Internet turned into ‘giant surveillance platform’ by NSA

Bruce Schneier, who has written extensively on digital security and privacy, told an audience in Dublin tonight that the revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden of large-scale surveillance by the NSA showed that we were living in a “golden age of surveillance.”

In a lecture for the human rights group Front Line Defenders, Mr Schneier said the NSA’s role changed completely after the 9/11 attacks, when US intelligence agencies were given “an impossible mission: never again.” “The only way to ensure something doesn’t happen is to know everything that is happening,” he said.

US judge: our digital search warrants apply ANYWHERE

Microsoft has been told by a US District Court that it must hand over e-mail details to an unnamed law enforcement agency, even though that data is held offshore.

In a case that will exacerbate concerns in non-American countries about the extra-territorial reach of US laws, a magistrate in the District Court of Southern New York, Judge James Francis has ruled that the tech giant “cannot refuse to turn over customer information and emails stored in other countries when issued a valid search warrant from U.S. law enforcement agencies,” according to Reuters.