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  2. October 2017

October 2017

Senate Intelligence Committee to debate in secret a bill that would renew a powerful spy tool

The Senate Intelligence Committee is planning on Oct 24 to debate in secret a bill that would reauthorize a powerful surveillance authority without imposing any new restraints on the FBI’s ability to search and use the communications of Americans gathered under that law in national security and criminal prosecutions.

The bill, drafted by Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC), would enshrine the FBI’s right to use emails and other data collected from US tech companies without individualized warrants in cases­ related to terrorism, espionage and serious crimes such as murder and kidnapping. The legislation is aimed at revising a law often referred to as Section 702, a portion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amended in 2008. It authorizes the government to gather the communications of foreign targets located overseas, a process that may incidentally sweep up the emails, phone calls and texts of Americans. The law is due to expire at the end of 2017.

Connecting every San Francisco resident, business to fiber-optic internet would cost up to $1.9 billion

San Francisco is on the verge of becoming an internet connectivity leader by asking the marketplace to help create a fast network on a scale never before achieved by a major US city. The cost to create a fiber-optic network connecting every home and business in San Francisco to the internet would cost up to $1.9 billion, according to a new city-hired consultant report.

And the best way to get there is through a public-private partnership. “The opportunity The City is about to present to the private sector is unprecedented,” reads the report by Maryland-based consultant Columbia Telecommunications Corporation in partnership with financial advisory firm IMG Rebel. “There has never before existed in any American community an opportunity for a private entity to lease fiber or broadband infrastructure to reach 100 percent of the homes and businesses in the community,” the report says.

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