US and snooping of companies

The latest indication of the volume of international snooping came last week from Facebook. The company said it had received requests from 74 countries for data on more than 38,000 users during the first half of this year. To be sure, the United States was the overwhelming leader in making such demands, with between 20,000 and 21,000user accounts requested....Microsoft disclosed last March that in 2012, it had received law-enforcement requests for information about 122,015 users or accounts, excluding its Skype affiliate. Of those, 24,565 came from the United States, followed by 17,973 from France, 14,301 from Britain, 14,077 from Turkey and 13,226 from Germany....Google provided a similar picture of global pressure to provide information. The company noted that in the second half of 2012, it produced data in response to 21,389 requests from 31 countries, including Germany, France, Russia and Taiwan, as well as the United States. Twitter said that in the first half of 2013, 36 countries sought information about 1,697 accounts. The U.S. government accounted for 78 percent of requests for user data, Twitter said."