A group of senior communications experts, working with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, released its “Global Broadband Plan for Refugee Inclusion.” The detailed report calls for “all refugees, and the communities that host them, to have access to available, affordable and usable mobile and internet connectivity.” At first glance, the idea of devoting scarce resources to ensuring refugees can go online may sound misguided.
Apparently, the National Security Agency has recommended that the White House abandon a US surveillance program that collects information about Americans’ phone calls and text messages, saying the logistical and legal burdens of keeping it outweigh its intelligence benefits. The recommendation against seeking the renewal of the once-secret spying program amounts to an about-face by the agency, which had long argued in public and to congressional overseers that the program was vital to the task of finding and disrupting terrorism plots against the US.
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