“Today Verizon released its first transparency report, which detailed the number of government demands it received in 2013 for disclosure of customer data. The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) welcomes Verizon’s report and believes it should set a precedent for greater transparency in the industry. CDT released the following statement in response to the report:

“With this report, Verizon has set a strong precedent for transparency within the telecommunications industry,” said Harley Geiger, Deputy Director for CDT’s Project on Freedom, Security and Technology. “The report has a level of detail that should be followed by other companies – including statistics on requests for location data, content, phone records, and cell tower dumps, as well as specifying the legal authorities used.” “Verizon consistently telling government agents to get a warrant to compel disclosure of customers’ communications content is a crucial customer privacy protection. As Verizon noted, however, the U.S. government restricts transparency regarding national security requests. We believe the government should authorize detailed company reporting on these requests, and we support Verizon’s pledge to provide more information if reforms are made,” Geiger added.”