content: H.R. 5537 : Won't be able to hide from NSA surveillance no matter how far you run Very bad news for internet freedom around the world. I highly encourage you to read the bill in full as the language is simple and this issue is vital to the privacy of much of the world. Basically: The US is going to spend a couple billion dollars to make internet of developing and other nations a foreign policy...thing. Objective. We're going to help developing countries build infrastructure, etc. Sounds super humanitarian and cool, right? Wrong. A few things. We're going to have control over the data and policies going over other countries' internets on basically every level. See:     (Sec 4) (3)promote policy changes that encourage first-time affordable access to the Internet in developing countries, including actions to encourage—             (A)integration of universal and gender-equitable Internet access goals, to be informed by the collection of related gender disaggregated data, and Internet tools into national development plans and United States Government country-level strategies; You won't be able to hide from Uncle Sam anymore. With this data, we're going to enforce and bully nations into doing what we want with their internet under the guise of "free speech" and "human rights", as if the US ever cared about free speech in the last 100 years:  (6)promote the use of the Internet to bolster democracy, government accountability, transparency, and human rights, including—             (A)policies, initiatives, and investments, including the development of national Internet plans, that are consistent with United States human rights goals, including freedom of expression, religion, and association;             (B)policies and initiatives aimed at promoting the multistakeholder model of Internet governance; and             (C)policies and support programs, research, and technologies that safeguard human rights and fundamental freedoms online, and enable political   organizing and activism, free speech, and religious expression that are in compliance with international human rights standards; If we don't like what a country is doing with their internet, we're going to punish them. (Sec. 8) In pursuing the policy described in section 4, the President should direct United States representatives to appropriate international bodies to use the influence of the United States, consistent with the broad development goals of the United States, to advocate that each such body—     (3)integrate gender-equitable affordable Internet access into existing economic and business assessments, evaluations, and indexes such as the  Millennium Challenge Corporation constraints analysis, the Doing Business Report, International Monetary Fund Article IV assessments and country reports, the Open Data Barometer, and the Affordability Drivers Index;     (7)promote and protect human rights online, such as the freedoms of speech, assembly, association, religion, and belief, through resolutions, public statements, projects, and initiatives, and advocating that other member states of such bodies are held accountable when major violations are uncovered. No one can deny that the US has an incredible amount of world influence. If this bill becomes policy, few countries are going to say no to our "help" giving them internet, which will boost their economy and help them out in various rankings. And every country that we "assist" in such a fashion will have our tentacles in them. We will collect their data, and by God will we use it.  These are the same people that are behind X-KEYSCORE, PRISM, and TURBINE. Do you really want those same people to have the ability to monitor the entire world and act on what they find? Text of the bill and more at: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr5537/text P.S. It's already passed the house.