More Details on NSA Tracking the Internet Spine

Two new stories: one from Der Spiegel in Germany (also reported in the Intercept) and the other from Dagbladet Information in Denmark (again, also reported in the Intercept). Lots of good information in both stories.
Der Spiegel has two other stories, as well as a large trove of source documents. The Dagbladet Information source documents are here.
And in related news, the US House of Representatives voted to ban NSA backdoor searches, as well as it weakening commercial products and protocols. There's no chance it'll become a law, but the 293-123 vote is a big deal nonetheless.
The current authority for the NSA's bulk collection of telephone metadata expires today. A bunch of organizations have tried to urge the president not to renew it. I don't think that'll happen, either.
It's a measure of the popular interest in this issue that the German/Danish story isn't being reported by the US press, and I had to search to find the Congressional vote on the New York Times and Washington Post sites. Only the Guardian had it as a home page headline. No one is reporting today's renewal of the telephone metadata program.