Monitoring NSA in de VS en erbuiten, deel 7

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Battle brews as tech companies attempt to fend off NSA hacking

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The NSA allegedly gathered millions of records from Google and Yahoo data centers around the world, but soon, the agency might have a much harder time trying to collect this type of data.
Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, and other prominent technology companies are investing heavily in stronger, 2048-bit encryption. Due to computing power constraints, it's expected to be more than a decade before this type of encryption can be easily overcome.

Google, one of the leaders in the effort, announced in May that it would switch over to 2,048-bit encryption keys by the end of 2013. Yahoo recently confirmed to Bloomberg, which spoke with several tech companies that are investing in new encryption, that it will make 2048-bit encryption standard by January 2014 for all its Mail users. Facebook also plans to move to 2048-bit encryption, a spokeswoman told Bloomberg, and will roll out "perfect forward secrecy," a feature that prevents snoopers from accessing user data even if they can access the company's security codes.

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UK's reputation is damaged by reaction to Edward Snowden, says UN official

Special rapporteur on freedom of expression says he is alarmed at political response to revelations of mass surveillance

A senior United Nations official responsible for freedom of expression has warned that the British government's response to the mass surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden is doing serious damage to the UK's international reputation for investigative journalism and press freedom.

Frank La Rue, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, said he was alarmed at the political reaction following the revelations about the extent and reach of secret surveillance programmes run by Britain's eavesdropping centre, GCHQ, and its US counterpart, the National Security Agency (NSA).

"I have been absolutely shocked about the way the Guardian has been treated, from the idea of prosecution to the fact that some members of parliament even called it treason," said La Rue. "I think that is unacceptable in a democratic society."

La Rue's intervention comes as a delegation of the world's leading editors and publishers prepares for a "press freedom mission" to the UK to raise their own concerns about the British government's position.

Organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), the delegation will arrive in January and include publishers and editors from five continents. WAN-IFRA says the mission is the first of its kind to the UK and has been prompted by growing concerns about UK government interference in press regulation and the political pressure on the Guardian. The delegation is expected to meet government and opposition leaders, press industry figures and civil society organisations.

"We are concerned that these actions not only seriously damage the United Kingdom's historic international reputation as a staunch defender of press freedom, but provide encouragement to non-democratic regimes to justify their own repressive actions," said Vincent Peyrègne, chief executive of the Paris-based WAN-IFRA.

The Guardian, and major media organisations in other countries, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, began disclosing details of the extent and reach of secret surveillance programmes run by GCHQ and the NSA in June.

The articles have sparked a global debate on the scale and oversight of surveillance by the US and UK intelligence agencies. However, in the UK there has been growing political pressure on the Guardian, with calls for it to be prosecuted, a decision to call the editor, Alan Rusbridger, to give evidence to the home affairs select committee and a warning from David Cameron that he would take "tougher measures" against the newspaper unless it demonstrated "some social responsibility".

On Friday the New York Times voiced its concern over the political climate in the UK. In an editorial entitled "British press freedom under threat" it stated: "Britain has a long tradition of a free, inquisitive press. That freedom, so essential to democratic accountability, is being challenged by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government of Prime Minister David Cameron."

It pointed out that unlike the US, Britain has no constitutional guarantee of press freedom. "Parliamentary committees and the police are now exploiting that lack of protection to harass, intimidate and possibly prosecute the Guardian newspaper for its publication of information based on National Security Agency documents that were leaked by Edward Snowden … The global debate now taking place about intelligence agencies collecting information on the phone calls, emails and internet use of private citizens owes much to the Guardian's intrepid journalism. In a free society, the price for printing uncomfortable truths should not be parliamentary and criminal inquisition."

In an interview with the Guardian La Rue said the political fallout in the UK was unacceptable.

"When you are in public office you understand that the role of the press is to investigate things that are done right or things that are done wrong and make it known to the public. And if you are in office you know that you come under public scrutiny and public scrutiny comes with public criticism and you cannot use national security as an argument and much less challenge as treason something that is informing the public, even if it is embarrassing information for those that are in office."

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Britse geheime dienst bespioneert hotels

De Britse geheime dienst GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) houdt elke dag in de hele wereld reserveringen in hotels in de gaten waar doorgaans veel hoge regeringsfunctionarissen of diplomaten komen. De reserveringssystemen worden bespied met het programma 'Koninklijke Conciërge'. Dit blijkt zondag volgens het Duitse weekblad Der Spiegel uit publicaties van de Amerikaanse 'klokkenluider' Edward Snowden.

Van minstens 350 hotels weet GCHQ wie er wanneer verblijven. Dat kan aanleiding zijn om telefoons of computers in de betreffende hotelkamers af te luisteren of spionnen naar het hotel in kwestie te sturen.

Systeembeheerder Snowden heeft een schat aan vertrouwelijke informatie gestolen bij zijn voormalige werkgever, de Amerikaanse inlichtingendienst NSA (National Security Agency). Hij doet sindsdien boekjes open over de omvangrijke en technisch geraffineerde wijze waarop de Amerikaanse en Britse geheime diensten communicatie bespioneren en in kaart brengen.

Diplomatieke rel
De Brits-Amerikaanse spionage leverde een diplomatieke rel op toen uitlekte dat ook regeringsleiders, onder wie de Duitse bondskanselier Angela Merkel, zijn afgeluisterd door de NSA. De Amerikaanse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken John Kerry hoopt die schade snel te repareren.

Volgens Der Spiegel wil Kerry naar Berlijn komen zodra de nieuwe Duitse regering geïnstalleerd is. Hij hoopt een 'renaissance' in de transatlantische betrekkingen te realiseren. President Barack Obama beloofde eerder al dat Merkel niet afgeluisterd wordt of zal worden. Over spionage in het verleden liet hij zich niet uit.

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Grilling of spy chiefs ‘a total pantomime’

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AN UNPRECEDENTED public appearance by UK spy chiefs has been labelled a “total pantomime” after it emerged that they were told of questions in advance.

A private deal was struck with the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ to ensure they did not face any surprises when they were grilled before an audience, sources close to Westminster’s secretive intelligence and security committee (ISC) have revealed.

The agreement followed a year of delicate negotiations and was a condition for the three spy bosses to subject themselves to public cross- examination.

The disclosure explains the apparently “soft” line of questioning during the hearing and why there were relatively few revelations. Some MPs on the committee believe the meticulous choreography and scripted questions were a reasonable price for securing cooperation from the three agency's for the 90-minute televised session.

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Yahoo to add encryption to all services in wake of NSA spying revelations

CEO Marissa Mayer moves to calm privacy fears after reports US spy agency gained access to Google and Yahoo data centres

Yahoo will add encryption to all its products by spring 2014, chief Marissa Mayer has announced, in a bid to tackle users’ privacy fears in the wake of reports that the National Security Agency had accessed the tech firm's data centres.

In a blogpost on Monday, Mayer said: “We’ve worked hard over the years to earn our users’ trust and we fight hard to preserve it. As you know, there have been a number of reports over the last six months about the US government secretly accessing user data without the knowledge of tech companies, including Yahoo.

“I want to reiterate what we have said in the past: Yahoo has never given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency. Ever. There is nothing more important to us than protecting our users’ privacy.”

Mayer’s move comes after the Washington Post reported last month that the NSA had broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centres around the world.

According to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with officials, the NSA, in partnership with its British counterpart GCHQ, has been copying large amounts of data as it flows across fibre-optic cables that carry information between the companies’ worldwide data centres.

After the story broke, Yahoo said government attempts to circumvent its online security systems offered “substantial potential for abuse”. Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, called the news “really outrageous”.

Yahoo recently announced it was beefing up security on its email service by introducing https (SSL – Secure Sockets Layer) encryption with a 2048-bit key across its network by 8 January 2014.

The company said it would now:

Encrypt all information that moves between its data centers by the end of the first quarter of 2014;

Offer users an option to encrypt all data flow to/from Yahoo by the end of Q1 2014;

Work closely with international partners to ensure that Yahoo co-branded mail accounts are https-enabled.

Google too is racing to encrypt its data. Executives at the tech giant refer to an “arms race” with US authorities and others who want unauthorised access to its users’ data. Executives say the company has been improving and extending its encryption of data since the Snowden stories first broke, doubling the length of its digital keys and implementing new measures to detect fraudulent attempts to access its information.

Similar moves to add greater encryption and other security measures are under way at Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. All the tech giants feel that their reputations have been damaged by the Snowden leaks and insist that they never hand over information to the NSA without a legal order.

The tech firms are currently lobbying to be allowed to make more disclosures about the number of NSA orders they receive. Currently those orders are dealt with under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the companies are gagged from disclosing details.

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Surveillance technology out of control, says Lord Ashdown

Former Lib Dem leader says it is time for high-level inquiry to address fundamental questions about privacy in 21st century

The technology used by Britain's spy agencies to conduct mass surveillance is "out of control", raising fears about the erosion of civil liberties at a time of diminished trust in the intelligence services, according to the former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown.

The peer said it was time for a high-level inquiry to address fundamental questions about privacy in the 21st century, and railed against "lazy politicians" who frighten people into thinking "al-Qaida is about to jump out from behind every bush and therefore it is legitimate to forget about civil liberties". "Well it isn't," he added.

Ashdown talks frequently to the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, and is chair of the the Liberal Democrats' general election team. Though he said he was speaking for himself, his views are understood to be shared by other senior members of the Liberal Democrats in government, who are also keen for some kind of broad inquiry into the subject.

This idea is also supported by Sir David Omand, a former director of GCHQ. He told the Guardian he was in favour of an inquiry and thought it would be wrong to "dismiss the idea of a royal commission out of hand". It was important to balance the need for the agencies to have powerful capabilities, and the necessity of ensuring they did not use them in a way parliament had not intended, Omand added.

Ashdown is the latest senior politician to demand a review of the powers of Britain's intelligence agencies – GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 – and the laws and oversight which underpin their activities.

In an interview with the Guardian, Ashdown said surveillance should only be conducted against specific targets when there was evidence against them. Dragnet surveillance was unacceptable, he added.

Ashdown made clear revelations in the Guardian about GCHQ and its American counterpart, the National Security Agency, had raised important issues that "could not be ignored or swept aside in a barrage of insults".

He also criticised the Labour party, which was in power when the agencies began testing and building many of their most powerful surveillance capabilities. Labour's former home secretary Jack Straw was responsible for introducing the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act 2000 (Ripa), which made the programmes legal.

"Ripa was a disgraceful piece of legislation," Ashdown said. "Nobody put any thought into it. Labour just took the words they were given by the intelligence agencies. I don't blame the intelligence agencies.

"We charge them with the very serious business of keeping us secure and of course they want to have powers. But it's the duty of government to ensure those powers don't destroy our liberties and Labour utterly failed to do this."

One consequence of Labour's negligence was the development of surveillance techniques that could damage civil liberties and erode privacy, said Ashdown.

He said that he was "frightened by the erosion of our liberties" and while accepting that there was a need to keep the nation safe it was the "habit of politicians who are lazy about the preservation of our liberties or don't mind seeing them destroyed, to play an old game.

"They tell frightened citizens: 'If you give me some of your liberties, I will make you safer'".

Ashdown said that as a young man in 1960s he was taken to a vast Post Office shed in central London where spies were steaming open letters. Recalling being met by "a deep fog of steam" after entering the room, he said that the place was "filled with diligent men and women, each with a boiling kettle on their desk, steaming open letters". It was appropriate for the state to intervene in the private communications of its citizens, but the peer added "only in cases where there is good evidence to believe the nation's security is being threatened, or arguably, when a really serious crime has been committed".

The former party leader said that intercepting communications needed to be "targeted on an individual and not classes of individuals or, as at the moment, the whole nation" and argued that ought to be sanctioned by a third-party, preferably by a judge, or if not a member of the cabinet.

Ashdown said he did not believe Britain's intelligence agencies were out of control, but he said the same was not true of technology.

"We need a proper inquiry to decide what liberties and privacies ought to be accorded in the new interconnected world, and what powers of intrusion ought to be given to the state. The old laws that applied in the age of the steaming kettle will no longer do. The old protections are no longer good enough," he said.

Ashdown said the Guardian's reporting of the NSA files had been "helpful because it had raised this important issue to the point where sensible people understand this inquiry is now necessary".

An inquiry also needed to be set in the context of people's privacy expectations, he added, noting: "People today seem more casual about their privacy than they used to be. They don't seem to mind when their privacy is breached when they use Google, Facebook and other social media."

He added that he hoped this had not "changed the public's attitude towards the state's power to intrude into their privacy" but argued this was the fundamental question that needed to be addressed.

Ashdown said he thought the agencies would welcome an inquiry too, saying that they "recognise the mechanisms are no longer sufficient" and he doubted whether such an exercise would be "inimical to the heads of the secret services".

The Lib Dem also dismissed the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, chaired by Sir Malcolm Rifkind, which is supposed to scrutinise the agencies.

He said that it was an institution "wholly incapable of coping" with the new circumstances.

Although he was careful to be respectful of its Conservative chair, Ashdown argued that "we are no longer in the age when a grandee's emollient words are enough to assure us that our liberties are safe" and concluded that the committee was "past its time".

Ashdown defended the Guardian's reporting of the issues over the last five months, and the paper's right to publish material that it deemed in the public interest.

He said: "I am not going to back every single thing the Guardian has done. But overall, in my view, the Guardian has done a very important in job exposing a really important issue that must now be properly considered."

But he also criticised Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked files to the Guardian, the Washington Post and Der Spiegel.

"When Snowden first broke cover, I had quite a lot of admiration for him. Here was a whistleblower breaking surface on an issue that is certainly important. But I have to say that the way he has behaved since has diminished that admiration enormously. It seems to me this is becoming more about vanity."

Meanwhile, Omand said the ISC had to be given a chance to review the work of the agencies in an inquiry that it announced last month.

"Much now depends first upon the ISC and whether their latest inquiry can rise above the current clamour to a calm and dispassionate examination of the capabilities needed to keep our people safe and secure, and at the same time, how public confidence can be maintained that under no circumstances could these powerful capabilities be used in ways that parliament did not intend."

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Fisa court order that allowed NSA surveillance is revealed for first time

Fisa court judge who authorised massive tapping of metadata was hesitant but felt she could not stand in the way

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A secret court order that authorised a massive trawl by the National Security Agency of Americans' email and internet data was published for the first time on Monday night, among a trove of documents that also revealed a judge's concern that the NSA "continuously" and "systematically" violated the limits placed on the program.

The order by the Fisa court, almost certainly its first ruling on the controversial program and published only in heavily redacted form, shows that it granted permisson for the trawl in part beacause of the type of devices used for the surveillance. Even the judge approving the spying called it a “novel use” of government authorities.

Another later court order found that what it called "systemic overcollection" had taken place.

Transparency lawsuits brought by civil liberties groups compelled the US spy agencies on Monday night to shed new light on the highly controversial program, whose discontinuation in 2011 for unclear reasons was first reported by the Guardian based on leaks by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

In a heavily redacted opinion Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the former presiding judge of the Fisa court, placed legal weight on the methods of surveillance employed by the NSA, which had never before collected the internet data of “an enormous volume of communications”.

The methods, known as pen registers and trap-and-trace devices, record the incoming and outgoing routing information of communications – traditionally phone calls made between individual users. Kollar-Kotelly ruled that acquiring the metadata, and not the content, of email and internet usage in bulk was harmonious with the “purpose” of Congress and prior court rulings – even though no surveillance statute ever authorized it and top officials at the justice department and the FBI threatened to resign in 2004 over what they considered its dubious legality.

“The court recognizes that, by concluding that these definitions do not restrict the use of pen registers or trap-and-trace devices to communication facilities associated with individual users, it is finding that these definitions encompass an exceptionally broad form of collection,” wrote Kollar-Kotelly in an opinion whose date is redacted.

The type of data collected under the program included information on the "to", "from" and "bcc" lines of an email rather than the content. According to the government’s declaration to Kollar-Kotelly the NSA would keep the internet metadata “online” and available to analysts to search through for 18 months, after which it would be stored in an “‘offline’ tape system” available to relatively few officials. It would have to be destroyed four and a half years after initial collection.

Metadata, wrote Kollar-Kotelly, enjoyed no protection under the fourth amendment to the US constitution, a precedent established by the supreme court in 1979 in a single case on which the NSA relies currently.

Still, Kollar-Kotelly conceded that she was blessing “a novel use of statutory authorities for pen register/trap and trace surveillance”.

While at times Kollar-Kotelly appeared in her ruling to be hesitant about granting NSA broad authorities to collect Americans’ internet metadata, “deference”, she wrote, “should be given to the fully considered judgment of the executive branch in assessing and responding to national security threats and in determining the potential significance of intelligence-related information.”

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Repeated attacks hijack huge chunks of Internet traffic, researchers warn

Huge chunks of Internet traffic belonging to financial institutions, government agencies, and network service providers have repeatedly been diverted to distant locations under unexplained circumstances that are stoking suspicions the traffic may be surreptitiously monitored or modified before being passed along to its final destination.

Researchers from network intelligence firm Renesys made that sobering assessment in a blog post published Tuesday. Since February, they have observed 38 distinct events in which large blocks of traffic have been improperly redirected to routers at Belarusian or Icelandic service providers. The hacks, which exploit implicit trust placed in the border gateway protocol used to exchange data between large service providers, affected "major financial institutions, governments, and network service providers" in the US, South Korea, Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Libya, and Iran.

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Exclusive: Inside America's Plan to Kill Online Privacy Rights Everywhere

The United States and its key intelligence allies are quietly working behind the scenes to kneecap a mounting movement in the United Nations to promote a universal human right to online privacy, according to diplomatic sources and an internal American government document obtained by The Cable.

The diplomatic battle is playing out in an obscure U.N. General Assembly committee that is considering a proposal by Brazil and Germany to place constraints on unchecked internet surveillance by the National Security Agency and other foreign intelligence services. American representatives have made it clear that they won't tolerate such checks on their global surveillance network. The stakes are high, particularly in Washington -- which is seeking to contain an international backlash against NSA spying -- and in Brasilia, where Brazilian President Dilma Roussef is personally involved in monitoring the U.N. negotiations.

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Meet the Spies Doing the NSA's Dirty Work

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When the media and members of Congress say the NSA spies on Americans, what they really mean is that the FBI helps the NSA do it, providing a technical and legal infrastructure that permits the NSA, which by law collects foreign intelligence, to operate on U.S. soil. It's the FBI, a domestic U.S. law enforcement agency, that collects digital information from at least nine American technology companies as part of the NSA's Prism system. It was the FBI that petitioned the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to order Verizon Business Network Services, one of the United States' biggest telecom carriers for corporations, to hand over the call records of millions of its customers to the NSA.

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NSA infected 50,000 computer networks with malicious software

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The American intelligence service - NSA - infected more than 50,000 computer networks worldwide with malicious software designed to steal sensitive information. Documents provided by former NSA-employee Edward Snowden and seen by this newspaper, prove this.

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NRC: NSA kijkt in 50.000 netwerken

_{zaterdag 23 nov 2013, 03:43 (Update: 23-11-13, 08:30)}

De Amerikaanse inlichtingendienst NSA heeft wereldwijd 50.000 computernetwerken besmet. Dat blijkt uit een geheime presentatie van de dienst, schrijft NRC Handelsblad. De krant heeft documenten ingezien van NSA-klokkenluider Edward Snowden.

Dat de Amerikaanse inlichtingendienst buitenlandse computersystemen infiltreerde was al langer bekend. De NSA installeert in het geheim kwaadaardige software, zogenoemde malware, op computersystemen. Zo kan op grote schaal vertrouwelijke informatie worden weggesluisd.

85.000
De operatie draagt de codenaam GENIE. De Amerikaanse krant Washington Post meldde in augustus dat het aantal besmette netwerken in 2008 20.000 bedroeg.

Nu blijkt dus uit de niet eerder door Snowden openbaar gemaakte presentatie dat het aantal al meer dan verdubbeld is. Volgens de documenten die de NRC heeft ingezien moet het aantal computernetwerken waar de NSA mee kan kijken binnen een paar jaar zijn uitgegroeid naar 85.000.

Hackers
De operaties worden uitgevoerd door honderden hackers van een speciale NSA-eenheid. Niet alleen kan informatie worden weggesluisd, ook kan met de schadelijke software cyberaanvallen worden uitgevoerd.

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The persecution of Barrett Brown - and how to fight it

The journalist and Anonymous activist is targeted as part of a broad effort to deter and punish internet freedom activism

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Aaron's Swartz's suicide in January triggered waves of indignation, and rightly so. He faced multiple felony counts and years in prison for what were, at worst, trivial transgressions of law. But his prosecution revealed the excess of both anti-hacking criminal statutes, particularly the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), and the fixation of federal prosecutors on severely punishing all forms of activism that challenge the power of the government and related entities to control the flow of information on the internet. Part of what drove the intense reaction to Swartz's death was how sympathetic of a figure he was, but as noted by Orin Kerr, a former federal prosecutor in the DOJ's computer crimes unit and now a law professor at GWU, what was done to Swartz is anything but unusual, and the reaction to his death will be meaningful only if channeled to protest other similar cases of prosecutorial abuse:

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But the work central to his prosecution began in 2009, when Brown created Project PM, "dedicated to investigating private government contractors working in the secretive fields of cybersecurity, intelligence and surveillance." Brown was then moved by the 2010 disclosures by WikiLeaks and the oppressive treatment of Bradley Manning to devote himself to online activism and transparency projects, including working with the hacktivist collective Anonymous. He has no hacking skills, but used his media savvy to help promote and defend the group, and was often referred to (incorrectly, he insists) as the Anonymous spokesman. He was particularly interested in using what Anonymous leaked for his journalism. As Brown told me several days ago in a telephone interview from the Texan prison where he is being held pending trial, he devoted almost all of his waking hours over the last several years to using these documents to dig into the secret relationships and projects between these intelligence firms and federal agencies.

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N.S.A. May Have Penetrated Internet Cable Links

SAN FRANCISCO — The recent revelation that the National Security Agency was able to eavesdrop on the communications of Google and Yahoo users without breaking into either companies’ data centers sounded like something pulled from a Robert Ludlum spy thriller.

How on earth, the companies asked, did the N.S.A. get their data without them knowing about it?

The most likely answer is a modern spin on a century-old eavesdropping tradition.

People knowledgeable about Google and Yahoo’s infrastructure say they believe that government spies bypassed the big Internet companies and hit them at a weak spot — the fiber-optic cables that connect data centers around the world that are owned by companies like Verizon Communications, the BT Group, the Vodafone Group and Level 3 Communications. In particular, fingers have been pointed at Level 3, the world’s largest so-called Internet backbone provider, whose cables are used by Google and Yahoo.

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NSA surveillance: Europe threatens to freeze US data-sharing arrangements

After Edward Snowden revelations, EU executive underlines US compliance with European law and 'how things have gone badly'

The EU executive is threatening to freeze crucial data-sharing arrangements with the US because of the Edward Snowden revelations about the mass surveillance of the National Security Agency.

The US will have to adjust their surveillance activities to comply with EU law and enable legal redress in the US courts for Europeans whose rights may have been infringed, said Viviane Reding, the EU's justice and rights commissioner who is negotiating with the US on the fallout from the NSA scandal.

European businesses need to compete on a level playing field with US rivals, Reding told the Guardian.

The EU commissioner said there was little she or Brussels could do about the activities of the NSA's main partner in mass surveillance, Britain's General Communications Headquarters or GCHQ, since secret services in the EU were the strict remit of national governments. The commission has demanded but failed to obtain detailed information from the British government on how UK surveillance practices are affecting other EU citizens.

"I have direct competence in law enforcement but not in secret services. That remains with the member states. In general, secret services are national," said the commissioner, from Luxembourg.

As a result of the Snowden disclosures, the EU has reviewed existing data-sharing agreements with the Americans concerning commercial swaps between US and European companies, information traded aimed at suppressing international terrorist funding, and the supply of information on transatlantic air passengers. It is also rethinking ongoing negotiations over exchanging data with the Americans on judicial and police co-operation. And it is drafting new Europe-wide data protection rules requiring US internet companies operating in the EU to obtain permission to transfer data to the US and to restrict US intelligence access to it.

Pressing the Americans in negotiations in Washington last week, Reding was unable to obtain US figures on the scale of the US surveillance of Europeans.

The commercial data exchange, known as "Safe Harbor", was found to be flawed.

"The commission will underline that things have gone very badly indeed. Our analysis is Safe Harbor seems not to be safe. We're asking the US not just to speak, but to act," Reding said. "There is always a possibility to scrap Safe Harbor … It's important that these recommendations are acted on by the US side by summer 2014. Next summer is a Damocles sword. It's a real to-do list. Enforcement is absolutely critical. Safe Harbor cannot be only an empty shell."

The commission is to come forward on Wednesday with a set of recommendations addressing the risks exposed by Snowden. The package was agreed in Brussels on Monday, said senior officials, but is opposed by Britain's representative in the commission, Lady Ashton.

The Snowden disclosures are "a wake-up call for the EU and its member states to advance swiftly on data protection reform", the commission is expected to say."The question has arisen whether the large-scale collection and processing of personal information under US surveillance programmes is necessary and proportionate to meet the interests of national security … EU citizens do not enjoy the same rights and procedural safeguards as Americans."

Reding stressed that US concessions on legal redress were central to Brussels' demands. American citizens in Europe can go to the courts if they feel their rights are infringed. Europeans without right of residence in America may not.

"For two years I have asked for reciprocity," said Reding. "I couldn't get that. It needs a change of [US] legislation and the administration has always told me they couldn't get that through."

Senior EU officials are cautiously confident that the Obama administration realises the damage done to transatlantic trust by the Snowden leaks and that it will act to assuage some of the EU concerns.

"The US tone has changed," said a senior official present at the Washington negotiations last week. "The Americans were always stonewalling. Now the cat is out of the bag. We are seeing movement."

US flexibility contrasted with outright British hostility to EU moves to reinforce privacy rights, the officials said. The new EU rules being drafted on data protection were opposed openly "150%" by the British, said another senior official. "There's nothing new here."

But the Germans were also opposed, arguing that the new regime was not strict enough. The Scandinavians and some east Europeans also had some reservations about new data privacy rules from Brussels, suggesting they will have trouble surviving in current form.

The aim is to get the new regulations through the legislative cycle by next May, but that looks unlikely.

Cecilia Malmström, the commissioner for home affairs, is to declare on Wednesday that the onus is on Washington to come clean about the Snowden disclosures.

"Serious concerns still remain following the revelations," she will say. "If the US wants to overcome current tensions, they need to shed full light on these allegations. Our co-operation with the US in the fight against terrorism has been put into question by the NSA revelations."