hold-due-to-government-shutdown.shtml#c20

http://www.techdirt.co m/articles/20130909/13290924456/internet-companies-renew-fight-to-publish-data-nsa-requests-1st-amen dment-grounds-say-news-reports-are-false.shtml#c155

"like those that Google has offered for years" -- A subtle promotion for Google by contrast, but as I've said often and according to your last sentence above, Google TOO simply puts out unverifiable meaningless crap.
All the news you saw last week on other sites, re-written to cherry pick points that fit Mike's agenda.

12:36:07[n-297-7]
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Techanon, 22 Jan 2014 @ 5:05pm

Re:
I loled at the 'between 1000 and 1999' for the NSLs. Okay, maybe that's more specific than 'between 0 and [insert ridiculously large upper limit here]'
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Michael, 22 Jan 2014 @ 5:32pm

50,000 emergency requests? What the hell does that mean? In a year? There were hundreds of emergencies per day in 2013 that required asking verizon for information??
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Jan 2014 @ 7:36pm

Re:
There were hundreds of emergencies per day in 2013 that required asking verizon for information??

As long as cop comes up with any BS story, it's fine with verizon, which charges $1500 a pop.
That allows to make an extra $3 000 000 a year for nothing.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Jan 2014 @ 7:57pm

And how many terrorists did they catch? Fucking ZERO.
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FM Hilton, 22 Jan 2014 @ 11:08pm

The heart of a phone record
That Verizon even gave any numbers is rather surprising, but the fact that they don't give anything other than those is not.

I can be willing to bet that they probably do not refuse many of the requests, no matter what the numbers are.

Because they were given retroactive immunity from any kind of punishment by any group for invasion of privacy a long time ago. Why should they care what we think?

It's just metadata, you know.

And that's the scariest part.

Remember that next time you pay your phone bill. Your information is being shared with the feds. Every single bit of it.

Disgusting, isn't it?
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Vidiot (profile), 23 Jan 2014 @ 4:46am

Does this include all the times Lenny Briscoe calls his "buddy at the phone company" to "pull the LUD's" on some suspected perp?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jan 2014 @ 5:27am

What this all means!
Is that there are thousands upon thousands of 'Terrorists' in the USA... and they are doing nothing but requesting data from the carriers.

It's a shame those pesky downloaders will have to be carted off to gitmo... to protect 'National Security' and all!
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weneedhelp (profile), 23 Jan 2014 @ 9:14am

Verizon does not say how often it refuses to provide information in response to a subpoena.
Zero... the answer is zero, thats why.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jan 2014 @ 11:00am

so many questions
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