“If the world’s largest surveillance agency has a working relationship with the world’s largest Internet firm, that’s no one’s business but theirs, according to an appeals court in the DC Circuit,” Andy Greenberg reports for Forbes.
“In the ruling issued Friday, the court decided that the National Security Agency doesn’t need to either confirm or deny its relationship with Google in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, ruling that a FOIA exemption covers any documents whose exposure might hinder the NSA’s national security mission,” Greenberg reports. “Beyond merely rejecting the FOIA request, the court has agreed with the NSA that it has the right to simply not respond to the request, as even a rejection of the request might reveal details of a suspected relationship with Google that it has sought to keep secret.”
Greenberg reports, “The ruling comes as controversy has been growing around the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), a bill that passed the House last month in a form that would allow private firms like Google to share a wide range of information with government agencies like the NSA for cybersecurity reasons, as well as other vague purposes like computer ‘crime’ and even ‘the protection of individuals from the danger of death or serious bodily harm.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Droooiiid.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
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