MANILA, Philippines – On Wednesday, June 19 (Manila time) Google filed a petition with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to get permission to disclose aggregated numbers on the data requests it receives, defining which requests are made by law enforcement agencies or were done as a national security request, such as through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

In a post on Google+, Google writes that it has “long pushed for transparency so users can better understand the extent to which governments request their data.” The company added that greater transparency is needed now, and has therefore “petitioned the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to allow us to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures, separately.”

The Washington Post obtained a copy of Google’s motion for declaratory judgment. In the document itself, Google is saying that it has a right of free speech under the US constitution’s first amendment. The company adds there is “no applicable law or regulation” that prohibits the company from publishing specific aggregated and unclassified numbers regarding “the total number of FISA requests it receives, if any,” and “the total number of users or accounts encompassed within such requests.”

If the court rules in Google’s favor, the aggregated numbers would be disclosed as part of future transparency reports it makes available to users.

This petition to the FISC follows a report of a secret program of the US government, known as PRISM, which reportedly allowed it to mine data from web companies like Google and Facebook.

Google, along with a number of web giants, denied allowing US intelligence agencies to mine data from their servers. It has since condemned the online spying by governments, and urged the US government to permit companies greater leeway to disclose information regarding national security and law enforcement data requests. – Rappler.com