SC to hear PIL over NSA snooping on Indian data

The Supreme Court today agreed to hear on an urgent basis, a PIL on the issue of US National Security Agency snooping on internet data from India and seeking action against foreign ISPs for allowing the agency to access information. 

Agreeing to hear the PIL filed by a former dean of Law Faculty of Delhi University, professor S N Singh, a bench of justices A K Patnaik and Ranjan Gogoi posted the case for hearing next week.

Singh has alleged in his plea, that spying on such a massive scale by the US authorities was detrimental to national security and called for an intervention by apex court in the matter.

He has claimed that the internet companies were sharing information with the foreign authority in "breach" of contract and violation of right to privacy.

According to reports, nine US-based internet companies, operating in India through agreements signed with Indian users, shared 6.3 billion information / data with National Security Agency of US without Indian users' express consent.

According to the petition filed through advocate Virag Gupta, spying on such a huge scale by the US authorities was against the privacy norms in addition to being detrimental to national security.

In his submission, Singh had stated that it was a breach of national security as government's official communications had come under US surveillance with services of private internet firms being used.

He has sought directions to the centre to "take urgent steps to safeguard the government's sensitive internet communications" which were being stored in US servers and were "unlawfully intruded upon by US Intelligence Agencies through US-based Internet companies under secret surveillance program called PRISM".

In his petition, Singh has also sought directions for restraining the government and its officials from using US-based internet companies for official communication and has called for all such companies, which were doing business in India, to be required to have their servers in India so that they could be regulated as per Indian laws.

"Sovereignty of nation is at stake because no penal action is being taken by the respondent (Centre) against the culprit Internet companies," he says in his petition.

The petition also contains a reference to a report by James R Clapper, director of National Intelligence of US, who had confirmed surveillance and acquisition of intelligence information of non-US citizens located outside the US as per the provisions of section 702 of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

On 11the June, the centre had expressed surprise and concern over the snooping and said it would seek information and details from the US over reports that India was the fifth-most tracked country by the American intelligence which used a secret data-mining programme to monitor worldwide internet data.