It turns over data more often in response to secret U.S. intelligence court directives, which sought content from more than 18,000 accounts in the first half of 2019, the most recently reported six-month period.
When you think about it, that volume is staggering. 36,000 iDevice-using intelligence targets every year? Imagine the amount of analyst time required just to go through 36,000 iCloud backups every year!
Really makes you wonder what the criteria is for being investigated.
Maybe I’m naive, but I find it hard to believe that there are 36,000 yearly iCloud accounts with probable cause to be tied to terrorism activity and/or national security matters, especially if that’s only in the US.
As someone with a (half) Middle Eastern heritage and name (but born and raised in the US) I’ve experienced my fair share of nuanced discrimination at airports and one weird situation with what I assume was the FBI. There’s always the ignorant TSA agent who raises an eyebrow when you report coming back from the Middle East... like why would anyone ever travel there if it weren’t for terrorism?
I’m a pretty average techie so I’m not too worried about anyone going through my iCloud backups, but I feel like there should be some more transparency around this stuff. I feel like if you’re secretly investigated but discovered to be innocent, shouldn’t you deserve to know you were spied on? I guess that’s what FOIA requests are for.
The war on terrorism feels like a game of whack-a-mole sometimes.
When you think about it, that volume is staggering. 36,000 iDevice-using intelligence targets every year? Imagine the amount of analyst time required just to go through 36,000 iCloud backups every year!