The fame of Edward Snowden it has no boundaries. The former employee of National Security Agency (NSA) USA became known in 2013 after revealing significant details about the programs of mass surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency and other US intelligence agencies, as well as some international partners.
Snowden worked as a consultant for the NSA and had access to vast amounts of confidential information. His revelations caused a real scandal to explode, raising grave concerns about the privacy of citizens and within the reach of government surveillance activities, both in the US and in other countries. Snowden showed that NSA collected data on a large scaleincluding communication data of US citizens and foreigners, without adequate control or oversight.
After leaking this information, Snowden left the US and sought refuge in other states. The administration of the country with stars and stripes, in fact, accuses him of espionage and other crimes related to the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
NSA will take control of the Internet in a matter of days, is Snowden’s prophecy
“The National Security Agency (NSA) is just days away from take control of the Internet“, ha Snowden wrote in a post on. And, incredibly, the news “it’s not on the front pages of the newspapers, because no one noticed“, he adds.
The “deep throat” who in the past provided documents on NSA activities to various newspapers, points out that the Agency will extend its activities excessively surveillance powers.
Where did Snowden’s warning come from? The USA is about to pass a bill that reforms and extends part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), known as Section 702.
Currently, NSA can force Internet service providers such as Google and various telecommunications providers to hand over personal data relating to private and corporate users. As Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the program, points out Liberty and National Security at Brennan Center for Justicea seemingly innocuous change to the definition in the law FISA 702the overseas government could go well beyond the initially defined scope of action and force almost every company and individual that provides any Internet-related service to assist in surveillance operations carried out by the NSA itself.
“The innovation involves a vast range of companies that make connectivity services available to their customers and therefore have access to devices through which communications pass“, it is read. Furthermore, those obliged to hand over the data cannot “put their foot down” due to the heavy sanctions provided for in the regulatory provision.
The bill received a strong opposition bipartisan and is defined, by many, as absolutely “terrifying”. Yet it could become operational as early as April 19th.
Be careful of the possible consequences in data transfer agreements between Europe and the United States
After a very long dispute, which has put companies and citizens accustomed to using cloud platforms provided by suppliers headquartered in the USA in serious difficulty, on 11 July 2023 a new agreement came into force with the European Union for the data transfer outside the borders of the Member States.
The adequacy decision for data transfer between Europe and the USA led to the European Commission to once again qualify the country with the stars and stripes as a “destination” capable of ensuring a sufficient level of protection to protect personal data belonging to European businesses and citizens.
The association Noahthrough the mouth of the founder Max Schremswas quick to declare that the new agreement (the third in history) would be short-lived and that a new battle would begin for invalidate the agreement.
To date, the Europe-USA agreement focused on data transfer is fully in force but the changes relating to FISA 702 could complicate the situation again if they were actually ratified by Parliament and became operational.