The Australian government is considering participating in a global data protection agreement put forward by German Chancellor Angela Merkel following revelations of the U.S. National Security Agency’s (NSA) PRISM surveillance program, ZDNet reports. Meanwhile, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Tony Negus says there is no link between the NSA revelations and Australia’s push for a mandatory data retention regime. In an opinion piece for CNN, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) writes he’s working on legislation that would require the U.S. government to report annually how it uses surveillance programs, including how citizens’ data is being collected and who sees it. And in another op-ed, former head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel writes that NSA data collection shouldn’t be constrained.
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