Fatal flaw in plan to evade NSA

“Brazil, Europe plan undersea cable to skirt U.S. spying,” trumpeted one of the world’s top headlines yesterday, but it turns out the strategy to thwart possible U.S. surveillance may be an exercise in futility.

Brazil and the European Union announced their agreement to install a fiber optic cable under the Atlantic Ocean from one continent to the other to prevent U.S. surveillance of Internet traffic between them – after revelations the U.S. National Security Agency spied on their communications.

But the $185 million cable project will not necessarily keep spying eyes and ears from the data transmitted across it, since the NSA already can spy, if it chooses, on undersea fiber optics.

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