Posted on 12/13/2013 8:04:39 AM PST by kobald
Senior figures behind efforts to curtail the powers of American spy agencies have seized on the decision by the world’s largest tech companies to call for radical surveillance reform, saying the unexpected intervention is a potential “game-changer”.
In an open letter published jointly on Monday, eight tech giants, including Apple, Google and Facebook, said disclosures by the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that basic rights and freedoms were being undermined.
The companies – which also include Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, LinkedIn and Twitter, and have a combined value of $1.4tn – called for widespread changes that, if enacted, would end many of the current programs through which governments spy on citizens at home and abroad.
"This is a major game-changer,” Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an advocacy group, told the Guardian...
Justin Amash, the House Republican whose amendment to end the mass collection of American citizens’ phone records was only narrowly defeated in July, said the tech companies' statement would galvanise support for the USA Freedom Act, the bill which is proposing to end bulk collection. “Businesses increasingly recognise that our government's out-of-control surveillance hurts their bottom line and costs American jobs,” Amash said in a statement...
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Tech giants demand of NSA: “Don’t make it so easy for people to find out we’re cooperating with you.”
Amash is sponsoring bills with John Conyer. You keep leaving that out.
/johnny
That is correct! All these companies didn't mind helping the NSA, as long as they weren't exposed!
Obviously, the corporations are acting on self-interest rather than pure civic virtue. That's fine; the invisible hand is guiding them to do the right thing.
Church Committee 2.0
Coming Soon to a video screen near you.
Because of Snowden's revelations, US tech companies have probably peaked in terms of global market share. Not that the security breaches weren't known before, but now there are major impetus driving individual national efforts to create secure platforms & applications. (Well, at least domestically - each intelligence service will of course still have access - acknowledged or otherwise. But at least it won't be the NSA.)
Since tech is a major component of the US economy, this could have a significant impact on GDP. Ergo, it effects national security. Of course, the real culprits are those who violated 300m US citizens' constitutional rights and set this snowball in action.
If the people responsible for trashing the Constitution aren't going to be meaningfully punished, at least they can be publicly embarrassed on teevee.
We’ll know these ‘tech giants’ are serious when they start refusing to contribute to the campaigns of candidates who aren’t Big Government statists.
aren’t s/b are
Would work a lot better if Level 3, AT&T and the other major backbone providers would get on board, because it’s their Internet backbone switches that have interception software built-in by the OEM manufacturers based on NSA specifications. The carriers won’t say a peep though because they win multi-billion dollar bids from the feds for providing the private backbone structures for the defense department Internets as well as a plethora of private federal civilian backbones.
True.
already we can see changes....here a news release regarding a Trans-Arctic fiber cable, from the UK to Japan, totally by-passing the US:
quote: Arctic Fibre is deploying state of the art technology utilizing 100 gigabit wavelengths to construct a system with a capacity of 24 terabits. The backbone cable is over 15,000km long providing ultra low latency service between Tokyo and London. The construction of the system is beginning in May 2014 and is scheduled to be in service in January 2016.
The companies are worried about their $$ profit , their trusted relationship with customers, and not all that concerned about privacy
Anyone notice that not mentioned is govt. encouraqed / endorsed Google ?
Without the whistle-blower information release by Edward Snowden , the extent and depth of government intrusion and surveilence would have remained totally unknown.
With the history of deception and chronic lies by this administration, as well as chronic "over-reach" ,
does anyone seriously believe that they will adhear to this restrictive legislation ,
especially since Diane Fienstein oversees the Intelligence Committee ... /sarc
Diane Feinstein on an Intelligence Committee is like Ebenezer Scrooge (pre-ghosts) on a Charity Committee.
” each intelligence service will of course still have access - acknowledged or otherwise. But at least it won’t be the NSA”
Yeah, for what like the first 4 days? All NSA has to do is crack the root algorithms of others’ encryption to be able to unlock all the keys derived from them. That’s quick work for them.
They’ll encrypt all traffic real time.
The only ones taking the hit will be these US corporations whose global exposure evaporates. They didn’t really cooperate btw.
> Tech giants demand of NSA: “Don’t make it so easy for people to find out we’re cooperating with you.”
^ truth be told
EXACTLY !!
Does that automatically make the bills illegitimate?
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Do you have any references for this?
I doubt it.
Unless they've made a serious breakthrough in fundamental mathematics, they are as stymied by well managed modern cryptography as anyone. They don't break the keys. They steal them or beat them out of you with a rubber hose. Or they just kill you.
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