U.S. Privacy Changes in Sight for 2017

More surveillance, less privacy

If we take all of Snowden‘s past revelations into account, the existence of the PRISM program, which records all data of the major American ISPs, and the fact that a court order may be enough to obtain any information they possess, we can conclude that online privacy in America is pretty much non-existing. But when President-elect Trump takes office, the mass surveillance is expected to become even more intrusive as the NSA, FBI and CIA are likely to gain more power. This can represent a problem for many tech companies, as we all remember Donald Trump’s position on the case that opposed Apple to the FBI over hacking a terrorist’s encrypted iPhone.

Among the new measures likely to be passed there’s a new rule towards renewing the government’s aptitude to collect the contents of e-mails of giant corporations such as Facebook or Google. Furthermore, the infamous Section 702 of the Patriot Act, responsible for running PRISM and other mass surveillance programs, is set to be extinguished by the end of 2017 if Congress doesn’t choose to reauthorize it – which is likely to happen.

Last but not least, the FBI is also looking to get legislation approved that would allow the agency to obtain browsing histories, IP addresses and more without any prior authorization or warrant – a measure that already counts with the opposition of Google and Facebook for instance.

With all this being said, the future of online privacy for American citizens will most likely be darker than ever.