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| NSA snooping: Facebook 'receives 1,500 data requests a month' | NSA snooping: Facebook 'receives 1,500 data requests a month' |
| (34 minutes later) | |
| Facebook received 9,000-10,000 requests for user data from US government entities in the second half of 2012, the company has revealed. | Facebook received 9,000-10,000 requests for user data from US government entities in the second half of 2012, the company has revealed. |
| The social-networking site said the requests covered issues from petty crime to national security. | |
| Leaks by a former computer technician this month suggested the US government ran a much larger electronic spying operation than had been admitted. | |
| The US maintains the programme helps to thwart terrorist attacks. | |
| Facebook's Ted Ullyot said in a post on the company's blog that the requests pertained to a wide range of investigations, including missing children, federal fugitives, local petty crimes and terrorist threats. | |
| Mr Ullyot did not indicate to what extent the company had fulfilled the requests, but said Facebook had "aggressively" protected its users' data. | |
| "We frequently reject such requests outright, or require the government to substantially scale down its requests, or simply give the government much less data than it has requested," he said. | |
| Earlier this month, former computer technician Edward Snowden leaked details of a programme called Prism, run by the US National Security Agency (NSA). | |
| The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers published documents alleging that the NSA said it could directly access the servers of firms including Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Google. | |
| The firms denied the accusations, saying they gave no such access but did comply with lawful requests. | |
| Mr Snowden, 29, fled the US to Hong Kong shortly before the newspapers published his revelations. | |
| His whereabouts are unknown, and he has vowed to fight extradition to the US should the authorities attempt to prosecute him. |