Jai Vijayan reports:
Several advocacy groups are calling for an investigation into Internet companies Yahoo and Google whose networks were secretly accessed by the National Security Agency (NSA).
In a letter sent Wednesday, the groups asked the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) find out how the NSA could to extract so much data without the knowledge of Google and Yahoo.
Read more on Computerworld.
As EPIC explains it:
Consumer privacy organizations in the US have asked the Federal Trade Commission to determine whether US companies turned over private customer data to the National Security Agency. “We urge you to open an investigation to determine whether any failure by these companies to comply with the Commission’s orders may have contributed to the improper disclosure of customer data,” the groups wrote. The organizations, which have brought many privacy complaints to the FTC, stated that the disclosure of user data “directly implicates the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission.” According to the organizations, “it is inconceivable that when faced with the most significant breach of consumer data in U.S. history, the Commission could ignore the consequences for consumer privacy.” EPIC previously wrote to the Federal Communications Commission regarding the unlawful provision of call detail records to the NSA. The Supreme Court is scheduled to consider EPIC’s challenge to the NSA telephone record collection program at conference this week. For more information, see In re EPIC.