this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026
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...because VPNs obscure a user’s true location, and because intelligence agencies presume that communications of unknown origin are foreign, Americans may be inadvertently waiving the privacy protections they’re entitled to under the law...

...VPNs might protect you against garden-variety criminals, but the intentional commingling of origin/destination points by VPNs could turn purely domestic communications into “foreign” communications the NSA can legally intercept (and the FBI, somewhat less-legally can dip into at will)...

Certainly the NSA isn’t concerned about “incidental collection.” It’s never been too concerned about its consistent “incidental” collection of US persons’ communications and data in the past and this isn’t going to budge the needle, especially since it means the NSA would have to do more work to filter out domestic communications and the FBI would be less than thrilled with any efforts made to deny it access to communications it doesn’t have the legal right to obtain on its own.

Since the government won’t do this, it’s up to the general public, starting with everyone sharing the contents of this letter with others. VPNs can still offer considerable security benefits. But everyone needs to know that domestic surveillance is one of the possible side effects of utilizing this tech.

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[–] dalekcaan@feddit.nl 77 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Oh nooo, we won't be protected by the law they can't be arsed to follow anyway? Whatever will I do when they surveil my encrypted VPN traffic?

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Store now, decrypt later. Make sure your VPN is using quantum-safe encryption algorithms with perfect forward secrecy. They are storing ALL traffic that goes outside the country (probably domestic traffic too, realistically).

[–] ChaosMonkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Don't you think that would take too much storage space?

[–] scratchee@feddit.uk 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They can probably use heuristics to keep the 0.1% most interesting traffic (eg traffic that flows towards servers that isn’t too large, that’d catch everything you send to your bank without breaking the budget to store)

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[–] Zen_Shinobi@lemmy.world 49 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Time to spread the free word of Tor to everyone.

[–] Paranoidfactoid@lemmy.world 41 points 2 months ago

Whereas not using a VPN will subject one to... domestic surveillance.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 34 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Americans may be inadvertently waiving the privacy protections they’re entitled to under the law…

LOL what privacy protections? The NSA has proven time and time again that they don't give a single shit about the law, certainly now more than ever.

[–] BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What do I trust more: Legal protections nobody cares to enforce and could be a multi year battle in court, or well verified strong cryptography.

[–] calcopiritus@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (5 children)

It's not the cryptography you have to trust. It's the other end of the tunnel. A free VPN most probably sells your data. Nobody offers free services for actually free.

[–] BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I don't use free VPNs

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[–] Tharkys@lemmy.wtf 31 points 2 months ago (3 children)

So, I am a remote worker in Healthcare. Obviously, I need to use a VPN to connect to work to ensure that communication is secure. But because I have a job that requires secure access, I am a suspected domestic terrorist?

[–] Psiczar@aussie.zone 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No, because there are different types of vpn connectivity.

A point to point vpn is what employees use to connect to the office. The intention is to encrypt the connection so a 3rd party can’t access ithe data going through it. The FBI/NSA won’t care about this type of vpn because your work knows who you are and logs all traffic generated by you which could be subpoenaed by the government.

Connecting to a vpn server in another country to then access the internet hides your original ip address, gets around geo-location blocks and the traffic is typically not logged by the vpn provider. This is the type of vpn governments don’t like.

[–] Bad_Ideas_In_Bulk@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I think it's somewhat naive to assume anything isn't being spied on by the NSA. They don't have a history of being picky.

[–] Psiczar@aussie.zone 4 points 2 months ago

Of course. I’m sure they are making use of plenty of bugs found in firewall software to access and monitor business traffic, but they can subpoena those logs at any time. It’s the private vpn clients where logs aren’t kept that they are most concerned about, hence why I was outlining the difference.

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[–] Delta_V@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Suspect or not, you get the same surveillance treatment as suspected domestic terrorists do.

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[–] Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus 26 points 2 months ago

what in the anti-VPN fearmongering is this bullshit?

[–] schwim@piefed.zip 20 points 2 months ago (2 children)

They have been surveiling us for years. They just to maximize what they can collect.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

They've already collected your modal verb!

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[–] AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I was under them impression that just using the internet in America might subject you to domestic surveillance.

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[–] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They spy on domestic communications too, with the 5 eyes arrangement, they have their allies scoop up the information and share it back with them, even as it's just the US doing the entire thing with a couple of foreign names on the masthead. Fucking lawyers.

[–] Killer57@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 months ago

For some unhinged reason, Trump wanted to kick Canada out of the five eyes last year, so as a response we just stopped sharing information with the US, and the US just kind of Kicked themselves out.

[–] No1@aussie.zone 14 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I don't get it.

Why should a Russian spy have to tell Americans anything?

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[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 14 points 2 months ago

VPNs could turn purely domestic communications into “foreign” communications the NSA can legally intercept

Lol. Then they go and immediately say:

and the FBI, somewhat less-legally can dip into at will

In other words, they don't gaf about your sovereignty, and will monitor communications in any way they want, legally or otherwise.

They've been illegally digging into domestic communications for decades. Stallman and Snowden (to name a couple) exposed that a long time ago. Hell, the USA government exposes themselves all the time, the USA people just choose to ignore it.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

In contrast to not using a VPN, which subjects them to illegal surveillance already?

[–] DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Are they retards or did they forget the NSA already does this illegally?

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[–] AlexLost@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

Hey, just so you know. Trying to hide from us "totally not spying on you" might force us to totally spy on you.

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

lol, what a bunch of liars. Americans don't have any privacy protections to waive

[–] Boiglenoight@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago (12 children)

I use VPN because it actually speeds up my connection on cellular. My theory is the DNS servers that Verizon uses in my area are inefficient, to the point where I’ll get 1 Mbit down on Verizon, but 100 Mbit down connected to Proton VPN.

It has nothing to do with security, unless I’m in a coffee shop on WiFi.

[–] Octagon9561@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Bro fast isn't measuring your internet speed, it's measuring how fast you're connected to Netflix. Phone carriers like Verizon generally throttle video streaming if you're on a cheaper plan but everything else is uneffected. A VPN just bypasses the video streaming throttle because then Verizon can't see what you're connected to. Use a real speed test app.

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[–] rossman@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago (11 children)

Is it safe enough to use vpns based out of the US? I'm using nord which is non us.

[–] obvs@lemmy.world 35 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Nord is owned by Tesonet, a data mining company which also owns SurfShark.

And Private Internet Access and ExpressVPN are owned by Kape, an Israeli firm.

ProtonVPN is owned by Proton, in Switzerland.

[–] 9point6@lemmy.world 27 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Mullvad is based in Sweden and is the main interest of its seemingly decent, also Swedish, parent company

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 16 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Fan of Mullvad but just be aware its not what you want if you're using a VPN for torrenting. They had to remove their port forwarding feature due to some bad actors ruining it for the rest of us.

[–] leoj@piefed.zip 7 points 2 months ago (4 children)

What happens if you are torrenting via Mullvad?

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 months ago

they don't allow port forwarding which nerfs the effectiveness of seeding, seeding is still possible, just not as effective.

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

You'll only be able to connect to certain peers that do have port forwarding setup.

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[–] leoj@piefed.zip 5 points 2 months ago

CyberGhost I believe is also owned by Kape or a subsidiary.

[–] rossman@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago

Thanks for the extra digging, no true privacy but at least there's some transparency with the vpns.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

Those are the ones that would cause them to surveil you.

The issue isn't necessarily "the government will target you for using a VPN;" the issue is "if your IP makes you look like you're outside the US because that's where your traffic exits the VPN, the laws against domestic spying won't protect you properly because you'll look like a foreigner."

Frankly, the headline is heavily spinning it to be anti-VPN fearmongering.

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[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

No. They will see that you’re using a vpn.

They might decide to record your traffic and save it until it can be decrypted.

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[–] BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In a letter sent Thursday to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, the lawmakers say that because VPNs obscure a user’s true location, and because intelligence agencies presume that communications of unknown origin are foreign, Americans may be inadvertently waiving the privacy protections they’re entitled to under the law.

Several federal agencies, including the FBI, the National Security Agency, and the Federal Trade Commission, have recommended that consumers use VPNs to protect their privacy. But following that advice may inadvertently cost Americans the very protections they’re seeking.

The letter was signed by members of the Democratic Party’s progressive flank: Senators Ron Wyden, Elizabeth Warren, Edward Markey, and Alex Padilla, along with Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Sara Jacobs.

There's a saying in Poland: "Robić kurwę z logiki" Which simultaneously can be translated as "To build a whore out of logic" Or "To turn the logic into a whore"

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[–] RoddyStiggs@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 months ago

I don't give a shit.

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