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Last night’s NSA reports published by the British Guardian? Childish fun. The Washington Post Office published a truly shocking story revealing the largest domestic government program in American history. If you’re reading this now, you’ve been affected by PRISM, a top-secret operation launched in 2007 that has grown “exponentially” during the Obama administration. This is not the plot of a futuristic thriller. This is The US government at workhere and now:
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. internet companies, extracting audio, video, photos, emails, documents and call logs, allowing analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time. The top-secret program, codenamed PRISM, has not been publicly disclosed before. Its founding in 2007 and six years of exponential growth have taken place beneath the surface of a heated debate about the limits of surveillance and privacy. Even tardy last year, when critics of the Foreign Intelligence Statute were advocating for changes, the only members of Congress who knew about PRISM were bound by an oath of silence…Technology companies that consciously participate in PRISM activities include most of the world’s dominant Silicon Valley players. They are listed with their logo in the order in which they joined the program: “Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.” PalTalk, although much smaller, hosted significant traffic during the Arab Spring and the ongoing civil war in Syria. Dropbox, the cloud storage and sync service, is described as “coming soon.” Government officials declined to comment for this article.
The Lent describes the current program as President Bush’s program warrantless wiretapping program on powerful steroids, with Bush’s successor – which he was sharply critical this effort – spearheading the massive expansion of PRISM:
The Silicon Valley operation works with a parallel program codenamed BLARNEY, which collects “metadata” — address packets, device signatures, etc. — as it streams through bottlenecks in the Internet backbone. A top-secret summary of the BLARNEY program, posted alongside a cartoon insignia of a shamrock and a leprechaun’s hat, describes it as “an ongoing collection program using I.C. [intelligence community] and commercial partnerships to access and exploit foreign intelligence obtained from global networks.” But the PRISM program appears to more closely resemble the most controversial of the warrantless surveillance orders issued by President George W. Bush following the al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001. Its history, in which President Obama presided over “exponential growth” in a program he criticized candidate Obama, shows how fundamentally the law and practice of surveillance has moved away from individual suspicions towards systematic mass data collection techniques. PRISM is not exactly a network. From the company’s data stream The NSA can get out whatever it wantsbut under current regulations, the agency does not attempt to collect everything.
Beyond giving the government the ability to “get what it likes,” how powerful is PRISM?
Even if the system works as advertised and no Americans are targeted, the NSA routinely collects immense amounts of American content… First-hand experience with these systems and horror at their capabilities led a career intelligence officer to make the decision he provided program slides A PRISM PowerPoint and supporting materials to The Washington Post to disclose what it believes is an egregious invasion of privacy. “They can literally watch your ideas emerge as you write– said the officer.
This quote is chilling. Let me clarify: Our intelligence agencies face an extremely complex and stressful task every day. They are responsible for the safety of 300 million people. One mistake can cost your life. I appreciate their efforts and understand that measures must be taken that are both completely secret and at times unpleasant. But where do we have to draw the line? President Obama just delivered a major speech about “balancing” the government’s national security responsibilities with the protection of civil rights and liberties. As a senator and candidate, he often spoke very openly on this topic reprimand the Bush administration for what he saw as its excesses and abuses. And yet here we are. The Posts Thermonuclear Bomb notes that PRISM accounts for one in seven intelligence reports that President Obama receives during his daily briefings. One defense we’ve heard about the NSA/Verizon phone records tracking program is that it only records “metadata” or patterns, but doesn’t monitor the actual content. Not at all with PRISM:
Important note: Unlike Verizon metadata, PRISM monitoring “may include the content of communications.” bit.ly/16NXdAc
— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) June 6, 2013
This morning I expressed doubts that the NSA operation was circumscribed to Verizon customers. Indeed, it was not so – certainly not:
NBC News has learned that under the Patriot Act, the government collects records of every phone call made in America
— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) June 6, 2013
In delicate of this information, how can you interpret what you are about to see as anything other than James Clapper’s lie, President Obama’s DAYS? Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) Klaper asked in March if the NSA was collecting any type data on millions of Americans. Clapper’s answer (relevant Q&A starts at 6:10):
I don’t know what to say. You can, of course, joke about the Democrats’ moronic perspective on “Republican overreach” going up in flames, or about how the president will read about it in tomorrow’s paper, just like the rest of us. But I find it too sedate – even terrifying and disturbing – to joke about at this point. The principles and laws mentioned speak for themselves. Perhaps the current government is not abusing these huge and growing powers. I hope so. But in delicate of IRS abuses and reports of spying on journalists, what are citizens supposed to believe? What is acceptable to ensure the country’s security and what constitutes an existential threat to our freedom? Furthermore, the fact that we are even finding out about this is a historic breach of national security. Are the leakers’ motives pure (i.e. genuine whistleblowers), or is something else at play?
This cascade of leaks is likely a result of Obama kicking the intelligence community in the nuts so many times.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 6, 2013
Go back and read the president’s last speech national security speech in NDU and his starting address at Ohio State, urging graduates to “reject” cynical voices warning against government tyranny. What time. What a month.
UPDATE – Some online companies do denial of knowledge PRISM, but I don’t comment much. Some people become a bit skeptical:
There are many unusual things about this story. Cost just $20 million. Chintzy Powerpoint. Strange language in PowerPoint. The tech company denies it.
— Joseph Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) June 7, 2013
UPDATE II -NBC confirms PRISM has two sources, but they claim that the program is for data collection, not data mining. What’s the point? Allah-pandit he asks“They collect data but don’t mine it?” Other source says USA today that “no U.S. citizens” are “targeted” under PRISM. Hmm…
UPDATE III – Senior administrative official says Policy that PRISM “targets” only foreigners. National Journals Ron Fournier is not impressed with this explanation. Original WaPo the story quoted a source familiar with the program as saying that even when PRISM works perfectly, it collects “a lot” of American content.
UPDATE IV – DAYS Klakier explosions disclosures as “reprehensible” and harmful to national security. He says both Washington Post Office AND Guardian the stories contain “numerous inaccuracies”, stating that PRISM cannot be “intentionally used” to attack anyone in the US.
