10MIN NEWS Bravo To The UK #39;s Stand They Don #39;t Buy Obama #39;s NSA Spying Promises
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10MIN NEWS Bravo To The UK's Stand They Don't Buy Obama's NSA Spying Promises - Video

-Biden in 2006 schools Obama in 2013 over NSA spying program
Biden in 2006 schools Obama in 2013 over NSA spying program Biden in 2006 schools Obama in 2013 over NSA spying program.

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-Biden in 2006 schools Obama in 2013 over NSA spying program - Video

Photo: Jock Fistick/Bloomberg/Getty Images Who is Listening? German chancellor Angela Merkel was shocked to learn that the U.S. National Security Agency had been tapping her phone. Germany is considering steps to guard its network.

Just imagine the network of all networks, the globe-spanning Internet, becoming a loose web of tightly guarded, nearly impermeable regional or even national networks. It seems antithetical to the mythology surrounding the Internets power and purpose. But ongoing revelations about the extensive surveillance activities of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) are pushing countries like Germany and Brazil to take concrete steps in that direction.

Within the 28-member European Union, Germany is taking the lead in pushing for measures to shield local Internet communications from foreign intelligence services. That should come as no surprise. For Germans from the formerly Communist-ruled part of the country, NSA spying sparks bitter memories of eavesdropping by the Stasi, the secret police agency of the former East Germany. Because of that history, Germany has one of the strictest data privacy regimes in the world. On more than one occasion, the country has forced Google and other Internet companies to amend their data collection and usage practices.

For German chancellor Angela Merkel, the revelations are particularly disturbing: The political leader, who grew up under Stasi scrutiny, has had to deal with allegations that her own mobile phone was tapped by the NSA. Shes not amused.

Cybersecurity is no longer a niche topic but a top priority, Deutsche Telekom CEO Ren Obermann told attendees of the Cyber Security Summit late last year, in Bonn. He noted that his company battles more than 800 000 attacks a day on its networks.

A number of policymakers in Berlin and the countrys network regulator back Deutsche Telekoms efforts to tighten security through national routing, says Obermann. Essentially, the concept aims to handle data generated in Germany and destined for or used by local end users by means of fiber-optic cables, routing gear, and computers within the country. The aim is to avoid sending data packets through nodes in the United States and the United Kingdom. The operator, which already offers an encrypted Made in Germany e-mail service and cloud service, has also suggested expanding the idea to include all 26 countries participating in the borderless Schengen Area in Europe. Deutsche Telekom already carries much of the Internet traffic in Germany via reciprocal, or peering, agreements with ISPs, with the remainder handled by an array of operators, many of them foreign-owned.

The kind of segmenting of Internet communications Obermann is talking about would require operators to have two essential components: a national peering agreement that links the Internet networks of all the service providers; and a routing table, also known as a routing information base (RIB), that describes the topology of the networks. Routing tables maintained by the operators currently contain no instructions to keep in-country packets inside the country. The operators would also need their own German-specific routing protocols, which set down how the routers communicate with each other.

Deutsche Telekom claims it has the technology and know-how and needs just three more peering agreements to be able to provide such national routing. The operator, which is also open to the idea of forming a national routing entity, says more than two-thirds of its e-mail traffic is generated and terminated in Germany, and it is pushing parliamentarians to make the needed agreements mandatory.

European governments arent the only ones looking to break off from what they see as American control of the Internet. The Open Root Server Network (ORSN) is an alternative network of domain name serversmachines that translate the names of Web addresses into the numbers of Internet addresses. Originally established to counter the fact that most of the domain name servers were in the United States at the turn of the 21st century, it operated from 2002 to 2008, when an expansion of the domain name server system made it defunct. But following ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowdens revelations about the agencys spying, the ORSN has been revived. Were detached from a single country, like the U.S., which still controls the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, says Markus Grundmann, one of the networks founders and coordinators.

Beyond Europe, Brazils president, Dilma Rousseff, is one of the most outspoken heads of state to criticize NSA practices and take action. She is pushing legislation to force Internet companies such as Google and Facebook to store local data within the countrys borders. She also wants to build submarine cables that dont route through the United States, set up domestic Internet exchange points, and create an encrypted national e-mail service.

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NSA Surveillance Sparks Talk of National Internets

Last week, President Obama announced a number of reforms to how the NSA conducts its business. Chief among those reforms was changing how the agency collects bulk cellphone metadata. Some felt that the program should be ended immediately though, and the Presidents own civil liberties board couldnt agree more.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board published a 238-page document today detailing their opinion on the NSAs collection of bulk telephone metadata. In stark contrast to just about everybody else in the executive branch, the board concluded in a 3-2 decision that it is illegal and should be ended immediately.

So, how did the Board come about to this conclusion? In the executive summary of the document, the board points out that Section 215 of the Patriot Act only allows the FBI to acquire records that a business has in its possession as part of an FBI investigation, when those records are relevant to the investigation. The current interpretation of Section 215 that allows the NSA to collect the phone records of every America bears almost no resemblance to that description, according to the board.

The Board then breaks down how the NSAs actions goes beyond what Section 215 allows in four parts:

First, the telephone records acquired under the program have no connection to any specific FBI investigation at the time of their collection. Second, because the records are collected in bulk potentially encompassing all telephone calling records across the nation they cannot be regarded as relevant to any FBI investigation as required by the statute without redefining the world relevant in a manner that is circular, unlimited in scope, and out of step with the case law from analogous legal contexts involving the production of records. Third, the program operates by putting telephone companies under an obligation to furnish new calling records on a daily basis as they are generated (instead of turning over records already in their possession) an approach lacking foundation in the statute and one that is inconsistent with FISA as a whole. Fourth, the statute permits only the FBI to obtain items for use in its investigation; it does not authorize the NSA to collect anything.

If that wasnt enough, the Board also says that Section 215 violates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, or ECPA.

In addition, we conclude that the program violates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. That statute prohibits telephone companies from sharing consumer records with the government except in response to specific enumerated circumstances, which do not include Section 215 orders.

Oh, but the trashing of Section 215 doesnt stop there. A bit further into the summary, the Board says that the common defense of the bulk metadata collection program (i.e. it stops terrorism) doesnt hold up in the face of reality:

we conclude that the Section 215 program has shown minimal value in safeguarding the nation from terrorism. Based on information provided to the Board, including classified briefings and documentation, we have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation. Moreover, we are aware of no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack. And we believe that in only one instance over the past seven years has the program arguably contributed to the identification of an unknown terrorism suspect. Even in that case, the suspect was not involved in planning a terrorist attack and there is reason to believe that the FBI may have discovered him without the contribution of the NSAs program.

Despite saying that it has never directly contributed to the foiling of a terrorist plot, the Board plays devils advocate for a bit by saying that the bulk metadata collection program may help investigators in two ways. The first is that the program may offer additional leads regarding the contacts of terrorism suspects already known to investigators. The second can help investigators confirm suspicions about the target of an inquiry. Despite this, the Board feels that the bulk metadata collection program largely duplicates the FBIs own information gathering efforts. In other words, its redundant and contributes nothing of value.

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Civil Liberties Board Says NSA Spying Is Illegal

The bulk collection of phone call data by US intelligence agencies is illegal and has had only minimal benefits in preventing terrorism, an independent US privacy watchdog has ruled.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board advised by a 3-2 majority that the programme should end, BBC reports.

In a major speech last week, President Barack Obama said he was ordering curbs on the use of such mass data.

But he said the US must continue collecting data to prevent attacks.

The report from the PCLOB is the latest of several reviews of the National Security Agencys mass surveillance programme, the details of which caused widespread anger after they were leaked by Edward Snowden.

Washington has argued it is lawful to collect information on phone calls known as metadata under a section of the George W Bush-era Patriot Act which gives the FBI the power to demand from businesses information deemed relevant to their investigations.

But the New York Times, one of several media organisations to have seen the PCLOB report, says three of the five panel members concluded that the NSA spying programme lacks a viable legal foundation under the Patriot Act.

It represents an unsustainable attempt to shoehorn a pre-existing surveillance programme into the text of a statute with which it is not compatible, they said.

The programme also raised constitutional concerns, including serious threats to privacy and civil liberties as a policy matter, and has shown only limited value.

As a result, the board recommends that the government end the programme, said the report.

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NSA spying is illegal – US privacy watchdog