NSA spying damages US economy, may end up ‘breaking the Internet’

An undated aerial handout photo shows the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters building in Fort Meade, Maryland (Reuters)

An undated aerial handout photo shows the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters building in Fort Meade, Maryland (Reuters)

Technology giants claim the National Security Agency’s bulk surveillance programs are hurting the American economy, and one Senator is hoping to use that warning to push stalled reform through Congress.

Google, Microsoft, and
Facebook were just some of the companies represented at a public
forum held by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Wednesday, and they all
expressed concern over the possibility that the National Security
Agency’s (NSA) practices will not only hurt their businesses, but
the internet in general.

“We’re going to end up breaking the Internet,” Google
Chairman Eric Schmidt cautioned at the forum, according to the
Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s general counsel, Brad Smith, said the
company’s European clients are already concerned their data is
more susceptible to snooping by the NSA. With some countries
mulling over laws that would ensure data on their citizens is
physically stored inside of their borders, US-based tech
companies argue that rising costs associated with what are
essentially trust-based regulations would be a drag on the
economy.

“Laws that the rest of the world doesn’t respect will
ultimately undermine the fundamental ability of our own legal
processes, law enforcement agencies and even the intelligence
community itself,”
Smith said.

READ MORE: Congress won’t touch NSA reform until
after midterms, may wait until 2015 – report

In response, Wyden – a much-touted surveillance reform advocate –
said he would use these warnings to compel lawmakers to take
action.

“What I’m going to do is say there’s a clear and present
danger to the Internet economy,”
Wyden said to the AP.

“When the actions of a foreign government threaten
red-white-and-blue jobs, Washington gets up at arms. But, even
today, almost no one in Washington is talking about how overly
broad surveillance is hurting the U.S. economy,”
he added in
his remarks at the forum.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) (Reuters / Mike Theiler)

Last year, a report highlighted by Bloomberg suggested that NSA surveillance
could cost the US up to $180 billion in global technology sales
by 2016. Another said American companies could risk $35 billion a
year if foreign customers decide to look elsewhere for similar
services.

“Customers buy products and services based on a company’s
reputation, and the NSA has single-handedly tarnished the
reputation of the entire U.S. tech industry,”
said analyst
Daniel Castro to the website. “I suspect many foreign
customers are going to be shopping elsewhere for their hardware
and software.”

Meanwhile, there’s no guarantee that Wyden’s plan to push
Congress will work – at least not this year. In September, it was
reported that Congress may not take up the
USA Freedom Act reform bill until after the midterm elections.
Even then, it’s possible that action will be delayed until 2015.

The USA Freedom Act would place metadata records – information
such as the time a call was made, the duration of the call, but
not the actual content of the call itself – in the possession of
telephone companies instead of the NSA. If intelligence agencies
wanted to gain access to the data, they would have to seek
approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA).

Although the House of Representatives passed the original draft
in May, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) further strengthened the bill
at the behest of civil liberties advocates. However, key
reformers like Wyden have not thrown their support behind the
bill, hoping for stronger measures against the “backdoor”
collection of Americans’ data, something done indirectly when the
primary target is a foreigner.

Wyden, along with his colleague Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), may
even wait until the Patriot Act is up for renewal in June 2015,
believing they could use its pending expiration as leverage for
more substantial reform.


Source Article from http://rt.com/usa/194356-nsa-usa-economy-internet/

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