A government task force is preparing legislation that would pressure companies such as Face­book and Google to enable law enforcement officials to intercept online communications as they occur, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the effort. [...]

Susan Landau, a former Sun Microsystems distinguished engineer, has argued that wiring in an intercept capability will increase the likelihood that a company’s servers will be hacked. “What you’ve done is created a way for someone to silently go in and activate a wiretap,” she said. Traditional phone communications were susceptible to illicit surveillance as a result of the 1994 law, she said, but the problem “becomes much worse when you move to an Internet or computer-based network.” [...]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/proposal-seeks-to-...

A coalition of consumer rights groups has launched a campaign calling on the European Parliament to stop corporations from weakening regulations designed to protect online privacy. The campaigners – including the Open Rights Group, Privacy International, Digitale Gesellschaft, Access and La Quadrature du Net – have this morning presented a report to lawmakers claiming that amendments to the proposed Data Protection Regulation would strip consumers of a right to privacy. [...]

"Instead of fixing this often misused ground, members of the European Parliament are proposing to extend it by including the interests of third parties as a 'legitimate interest'," the report said. "This will allow companies unknown to citizens to process personal data if the companies believe it is in their 'best interest' to do so."

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/381424/eu-data-regulation-changes-would-stri...

Die Bürgerrechtsorganisationen European Digital Righs, Bits of Freedom, Open Rights Group und Privacy International haben die Änderungsanträge zur EU-Datenschutzreform durchforstet und nun in einem 13-seitigen Bericht die “fünf Vorschläge, die die Privatsphäre am stärksten verletzen würden” veröffentlicht. Unter dem Motto “NakedCitizens” starten sie gemeinsam mit dem Verein Digitale Gesellschaft, Access und La Quadrature du Net eine Kampagne und rufen dazu auf, die Abgeordneten im EU-Parlament zu kontaktieren. Mit einem Postkarten-Remixer können freizügige Motive per Mail an die Abgeordneten geschickt werden, mit der Aufforderung, sich für das Recht auf Datenschutz einzusetzen. [...]

https://netzpolitik.org/2013/eu-datenschutzreform-mit-nackten-postkarten...

Privacy activists called on Facebook’s London headquarters today to deliver a report which say European regulations designed to protect privacy have been crippled by recent amendments that came in response to a lobbying campaign by Facebook and other tech giants. [...]

These amendments, activists say, are partly the result of pressure by lobbyists, from tech companies including Facebook, as well as Amazon and Google. Earlier this year, it emerged some MEPs appear to have taken recommendations from tech vendors and pasted them directly into their formal consultation submissions. [...]

"This will allow companies unknown to citizens to process personal data relating to these citizens if the companies believe it is in their ‘best interest’ to do so. That would make an already big loophole even more broad and permit all sorts of processing without the consent of the individual,” the report read.

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/privacy-facebook-eu-lobbying-report...