• Tech executives to Obama: NSA spying revelations are threatening business - The Washington Post
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/2013/12/17/6569b226-6734-11e3-a0b9-249bbb34602c_story.html

    Their message was to say: “ What the hell are you doing? Are you really hacking into the infrastructure of American companies overseas? The same American companies that cooperate with your lawful orders and spend a lot of money to comply with them to facilitate your intelligence collection? ” said one industry official familiar with the companies’ views.

    The NSA has stressed that its overseas collection is carried out lawfully, under executive authority. Any data on Americans are handled according to rules that protect their privacy, including the requirement to obtain a warrant to target an American’s communications, officials say.

    In the meeting, the executives reiterated a list of demands that had been sent to the White House in a letter last week calling on the administration to cease bulk data collection of e-mails, online address books and other personal information; to impose limits on how easily the NSA can obtain court orders for Internet data; and to allow the companies to be more transparent about government intelligence requests .

    Several participants acknowledged that the White House had to balance the companies’ business concerns against national security considerations .

    Senior administration officials described the meeting with the 15 executives as “constructive, not at all contentious.”

    This was an opportunity for the President to hear from CEOs directly as we near completion of our review of signals intelligence programs, building on the feedback we’ve received from the private sector in recent weeks and months, ” the White House said in a statement.

    One participant suggested the president pardon #Snowden. Obama said he could not do so, said one industry official . White House officials have said that Snowden is accused of leaking classified information and faces felony charges in the United States, and that he should be returned as soon as possible to the United States, “where he will be accorded full due process and protections.”

    Senior executives from AT&T, Yahoo, Apple, Netflix, Twitter, Google, Microsoft and Facebook were among those in attendance.

    “We appreciated the opportunity to share directly with the President our principles on government surveillance that we released last week and we urged him to move aggressively on reform,” the technology firms said in a joint statement after the meeting.
    #surveillance
    #nsa

    Many of these firms have played a key role in boosting Obama’s political fortunes. Tech companies pumped nearly $7.8 million into his campaign in the last cycle , according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

    Some of the top officials meeting with the president Tuesday served as bundlers for his 2012 bid. Yahoo’s chief executive, Marissa Mayer, raised between $100,000 and $200,000, according to the center, and Shervin Pish­evar, co-founder of the Sherpa technology investment fund, raised more than $500,000. Mark Pincus, Zynga’s chief product officer and chairman, gave $1 million to Priorities Action USA, the super PAC that supported Obama.