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 105 points 2 weeks 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 20 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks 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 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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

[–] scratchee@feddit.uk 10 points 2 weeks 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 70 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Time to spread the free word of Tor to everyone.

[–] aeiou@piefed.social 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Zen_Shinobi@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

I wasn't crazy about i2p. I really loved Freenet and Zeronet

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[–] Paranoidfactoid@lemmy.world 62 points 2 weeks ago

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

[–] artyom@piefed.social 50 points 2 weeks 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 16 points 2 weeks 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 5 points 2 weeks 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 7 points 2 weeks ago

I don't use free VPNs

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[–] Tharkys@lemmy.wtf 47 points 2 weeks 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 25 points 2 weeks 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 9 points 2 weeks 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.

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[–] Delta_V@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

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

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[–] Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus 32 points 2 weeks ago

what in the anti-VPN fearmongering is this bullshit?

[–] schwim@piefed.zip 28 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 12 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

They've already collected your modal verb!

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[–] No1@aussie.zone 23 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

I don't get it.

Why should a Russian spy have to tell Americans anything?

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[–] AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 week 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 21 points 2 weeks 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 6 points 2 weeks 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.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 20 points 2 weeks ago

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

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 19 points 2 weeks 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.

[–] rossman@lemmy.zip 13 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

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

[–] obvs@lemmy.world 53 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks 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 41 points 2 weeks 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 23 points 2 weeks 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 8 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

What happens if you are torrenting via Mullvad?

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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

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[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

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

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[–] leoj@piefed.zip 9 points 2 weeks ago

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

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks 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.

[–] rossman@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah I reacted way too quickly. Then I realized half of X bot traffic spoofs everywhere. They're intentionally doing a shakeup of everything and this one got under my skin cause I'm a daily user.

But before this was that outside US router ban that was pretty real. The DJI ban. So these types of news cascade and its worrisome.

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[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks 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.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

In theory, I think all VPN usage is grounds to get you put on a list, but Nord is considered a relatively "normie" company by privacy aficionados. Everybody and their mother has seen an ad for it by this point. (The privacy aficionados will probably tell you it's not good enough, but that's a can of worms I won't get into right now.)

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[–] DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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

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[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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

[–] AlexLost@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

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

[–] Boiglenoight@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (11 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.

Edit: here are my speeds on cellular, first without VPN, second while connected to a server in Los Angeles.

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[–] BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks 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 make a whore out of logic" Or "To turn the logic into a whore"

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Technically true, you should choose your VPN provider carefully and not opt for the cheapest one right on.

In practice however, it's safer than whatever surveillance US is trying to implement by forcing down US made routers.

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