Germany's foreign intelligence service plans a major expansion of Internet surveillance despite deep unease over revelations of US online spying, Der Spiegel news weekly reported Sunday. Spiegel said that the BND planned a 100 million euro ($130 million) programme over the next five years to expand web monitoring with up to 100 new staff members on a "technical reconnaissance" team.

News of a massive surveillance effort led by the secretive National Security Agency has sent Web users scrambling to find new ways to avoid tracking. It might have seemed paranoid not long ago when netizens used tools to hide their tracks, "shred" data or send self-destructing messages. Web anonymizers, encryption programs and similar tools have been available for years, but have been often associated with hackers, criminals and other "dark" elements on the Internet.

American liberals and libertarians rarely see eye to eye -- but they have united behind demands for more transparency following recent revelations of vast and secretive surveillance programs. The unlikely alliance has brought together the Democratic Party's far left and the ultraconservative Republican Tea Party, both of which are suspicious of the programs, which US officials insist are needed to prevent terror attacks.

The National Security Agency on Monday will release the number of terror plots it says has been thwarted by its sweeping telephone data surveillance program, a top US lawmaker told reporters. Senator Dianne Feinstein made her remarks Thursday, after NSA chief General Keith Alexander told a hearing earlier this week that "dozens" of plots were scuppered thanks to the program, whose existence was leaked by a defense contractor. Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Alexander "wants to be exact -- there's more than you think."