Saturday, June 08, 2013

PRISM

That's the name of a program in which 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. Laura Ingraham writes,

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 is, of course, a foreign newspaper.

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.

The Guardian provides this chart to show when various internet providers entered the PRISM program. Microsoft was first. Google, Apple, and Facebook have offered denials that they knew anything about PRISM.

If you're old, like me, you may have to click on the chart to see it well.

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