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.