US President Barack Obama, in his much-anticipated speech on Friday, proposed a series of changes to the NSA surveillance activities that have caused a stir in recent months. As we also expected from iGuRu.gr, important aspects of the issue were not mentioned at all and he very diplomatically avoided bringing to the fore important changes that had been proposed to him by the team that had undertaken the evaluation of the secret service.
Here are five points Obama said he would not change or did not mention at all during his NSA speech.
1. Other mass surveillance and data collection programs.
The US president's reference to the telephone metadata collection program, and his announcement of its semi-termination, may have deceived some Americans (until it was revealed that the service was proceeding normally) as the NSA would not stop collecting almost all the files from the their phone calls. The difference is that the database and analysts who can process the data will no longer be under the jurisdiction of the NSA. Obama supported the proposal made to him by the internal intelligence assessment team, that is, to take the database from the hands of the NSA.
Αλλά τι γίνεται με τη μαζική συλλογή των μεταδεδομένων στο Διαδίκτυο, τα οποία χρησιμοποιούνται για την κατασκευή κοινωνικών γραφημάτων δεδομένων των Αμερικανών; Ο Obama εθελοτυφλώντας, παρέβλεψε το γεγονός ότι παραβιάζει το άρθρο 702 του νομοσχεδίου FISA (Foreign market Monitor). Τι θα γίνει με την συλλογή SΜS; Τι θα γίνει με τη συλλογή εκατομμυρίων δεδομένων ηλεκτρονικού ταχυδρομείου και άμεσων μηνυμάτων, από Αμερικάνους και μη;
Obama did not say anything about all of this. These programs are likely to continue.
2. Public prosecutor at the FISA court.
The NSA's internal evaluation team has recommended the appointment of a "Public Interest Prosecutor" to represent the interests of the common citizen, such as the protection of privacy and individual liberties before the Secret Service.
Obama did not raise the issue of a public prosecutor, but as he said, there should be a panel of experts to participate in the proceedings of the FISA Court. But it will not intervene in every case. You will only hear their voices "in important cases", when the court will have to decide on broader privacy decisions and how the NSA conducts surveillance. In short, the existence of an advocate for individual freedoms in the FISA court is "unnecessary" and possibly counterproductive. But think about what "production" we are talking about.
3 . Οι προσπάθειες της NSA να υπονομεύσει τα πρότυπα encryptionς
Last September, documents leaked by Edward Snowden αποκάλυψαν ότι η NSA πραγματοποιεί πολύπλευρες προσπάθειες για να υπονομεύσει και να αποδυναμώσι τα πρότυπα κρυπτογράφησης και της ασφάλειας, προκειμένου να μπορέσει η μυστική υπηρεσία να αποκτήσει πρόσβαση σε επικοινωνίες που η κοινή γνώμη στο Διαδίκτυο πιστεύει ότι είναι ασφαλείς .
Both the NSA and the FBI have been accused of undermining encryption. Of course, both departments have denied these allegations. The NSA is also reportedly giving the security company RSA 10 a million dollars in a secret contract to secure weaker encryption protocols.
Read: New scandal: NSA has paid 10 million to RSA to weaken encryption
In light of these revelations, the internal evaluation team endorsed the powerful encryption technology, arguing that the US government should "in no way overturn, undermine, weaken or make vulnerable commercial encryption software available."
[ads2]Obama did not say anything about it in his speech. Obviously, US Secretaries have never wanted and continue not to want encryption in the hands of a simple citizen.
4. Judicial review of national security letters
The FBI has been using national security letters for years, asking telephone companies and Internet companies to deliver their customer data. These letters are a special kind of administrative subpoena that does not require the FBI to get the judicial approval before they are issued. Letters simply carry orders that tell the recipients not to reveal their existence to the target (but also to the general public) whose data has been requested, not even after years of writing the letter.
The experts of the NSA secret action review committee have proposed a reform of the law to require a judge to be approved for each letter of this kind. Obama has approved more transparency, but not judicial oversight.
5. Spying on data centers across the world
Documents released by Snowden in October reported that the NSA has the ability to collect data from all Internet users by intercepting the links linking Google and Yahoo data centers.
Obama made no comment on this.
In short, Obama's statements - announcements were made for firefighting reasons and not to bring about changesettings to the uncontrolled actions of the NSA, which essentially remains intact. We had no illusions about the fact and it would be utopia to believe that the US will change its imperialist policy.
