A few hours ago there was what was possibly the hardest hit so far for the NSA and user espionage, since its methods were made public thanks to the leaking of secret documents to the press. In a surprise vote, the US House of Representatives voted in favor of two measures to prevent the NSA from obtaining data so easily; The first of these affects only US citizens, while the second concerns the installation of rear doors.
Blow to government espionage
On the one hand, the new law prohibits a government official or employee obtain information from a US citizen through foreign surveillance programs; Specifically, the official cannot search for people with the United States as an identifier, but does not say anything about the information of US citizens that can be found by looking for other things.
The second part of the law has received better reactions from activists and security experts around the world, as prohibits the NSA or the CIA from contacting online service creators, software and hardware and forcing or asking them to include back doors in the code. A back door is secret access to information saved by the program, and government agencies have been known to pressure programmers to include them in their programs to more easily access emails, browsing history, or chat logs.
() None of the funds made available by this Act may be used by the National Security Agency (Ndt: NSA) or the Central Intelligence Agency (Ndt: CIA) to order or request that a person () alter their product or service. to allow electronic surveillance () of any user of said product or service for said agencies Amendment to HR 4870.
Now the law has to go through the Senate to become a reality from 2015, although the great support it has obtained in the House of Representatives (293 votes for 123 against) allows optimism.
BREAKING: US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passes amendment to cut funding for NSA backdoors.
EFF (@EFF) June 20, 2014
Source | Wired | Vox
