Google & Facebook’s petition for transparency:

It has been heard that both Google and Facebook have wanted to be more ‘transparent’ in regard to their dealings with US’s most secretive court. Both the internet titans have given their petitions on this Monday. The petitions state the desire of the companies to be granted the permission for publishing statistical data as reports, for informing, which they receive through the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). It was announced by Google in a blog post that the petition has been filed already by it in the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). It had further asked for the public to be the hearing on this matter.

More transparency is what Google wants:

Google has said that the decision has been taken taking the safety of public into account. It wants public to hear it clearly without any indirect means and hence have wanted the court to make the hearing public. The search engine giant which is second most popular search engine according to the Alexa Rank, wants to make its connection with the public more close and want its users to put in more faith. And hence this petition and also wanting the hearing for the petition to be made in public.

The court will decide:

According to Rule 17, it is up to the judge to determine if a hearing will be made public and if it is necessary at all. The place and time is all set for the hearing, once it is decided that it should take place. Now if the court finds it ‘non-adversarial’, it won’t be allowing the hearing to be public. Therefore it is now for the court to either to grant what Google has requested or else keep it within the court walls.

As of now the Department of Justices, have refrained from giving any comment or providing with any further insight into the matter. Hence we all now need to wait in order to know of the time and place and how the petition’s hearing will be held.

Google had earlier submitted a somewhat similar petition, back in June, this year. The petition is regarding the permission to reveal “limited, aggregate statistics”.

Facebook’s petition:

Facebook too made a similar petition and let the news to be known through a press release on this Monday. The social media giant has said that it hopes that this step will bring a greater level of transparency and will enhance the safety of the public. The company has further stated that it will also work on the public’s safety through more transparency in future.

Both have shut their mouths:

Both Facebook and Google is going to provide with similar transparency and it has been noted by all. Apart from the petitions and announcing them, both the companies have been reluctant to make any comments further in the public.