The NSA and AIVD nominated for Big Brother Award

The American intelligence service NSA and the Dutch AIVD are together nominated for a Big Brother Award of the foundation Bits of Freedom, because of the ‘mass surveillance of innocent citizens worldwide’.

The nomination of the NSA and the AIVD, after a nominating round, where Dutch internet users their candidate for the grossest privacyschenders of the past year’ were allowed to submit. The coming weeks can be put to the vote; at the end of this month is the ‘prize’ awarded.

At the beginning of June it became known that the NSA behind a program was in which internet users worldwide in the holes could be held. According to some messages the AIVD has done so, although the government deny this; a commission will now go figure out exactly how it is.

In addition to the NSA and the AIVD is also to minister Ivo Opstelten of Security and Justice, nominated, in part due to a proposal to make it possible to break in on the computers of criminals. Also plans for registration and ‘a whole series of other proposals and statements showing his lack of interest for privacy it were the reason for the nomination, writes Bits of Freedom.

The third nomination goes to payment processor Equens, because of plans to pingedrag of customers by selling. Companies would (for a fee can find out which stores customers visit and how much they spend. According to Equens, would that data not be traced back to customers, but, after a big fuss was created about the plans, saw the payment processor, there is “tentative”.