Microsoft, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Yahoo and AOL have together asked the world’s governments to reform its current laws and practices.
All of these companies have issued a letter to the government directly and also posted it in various publications to spread it worldwide. This is what the letter says:
The undersigned companies believe that it is time for the world’s governments to address the practices and laws regulating government surveillance of individuals and access to their information.
While the undersigned companies understand that governments need to take action to protect their citizens’ safety and security, we strongly believe that current laws and practices need to be reformed.
Consistent with established global norms of free expression and privacy and with the goals of ensuring that government law enforcement and intelligence efforts are rule-bound, narrowly tailored, transparent, and subject to oversight, we hereby call on governments to endorse the following principles and enact reforms that would put these principles into action.
All of this will work on five principles as per these companies:
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Limiting Governments’ Authority to Collect Users’ Information
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Oversight and Accountability
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Transparency About Government Demands
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Respecting the Free Flow of Information
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Avoiding Conflicts Among Governments
All these companies have openly acknowledged the government’s need to take actions for the public good. Here is what the CEO’s of these company have to say:
Reports about government surveillance have shown there is a real need for greater disclosure and new limits on how governments collect information. The US government should take this opportunity to lead this reform effort and make things right.”
—Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook
People won’t use technology they don’t trust. Governments have put this trust at risk, and governments need to help restore it.”—Brad Smith, General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Legal and Corporate Affairs, Microsoft
The security of users’ data is critical, which is why we’ve invested so much in encryption and fight for transparency around government requests for information. This is undermined by the apparent wholesale collection of data, in secret and without independent oversight, by many governments around the world. It’s time for reform and we urge the US government to lead the way.”
—Larry Page, CEO, Google
