By: The Hill
June 17, 2021
Tech companies that publicly promote their privacy practices are coming under scrutiny for handing over metadata on lawmakers, congressional staffers, journalists and even a minor in response to subpoenas from the Trump administration’s Justice Department.
The involvement of tech giants like Apple, Google and Microsoft is shining a spotlight on Silicon Valley’s relationship with Washington and raising questions about whether those companies should have fought the subpoenas to protect user privacy.
“It puts [the companies] in a bad situation, because many of them are claiming they work hard to protect personal privacy, but they’re having to turn information over to government officials. So that’s not the place where they want to be,” said Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation.