Sued for snooping

Telecommunication>> Government Surveillance • US

 
Published: Wednesday 15 January 2014

imageIn light of “disclosures that have taken place”, there might be “another way of skinning the cat”. The statement was made by US President Barack Obama in December in response to the criticism the US government is facing for its overseas surveillance programme. The government is being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Yale University’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic which want to know what happens to the data US’ National Security Agency (NSA) collects. They also want information about the executive order under which the programme was launched and say that unchecked surveillance is open to misuse. An ACLU lawsuit filed in June 2013 against the programme was dismissed by New York court in December 2013.

As part of the surveillance, NSA tracks millions of incoming and outgoing international phone calls and has managed to put “backdoors” in security products of IT companies like Cisco, Dell, Apple, HP and Huawei.

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