In a landmark victory for privacy, a federal appeals court ruled unanimously today that the mass phone-records program exposed two years ago by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is illegal because it goes far beyond what Congress ever intended to permit when it passed Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
The German Foreign Intelligence Agency Bundesnachrichtendienst taps internet traffic directly at the Internet Exchange Point DE-CIX in Frankfurt since 2009, replacing a predecessor operation „Eikonal“ at Deutsche Telekom. This was stated by the operator of DE-CIX at the German Parliamentary Committee investigating Intelligence Agency mass surveillence operations. The German Federal Chancellery intervened several times and prevented both a Parlamentary Commission and the Federal Network Agency from investigating this mass spying operation.
The leading German computer club has rejected EU anti-terror plans to tap online chatter, instead calling for all online communication to be encrypted. Politicians, meanwhile, are seeking ways to read encoded messages.