Two days ago, the Guardian posted a judge’s order
that required Verizon to hand over daily records of ALL Verizon customer domestic
and foreign phone calls on a daily basis, of ALL Verizon customers. Data log would list at least the phone
numbers involved and the length of the call.
Extraordinary as this shocker is, today they, and
the Washington Post, as well as Huffington Post, wrote that ALL phone carriers
are doing the same for all phone calls for all land and cell phones in the
country. AND, THEY HAVE BEEN DOING SO SINCE 2007!
EVEN MORE SHOCKING, TODAY THE GUARDIAN AND THE
POST PUBLISHED INFORMATION THAT THE NSA HAS ACCESS TO ALL INFORMATION ON ALL
SERVERS OF ELEVEN MAJOR TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES INCLUDING: Microsoft; Google;
Yahoo; Facebook; Skype; AOL and Apple, meaning everything typed on gmail, Hotmail,
Yohoo, Skype, etc., is an open book to the federal intelligence agencies under
project “PRISM.”
The Guardian today commented on the information
gathering element of this massive intrusion on privacy:
NSA taps in to internet giants' systems to mine
user data, secret files reveal
• Top secret PRISM program claims direct access to
servers of firms including Google, Facebook and Apple
• Companies deny any knowledge of program in
operation since 2007
Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill
The Guardian, Thursday 6 June 2013 18.05 EDT
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A slide depicting the top-secret PRISM program
The National Security Agency has obtained direct
access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants,
according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.
The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed
program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including
search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the
document says.
The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the
document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no
distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train
intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims
"collection directly from the servers" of major US service providers.
Although the presentation claims the program is
run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian
request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge of any such program.
In a statement, Google said: "Google cares
deeply about the security of our users' data. We disclose user data to
government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests
carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government
'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the
government to access private user data."
Several senior tech executives insisted that they
had no knowledge of PRISM or of any similar scheme. They said they would never
have been involved in such a program. "If they are doing this, they are
doing it without our knowledge," one said.
An Apple spokesman said it had "never
heard" of PRISM.
The NSA access was enabled by changes to US
surveillance law introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in
December 2012.
The program facilitates extensive, in-depth
surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows for
the targeting of any customers of participating firms who live outside the US,
or those Americans whose communications include people outside the US.
It also opens the possibility of communications
made entirely within the US being collected without warrants.
Disclosure of the PRISM program follows a leak to
the Guardian on Wednesday of a top-secret court order compelling telecoms
provider Verizon to turn over the telephone records of millions of US
customers.
The participation of the internet companies in
PRISM will add to the debate, ignited by the Verizon revelation, about the
scale of surveillance by the intelligence services. Unlike the collection of
those call records, this surveillance can include the content of communications
and not just the metadata.
Some of the world's largest internet brands are
claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in
2007. Microsoft – which is currently running an advertising campaign with the
slogan "Your privacy is our priority" – was the first, with
collection beginning in December 2007.
It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook
and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple,
which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with
other providers due to come online.
Collectively, the companies cover the vast
majority of online email, search, video and communications networks.
The extent and nature of the data collected from
each company varies.
Companies are legally obliged to comply with
requests for users' communications under US law, but the PRISM program allows
the intelligence services direct access to the companies' servers. The NSA
document notes the operations have "assistance of communications providers
in the US".
The revelation also supports concerns raised by
several US senators during the renewal of the Fisa Amendments Act in December
2012, who warned about the scale of surveillance the law might enable, and
shortcomings in the safeguards it introduces.
When the FAA was first enacted, defenders of the
statute argued that a significant check on abuse would be the NSA's inability
to obtain electronic communications without the consent of the telecom and
internet companies that control the data. But the PRISM program renders that
consent unnecessary, as it allows the agency to directly and unilaterally seize
the communications off the companies' servers.
A chart prepared by the NSA, contained within the
top-secret document obtained by the Guardian, underscores the breadth of the
data it is able to obtain: email, video and voice chat, videos, photos,
voice-over-IP (Skype, for example) chats, file transfers, social networking
details, and more.
The document is recent, dating to April 2013. Such
a leak is extremely rare in the history of the NSA, which prides itself on
maintaining a high level of secrecy.
The PRISM program allows the NSA, the world's
largest surveillance organisation, to obtain targeted communications without
having to request them from the service providers and without having to obtain
individual court orders.
With this program, the NSA is able to reach
directly into the servers of the participating companies and obtain both stored
communications as well as perform real-time collection on targeted users.
The presentation claims PRISM was introduced to
overcome what the NSA regarded as shortcomings of Fisa warrants in tracking
suspected foreign terrorists. It noted that the US has a "home-field
advantage" due to housing much of the internet's architecture. But the
presentation claimed "Fisa constraints restricted our home-field
advantage" because Fisa required individual warrants and confirmations
that both the sender and receiver of a communication were outside the US.
No real shocker. We were warned around 1968 that with the advent of credit cards that huge amounts of data about our daily activities would soon be available. With the advent of all this electronic technology it has just grown somewhat more than anticipated.
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