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Slide from a leaked NSA presentation explaining the PRISM electronic surveillance program.

PRISM is an electronic surveillance program, classified as top secret, that has been run by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) since 2007. PRISM is a government codename for a collection effort known officially as US-984XN.

Reports based on leaked documents describe the PRISM program as enabling in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. It provides for the targeting of any customers of participating corporations who live outside the United States, or American citizens whose communications include people outside the United States. Data that the NSA is able to obtain under PRISM allegedly includes email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice over IP conversations, file transfers, login notifications and social networking details.

The Washington Post noted that the leaked document indicated that the PRISM SIGAD is "the number one source of raw intelligence used for NSA analytic reports." The President's Daily Brief, an all-source intelligence product, cited PRISM data as a source in 1,477 items in 2012.

The leaked information came to light one day after the revelation that the United States government had secretly been requiring the telecommunications company Verizon to turn over to the NSA logs tracking all of its customers' telephone calls on an ongoing daily basis.

NSA whistleblower William Binney has stated that PRISM is just another source of input of information. The telecoms were giving NSA access to their communication lines. The Narus devices that the NSA put in different rooms around the AT&T fiber-optic network, or Verizon’s network, couldn’t collect everything. They could get most of it, but they couldn’t get it all. So in order to get all the data, they had to go to the service providers to fill in the blanks. That’s what the PRISM program is for—to fill in the blanks. It also gives the FBI basis for introducing evidence into court.

U.S Senators Mark Udall and Ron Wyden have commented in 2011 that the government has secretly interpreted Section 215 of the Patriot Act in a way that they portray as twisted, allowing the Federal Bureau of Investigation to conduct some kind of unspecified domestic surveillance that they say does not dovetail with a plain reading of the statute.In June 2013 NSA whistleblower William Binney has confirmed and clarified the Senators allegation by stating "the government is using a secret interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act which allows the government to obtain any data in any third party, like any service provider … any third party … any commercial company – like a telecom or internet service provider, libraries, medical companies – holding data about anyone, any U.S. citizen or anyone else. In other words, the government was using the antiquated, bogus legal argument that it was not acting color of law using governmental powers, and that it was private companies just doing their thing (which the government happened to order all of the private companies to collect and fork over)"

History

Slide showing that much of the world's communications flow through the US.

PRISM replaced the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which was implemented in the wake of the September 11 attacks under the George W. Bush Administration. While the Terrorist Surveillance Program was widely criticized and had its legality questioned because it was not conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), PRISM was authorized by an order of the Court. The NSA access was enabled by changes to US surveillance law introduced under President Bush and renewed under President Obama in December 2012.

PRISM was first publicly revealed on June 6, 2013, after classified documents about the program were leaked to the Washington Post and The Guardian. The leaked documents included 41 Power Point slides, four of which were presented to the public in newspaper articles. The documents identified several technology companies as participants in the PRISM program, including (date of joining PRISM in parentheses) Microsoft (2007), Yahoo! (2008), Google (2009), Facebook (2009), Paltalk (2009), YouTube (2010), AOL (2011), Skype (2011), and Apple (2012). The speaker's notes in the briefing document reviewed by the Washington Post indicated that "98 percent of PRISM production is based on Yahoo, Google and Microsoft."

The documents included a slide presentation which stated that much of the world's electronic communications pass through the United States because electronic communications data tend to follow the least expensive route rather than the most physically direct route and the bulk of the world's internet infrastructure is based in the United States. The presentation noted that these facts provide United States intelligence analysts with opportunities for intercepting the communications of foreign targets as their electronic data pass into or through the United States.

According to the Washington Post, the intelligence analysts search PRISM data using terms intended to identify suspicious communications of targets whom the analysts suspect with at least 51 percent confidence to not be United States citizens, but in the process, communication data of some United States citizens is also collected unintentionally. Training materials for analysts tell them that while they should periodically report such accidental collection of non-foreign United States data, "it's nothing to worry about."

Details of information collected via PRISM.

Former employees of the National Security Agency added further information: The United States Bill of Rights article 6 states that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause ".

  • In an interview on ABC News in January 2006 NSA whistleblower Russ Tice stated "...the number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA could be in the millions if the full range of secret NSA programs is used. That would mean for most Americans that if they conducted, or you know, placed an overseas communication, more than likely they were sucked into that vacuum."
  • In an interview on RT in December 2012 NSA whistleblower William Binney had stated "...the FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the emails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it. All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason – they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they’ve done for the last 10 years at least." On June 6, 2013 he estimated that the NSA also collects records on 3 billion calls per day.

In a technology conference in March 2013, Ira "Gus" Hunt, the Chief Technology Officer for the Chief Information Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) stated "The government collects vast amounts of data that become valuable when you can connect it with something else that arrives at a future point in time. Since you can’t connect dots you don’t have, it drives us into a mode of we fundamentally try to collect everything and hang onto it forever – forever being in quotes, of course”.

Response from companies

Slide listing which companies and the date at which they joined PRISM.

Corporate executives of several companies identified in the leaked documents told The Guardian that they had no knowledge of the PRISM program in particular. Statements of several of the companies named in the leaked documents were reported by TechCrunch as follows:

  • Facebook: "We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers. When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinize any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law."
  • Google: "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 backdoor for the government to access private user data."
  • Apple: "We have never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order."
  • Microsoft: "We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don't participate in it."
  • Yahoo!: "Yahoo! takes users' privacy very seriously. We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network."
  • Dropbox: "We've seen reports that Dropbox might be asked to participate in a government program called PRISM. We are not part of any such program and remain committed to protecting our users' privacy."

The Associated Press pointed out that these company denials were "carefully worded" to be technically true and yet make it impossible to determine how much information was actually provided to the NSA. Lee Tien, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed out that: "A company could say 'We've never heard of the PRISM program.' Well, maybe the government didn't call it that. Or the company could say 'We don't allow backdoor access!' Well, maybe they allow front door access." Bloomberg News noted that "it's hard to imagine" the companies "were unaware of the arrangement, however they choose to describe it."

In response to the technology companies' denials of the NSA being able to directly access the companies' servers, the New York Times reported that sources had stated the NSA was gathering the surveillance data from the companies using other technical means in response to court orders for specific sets of data. The Washington Post suggested, "It is possible that the conflict between the PRISM slides and the company spokesmen is the result of imprecision on the part of the NSA author. In another classified report obtained by The Post, the arrangement is described as allowing 'collection managers content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,' rather than directly to company servers." "If these companies received an order under the FISA amendments act, they are forbidden by law from disclosing having received the order and disclosing any information about the order at all," Mark Rumold, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told ABC News.

On May 28, 2013, Google was ordered by United States District Court Judge Susan Illston to comply with National Security Letter issued by the FBI to provide user data without a warrant. Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in an interview with VentureBeat said "I certainly appreciate that Google put out a transparency report, but it appears that the transparency didn’t include this. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were subject to a gag order."

The New York Times reported on June 7, 2013 that "Twitter declined to make it easier for the government. But other companies were more compliant, according to people briefed on the negotiations." The other companies held discussions with national security personnel on how to make available data more efficiently and securely. In some cases, these companies made modifications to their systems in support of the intelligence collection effort. The dialogues have continued in recent months, as Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has met with executives including those at Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Intel. These details on the discussions provide insight into the disparity between initial descriptions of the government program including a training slide which states "Collection directly from the servers" and the companies" initial denials.

While providing data in response to a legitimate FISA request approved by FISC is a legal requirement, modifying systems to make it easier for the government to collect the data is not. This is why Twitter could legally decline to provide enhanced access to its systems. Other than Twitter, the companies were effectively asked to construct a locked mailbox and provide the key to the government, people briefed on the negotiations said. Facebook, for instance, built such a system for requesting and sharing the information.

Response from United States government

Shortly after publication of the reports by the Guardian and the Washington Post, the United States Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, released a statement confirming that for nearly 6 years the government of the United States had been using large internet services companies such as Google and Facebook to collect information on foreigners outside the United States as a defense against national security threats. The statement read in part, "The Guardian and The Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They contain numerous inaccuracies." He went on to say, "Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons located outside the United States. It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States." Clapper concluded his statement by stating "The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans." On March 12, 2013, Clapper had told the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that the NSA does "not wittingly" collect any type of data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.

Investigative journalist Russ Baker has commented on the government statement in an interview on RT "Claims that the NSA is not spying on Americans are absurd because anybody could potentially commit a terrorist act. The reality is they're looking at all of us. They're trying to establish networks of communication but it's kind of ridiculous because you're looking for a needle in a haystack. You're looking at virtually the entire world trying to find just a handful of plots and, as we know, many of these plots turn out to be more complicated, with FBI informants involved right from the beginning."

President of the United States Barack Obama defended the government's surveillance programs, saying that they were legally authorized and had helped prevent terrorist attacks. "What you’ve got is two programs that were originally authorized by Congress, have been repeatedly authorized by Congress. Bipartisan majorities have approved them. Congress is continually briefed on how these are conducted. There are a whole range of safeguards involved. And federal judges are overseeing the entire program throughout.” He also said that having a debate about how to balance security issues with privacy concerns is healthy for democratic government, but he cautioned, "You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. You know, we’re going to have to make some choices as a society."

In contrast to their swift and forceful reactions the previous day to allegations that the government had been conducting surveillance of United States citizens' telephone records, Congressional leaders had little to say about the PRISM program the day after leaked information about the program was published. Several lawmakers declined to discuss PRISM, citing its top-secret classification, and others said that they had not been aware of the program.

Involvement of other countries

In the United Kingdom, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has had access to the PRISM system on or before June 2010.

See also

References

  1. ^ "U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program". The Washington Post. June 6, 2013. Retrieved June 6, 2013.
  2. ^ Savage, Charlie; Wyatt, Edward; Baker, Peter (June 6, 2013). "U.S. says it gathers online data abroad". New York Times.
  3. "GOVERNMENT: 11 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT U.S. DOMESTIC SPYING". The Blaze, Inc. 2013-06-07.
  4. "NSA Reportedly Mines Servers Of U.S. Internet Firms For Data". NPR. 6 June 2013.
  5. ^ Greenwald, Glenn (June 6, 2013). "NSA taps in to internet giants' systems to mine user data, secret files reveal". The Guardian. Retrieved June 6, 2013.
  6. ^ "NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program". The Washington Post. June 6, 2013.
  7. "Prism scandal: Government program secretly probes Internet servers". 06-07-2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. Greenwald, Glenn (June 6, 2013). "NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily". The Guardian.
  9. http://libertasutah.org/interview/nsa-whistleblower-speaks-out-on-verizon-prism-and-the-utah-data-center/
  10. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/us/politics/justice-dept-is-accused-of-misleading-public-on-patriot-act.html?_r=0
  11. http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-06-08/we-call-top-nsa-whistleblower-and-get-real-scoop-spying
  12. Dean, John W. George W. Bush as the New Richard M. Nixon: Both Wiretapped Illegally, and Impeachable; Both Claimed That a President May Violate Congress' Laws to Protect National Security, FindLaw, December 30, 2005
  13. The Impeachment of George W. Bush by Elizabeth Holtzman, The Nation, January 11, 2006
  14. Adopted By The House Of Delegates, American Bar Association, February 13, 2006
  15. Lawyers Group Criticizes Surveillance Program, Washington Post, February 14, 2006
  16. Winter, Michael (June 6, 2013). "Reports: NSA siphons data from 9 major Net firms". USA Today. Retrieved June 6, 2013.
  17. "Former employees say NSA has been logging calls 'for years' as reports suggest agency taps servers at major internet companies". NYPOST.com. 2013-06-06. Retrieved 2013-06-07.
  18. Dan Roberts and Spencer Ackerman. "Anger swells after NSA phone records court order revelations". The Guardian. Retrieved 2013-06-07.
  19. "NSA Whistleblower Alleges Illegal Spying – ABC News". Abcnews.go.com. 2006-01-10. Retrieved 2013-06-07.
  20. "'Everyone in US under virtual surveillance' – NSA whistleblower – RT USA". Rt.com. Retrieved 2013-06-07.
  21. "NSA whistleblowers say agency casts wide net, Verizon order is part of 'routine'". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2013-06-07.
  22. "Ira "Gus" Hunt – Biography – AFCEA Washington, DC". Afceadc.org. Retrieved 2013-06-07.
  23. Ratnam, Gopal (2013-05-06). "Billions of Phone Calls Mined by U.S. Seeking Terrorists". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2013-06-07.
  24. "New leak shows feds can access user accounts for Google, Facebook and more". Ars Technica. June 6, 2013. Retrieved June 7, 2013.
  25. ^ "Google, Facebook, Dropbox, Yahoo, Microsoft And Apple Deny Participation In NSA PRISM Surveillance Program". Tech Crunch. June 6, 2013. Retrieved June 6, 2013.
  26. "Google, Apple and Facebook Outright Deny They're Helping the NSA Mine Data". AllThingsD. June 6, 2013. Retrieved June 6, 2013.
  27. "Denials in surveillance program require decoding". 06-08-2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  28. "Does Google Have an Ethical Obligation Not to Spy?". 06-08-2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  29. "Dissecting Big Tech's Denial of Involvement in NSA's PRISM Spying Program". 06-07-2013. Retrieved 06-07-2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  30. "Judge orders Google to turn over data to FBI". 2013-05-31. Retrieved 06-07-2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  31. "Google tried to resist FBI requests for data, but the FBI took it anyway". 06-06-2013. Retrieved 06-07-2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  32. ^ "Tech Companies Concede to Surveillance Program". 06-07-2013. Retrieved 06-08-2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  33. "NSA's Prism surveillance program: how it works and what it can do". 06-08=2013. Retrieved 06-08=2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  34. ^ "DNI Statement on Activities Authorized Under Section 702 of FISA". Office of the Director of National Intelligence. June 6, 2013. Retrieved June 7, 2013.
  35. "Top U.S. Intelligence Officials Repeatedly Deny NSA Spying On Americans". Andy Greenberg, Forbes Staff. June 6, 2013. Retrieved June 7, 2013.
  36. "Classified docs reveal NSA's vast real-time warrantless Web surveillance – RT USA". Rt.com. Retrieved 2013-06-07.
  37. ^ Savage, Charlie; Wyatt, Edward; Baker, Peter; Shear, Michael D. (June 7, 2013). "Obama calls surveillance programs legal and limited". New York Times.
  38. ^ Blake, Aaron (June 7, 2013). "Congress all but silent on surveillance of Internet records". Washington Post.
  39. Everett, Burgess; Sherman, Jake (June 7, 2013). "Republican lawmakers: NSA surveillance news to me". Politico.
  40. Hopkins, Nick (7 June 2013). "UK gathering secret intelligence via covert NSA operation". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 June 2013.
  41. Morris, Nigel; Sengupta, Kim; Burrell, Ian (06-07-2013). "Thousands of Britain's may have been spied on by GCHQ as link to Prism scandal is laid bare". Independent. Retrieved 06-07-2013. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

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