Google publishes eight national security letters after US lifts gag order

Google published eight National Security Letters (NSLs) online that had previously been subject to controversial gag orders.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which issued the secret subpoena-like requests for digital records between 2010 and 2015, gave the company permission in October to make the records public, lifting nondisclosure requirements that had legally prevented Google from even acknowledging publicly that the letters exist. Privacy advocates praised the news as a positive, albeit modest, step toward protecting free speech by reining in government surveillance. "It’s a small amount of progress," said Andrew Crocker, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It’s only eight out of tens of thousands, really hundreds of thousands over the course of the years that FBI has been using these in this way."