ServInt, a provider of managed cloud hosting for businesses worldwide, has joined a coalition of more than 40 organizations demanding that the U.S. Congress reform Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act.
Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act has been used as the legal basis for the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of telephone metadata. That section is up for renewal on June 1, 2015. ServInt believes that the status quo is unacceptable, and that it is urgent that Congress moves forward with reform.
Consequently, ServInt has signed a letter sent to U.S. government officials from privacy and human rights advocates, technology companies and trade associations – including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mozilla, ServInt partner CloudFlare, and the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition).
“Surveillance reform is urgently needed to restore consumer faith in the cloud,” said ServInt President Christian Dawson. “ServInt believes that mass surveillance is wrong and we are committed to doing everything we can to stop it, on behalf of our customers and the industry as a whole.”
The letter listed the elements all signers agreed are essential to any effort to reform U.S. surveillance laws. These include a clear, strong, and effective end to bulk collection practices, as well as transparency and accountability mechanisms for both government and company reporting.
Mass Surveillance Programs
ServInt claims to be one of the Internet industry’s most vocal critics of the U.S. government’s mass surveillance programs, and has called on legislators to help restore the image of the United States as a country that cares about privacy and the rule of law.
The managed cloud hosting provider recently updated its Privacy Policy to narrow the circumstances in which law enforcement can request customer data from ServInt without a warrant. ServInt has announced it will disclose all requests for its customer data unless a specific statute requires the company to keep the request secret.
Founded in Northern Virginia in 1995, ServInt provides a range of IaaS, PaaS, VPS and dedicated server packages to hosting service resellers, web designers, developers and online businesses in more than 130 countries.
