[NewsPoster]

Apple's transparency report on governmental information requests has made a minor but significant change. Language saying that "Apple has never received an order under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. We would expect to challenge such an order if served on us" has been completely removed from the latest version of the document, suggesting that Apple has now received a Patriot Act request, and is subject to a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant and subsequent gag order.

The concept of a "warrant canary" involves publishing a notice that a warrant hasn't been served, and simply omitting or retracting the notice if the opposite is true. This can be a way of getting around gag orders that prevent organizations from disclosing compliance with government surveillance.

Section 215 of the Patriot Act allows the US government to obtain a secret court order through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to mandate records turnover by companies, assuming the request is relevant to foreign intelligence or terrorism investigations. Applications through the court for these surveillance orders are generally not turned down, with 11 requests denied since 1979 out of over 34,000, with none refused since 2009.

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and many other technology and telecommunications companies have been faced with intense scrutiny over willing or unwilling compliance with the formerly-secret PRISM surveillance programs. In some instances, the parties have fought to publish more data on law enforcement requests, but have been limited in what they can say by legal barriers. Apple was part of an industry-wide effort to win more transparency on publishing the number of requests law enforcement and security agencies make on user records.

[Charles Martin]

I long for the day when we have a Supreme Court that respects the Constitution and the rights of the people, and abolishes the entire concept of "secret courts," the single most un-American idea that has been implemented in my lifetime.

[mgpalma]

I also long for that day, as well as having our 'elected' officials respecting the constitution. Sadly most of America appears to be asleep and voting for more of the same. Good on Apple, nice dodge on the gag order.

[cartoonspin]

blah blah blah

The problem is not the supreme court or the elected officials. It is us. We keep electing incumbents and wish for term limits to do the job for us. That is called laziness and we should get the government we deserve by how much effort we put into it. Which right now is zero.

[zehspoon1]

I totally agree with the three posters. Our government is out of control; and by government I mean the entire government with no designation of party or political leanings. When people wake up to the fact that it isn't democrat vs republican or conservative vs liberal and find out it is the ruling class vs the common class we might begin to see a change. Hopefully people will see this before it is too late.

[bobolicious]

Can one vote with one's wallet? Apparently the kremlin now orders typewriters... Would corporate profits, political contributions and lobbyists suffer ? Would that change the political & corporate landscape ?