Snowdon is a dummy

The conservative Republican who co-authored America's Patriot Act is preparing to unveil bipartisan legislation that would dramatically curtail the domestic surveillance powers it gives to intelligence agencies.

Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, who worked with president George W Bush to give more power to US intelligence agencies after the September 11 terrorist attacks, said the intelligence community had misused those powers by collecting telephone records on all Americans, and claimed it was time "to put their metadata program out of business".

His imminent bill in the House of Representatives is expected to be matched by a similar proposal from Senate judiciary committee chair Patrick Leahy, a Democrat. It pulls together existing congressional efforts to reform the National Security Agency in the wake of disclosures by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Sensenbrenner has called his bill the Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-Collection, and Online Monitoring Act – or USA Freedom Act, and a draft seen by the Guardian has four broad aims.

It seeks to limit the collection of phone records to known terrorist suspects; to end "secret laws" by making courts disclose surveillance policies; to create a special court advocate to represent privacy interests; and to allow companies to disclose how many requests for users' information they receive from the USA. The bill also tightens up language governing overseas surveillance to remove a loophole which it has been abused to target internet and email activities of Americans.

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I strongly support this effort.

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The conservative Republican who co-authored America's Patriot Act is preparing to unveil bipartisan legislation that would dramatically curtail the domestic surveillance powers it gives to intelligence agencies.

Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, who worked with president George W Bush to give more power to US intelligence agencies after the September 11 terrorist attacks, said the intelligence community had misused those powers by collecting telephone records on all Americans, and claimed it was time "to put their metadata program out of business".

His imminent bill in the House of Representatives is expected to be matched by a similar proposal from Senate judiciary committee chair Patrick Leahy, a Democrat. It pulls together existing congressional efforts to reform the National Security Agency in the wake of disclosures by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Sensenbrenner has called his bill the Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-Collection, and Online Monitoring Act – or USA Freedom Act, and a draft seen by the Guardian has four broad aims.

It seeks to limit the collection of phone records to known terrorist suspects; to end "secret laws" by making courts disclose surveillance policies; to create a special court advocate to represent privacy interests; and to allow companies to disclose how many requests for users' information they receive from the USA. The bill also tightens up language governing overseas surveillance to remove a loophole which it has been abused to target internet and email activities of Americans.

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Of course, in the last three months, we've also learned that this program of collecting data on every phone call in the US has been necessary to stop precisely zero attacks in the US -- but it did apparently lead them to a taxi driver sending some money to some not very nice people in Somalia. And, because of that, the NSA gets to keep track of everyone's phone calls. As has been explained repeatedly, this seems to go against not just the spirit and intended purpose of the 4th Amendment, but the plain language of that same Amendment. But, the FISA court has earned its rubber stamp reputation for a reason, and apparently it's not about to give up on it. Techdirt.

I'm always careful in what I wish for, Frank. I wish for a government who actually follows the law and doesn't reinterpret it to it's own self interest. This metadata collection has been going on for years now at the cost of billions of dollars per year and didn't prevent one, not one, attack.

And the FISA court will continue to rubber stamp the process until it's prevented from doing so by law.

Of course, in the last three months, we've also learned that this program of collecting data on every phone call in the US has been necessary to stop precisely zero attacks in the US -- but it did apparently lead them to a taxi driver sending some money to some not very nice people in Somalia. And, because of that, the NSA gets to keep track of everyone's phone calls. As has been explained repeatedly, this seems to go against not just the spirit and intended purpose of the 4th Amendment, but the plain language of that same Amendment. But, the FISA court has earned its rubber stamp reputation for a reason, and apparently it's not about to give up on it. Techdirt.

I question whether you, or anyone else involved here, can accurately report that it did not prevent even one attack.

Yes, it will...and perhaps to our direct advantage.

It may be preventing all sorts of things that rightly must be prevented.

Right. Metadata collection "contributed" to preventing "some" of the plots on US soil, but has not been identified as preventing a single one that wouldn't have otherwise been prevented through legal (really legal) means.

Someone else must have read your response(s), Frank

It's just in the news that Telekom ("t-online") will offer data-traffic (for emails etc), bypassing PoP's and servers in the USA and the UK ... ... ... which actually is just an addition to the already existing "e-mail made in Germany"-programs by most internet providers here.

But I am willing to share every email I send and receive with the government...and with anyone else who cares.

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But I am willing to share every email I send and receive with the government...and with anyone else who cares.

Whether you would allow your privacy to be invaded at whim or not is completely beside the point as far as the rest of us not having that done to us.

It is a deal breaker when the government does no honor the constitution and you can not follow the constitution in one aspect without endangering and making meaningless the whole document as it mean that our rulers can ignore any clause at their whim.

Deutsche Telekom is pushing to shield Internet traffic from spies by routing it through German servers. Outrage followed revelations that US surveillance programs had accessed the private messages of German citizens.

Telekom had already announced that it would channel local email traffic through servers within Germany, but the push for cooperation with competitors represents a new element. The company aims to reach an agreement with other Internet providers that any data transmitted domestically would not leave German borders, said Thomas Kremer, a member of Bonn-based Telekom's board of management for data privacy, legal affairs and compliance.

"In a next step, this initiative could be expanded to the Schengen area," Kremer said, referring to the 26 EU countries - excluding Britain - that have abandoned controls on land borders.
[...]
... Government snooping remains a sensitive subject in Germany, after decades of heavy surveillance of citizens in the former East and years of it nationwide under Hitler's Nazis.

"We want to guarantee that no byte between senders and recipients within Germany will even temporarily cross the border," Kremer said.
[...]
The magazine WirtschaftsWoche reported that companies such as Vodafone and Telefonica would consider whether to join the plan by Germany's biggest Internet provider.