The Reason Tech Industry Groups Are Advocating Swift Passage of NSA Curbs

The tech industry finds itself tarred by the same brush that has stained the reputation of the US National Security Agency, or NSA - and it's starting to burn.

Various tech industry groups have written to American senators and congressmen requesting that they vote to pass curbs on NSA intelligence-gathering activity. The letters are couched in the high-blown rhetoric customary for such purposes. The legislation itself is called the USA Freedom Act.

But the real impetus is that Europe is considering even more restrictive fiats on the action that really matters to these companies: the accumulation, aggregation and sale of personal data for commercial purposes.

The business of information is their base, so free access to do with it what they will has become an economic imperative. There was a point at which the consumer seemed utterly indifferent to the sources and uses of such data. It was 'free' and therefore not perceived to be of much value.

But they the scope of the NSA's spy revelations combined with the legal action taken by amateur athletes and others insisting that they be permitted to capture some of the revenue their own images and actions generated awakened the interest of mere consumers to the possibility that if someone was actively collecting and selling information about themselves, perhaps they deserved a piece of the action. This was compounded by Europe's heartfelt but theoretically utopian and morally bizarre notion that there should be a 'right to forget,' a decision which fraudsters and war criminals have warmly applauded.

So now Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook et al are faced with the prospect of losing access to the mother lode of digital commerce: data. The strategic plan is to lessen the stain of association with the NSA and to then work diligently to keep the data flowing before valuations become merely extraordinary rather than customarily extravagant. JL

John Ribeiro reports in PCWorld:

“As a result of the surveillance program revelations, U.S. technology companies have experienced negative economic implications in overseas markets. Other countries are considering proposals that would limit data flows between countries, which would have a negative impact on the efficiencies upon which the borderless Internet relies.”
Tech industry organizations have written a letter to leaders in the U.S. Senate, to ask them to swiftly pass the USA Freedom Act, legislation that is expected to end the collection of bulk domestic phone data by the National Security Agency.
Disclosures about the U.S. government’s surveillance programs since June 2013 have led to an erosion of public trust in the U.S. government and the U.S. technology sector, anti-software piracy group BSA, Computer and Communications Industry Association, Information Technology Industry Council, Reform Government Surveillance and the Software and Information Industry Association wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Leader in the Senate Mitch McConnell on Monday.
Reforms contained in the USA Freedom Act “will send a clear signal to the international community and to the American people that government surveillance programs are narrowly tailored, transparent, and subject to oversight,” the industry groups added.
In June last year, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA was collecting phone metadata of Americans from Verizon, the first of a series of revelations about U.S. surveillance in the country and abroad.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed in May an amended version of the USA Freedom Act that would limit the collection of phone data to certain “specific selection terms.” But an expanded definition of the specific selection terms that can be used by the NSA to collect data from phone companies was criticized by civil rights groups and the industry, as it would continue to allow the NSA to target a large number of phone records.
The bill introduced in the Senate in July by Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, and others aims to tighten the collection of data by the NSA by closing loopholes. In a letter to Leahy last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper expressed support for the bill.
The transparency measures and reform of surveillance proposed in the Freedom Act are expected to send positive signals abroad where U.S. tech companies fear losing business, the tech industry groups said, echoing a concern already expressed by a number of tech companies.
Cisco Systems’ CEO John Chambers, for example, wrote to U.S. President Barack Obama in May, asking for his intervention so that U.S. technology sales were not affected by a loss in trust.
“As a result of the surveillance program revelations, U.S. technology companies have experienced negative economic implications in overseas markets,” the tech groups wrote. “In addition, other countries are considering proposals that would limit data flows between countries, which would have a negative impact on the efficiencies upon which the borderless Internet relies.”
Congress returned from recess on Monday though there may be only a few days of legislative business ahead of campaigning for midterm elections.