A new media report by the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers reveals that America’s leading technology companies including Apple, Microsoft, Google, AOL, Microsoft, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube and Skype have completely violated the trust hundreds of millions of Americans have reposed in these technology companies.
Of the nine companies that are part of PRISM, the three main culprits are Microsoft, Google and Yahoo.
For several years now, under a top-secret program called PRISM these technology companies have allowed the National Security Agency, the FBI and their partners to directly access its servers.
The U.S. government has provided immunity to these tech companies from all lawsuits for their participation in the spying operations.
PRISM was made possible because of the Patriot Act passed by Congress in 2001 during George W. Bush’s first term and extended in 2011.
What Does Direct Access Mean?
Direct access to servers of Apple, Microsoft, Google etc means that NSA and FBI do not need to get special court orders under FISA or ask the technology companies each time they need some information because they now have real-time access to the data.
Any information the NSA or FBI want on Americans is literally at the tip of their fingertips i.e. keyboards.
No warrants or court orders required.
A high-level U.S. intelligence official leaked details of PRISM to both the Guardian and Washington Post and provided them with a bunch of PowerPoint slides.
Here are a few of the slides used by the NSA to train its intelligence agents:
All Slides: Courtesy of Washington Post
Background to NSA PRISM Spying Program on Americans
Technology Companies Involved in NSA PRISM
When Did Google, Facebook, Apple etc Join NSA PRISM Spying Program?
PRISM program was launched under President George W. Bush in 2007 and continued with full support by his successor Barack Obama.
As with all things involving spying programs, what comes out is invariably the tip of the iceberg.
Why are Tech Companies Complying?
American technology companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, YouTube and Yahoo are complying with NSA and FBI directives and conniving with the government agencies for two reasons.
First, technology companies want to cozy up to the government for their vested interests (protection against patent trolls, repatriating foreign cash holdings back to the U.S. without paying tax etc).
Second, the leadership of these technology companies have no spine and will toady up to anyone who barks out an order.
Bottom Line
Every day hundreds of millions of Americans are being snooped on by the National Security Agency, the FBI and their associate agencies.
Americans must be aware that anything they talk over the phone, e-mail, browse or store online is being played around with by America’s intelligence agencies under the excuse of protecting Americans.
Are we Americans living in the United States of America or United States of China?
This stinks!
This is nothing but abuse of technology and power.
Sounds like “Enemy of the State” (1998).
I don’t know if you’ve watched it but it’s a really fast paced thriller!
There’s one detail I noticed in this movie that’s really intriguing.
Searchindia.com Responds:
I’ve seen it many years back but can’t remember the details.
I’ll watch it again today.
Thanks for the tip.
USA government is feeling the heat after its international reputation is getting tarnished every day.
Instead of mending its reputation, it has become more insecure and impetus after attacks on it.
USA is fast following the path undertaken by erstwhile Soviet Union in Self destruction.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Disclosure of these rampant spying activities will enhance the “Trust Deficit” in society.
In my view, nations decline when “Trust Deficit” reaches a tipping point.
Plus, all these tech companies have taken a severe beating to their reputation and henceforth be considered as stooges of the U.S. Government.
Important Disclosure – Since you are a foreigner communicating with an American (SI), this comment will immediately be flagged “URGENT” and assigned to a desk officer at the NSA. Your Yahoo, Hotmail, GMail, Facebook and Twitter, Google searches will receive additional scrutiny. 😉
This is hardly a surprise.
Everyone has known all along that the government does this. Not just the US government, but the Chinese and the Russians as well. Even the Indians do it the extent possible.
I cannot understand the feigned ignorance and outrage on this!
For starters, nothing on the internet is ever private. If anyone needs absolute privacy, they can go live in a cave!
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. You write: This is hardly a surprise….I cannot understand the feigned ignorance and outrage on this!
WOW!
You must be really, really well connected to have known long back that the intelligence agencies were directly hooked up to the Google/Microsoft/Apple/Yahoo servers with the ability to scoop up anything about anyone.
Sweetie, there’s a BIG difference between expecting the government to have access to information about suspects and expecting the government to have access to information about everyone (including a lot if not most American citizens) all the time. Of course, people knew the former but except you, NSA, a few people in Congress and top Obama officials none knew the latter.
Were you the source for the Guardian. 😉
2. The essential point is one of degree – Do you monitor all the people all the time or only some of the people all/some of the time. Reports in Guardian and Washington Post on Wed/Thu suggest the govt was doing the former.
Also, when the data set is so humungous the combing-through and sifting exercise tends to become hard and invariably meaningless.
It is not rocket-science to deduce that this is happening.
There were numerous news reports of every government worth their penny, hooking up to Blackberry servers (which is supposed to be very very secure) for over 3 years now. There is no reason to believe that the governments would not do the same with other organizations whose services are utilized to share information. Only Blackberry must have resisted a lot, and that is the reason why it was in the news. Others must have simply caved. Hell, even Saudi Arabia would have access to all these data.
And if anyone is touting that USA is in a totally different league, and not like China, Russia etc., due to constitutional protections, I got news for them. They are wrong!
The Declaration of Independence swears by “all men are created equal”, but the people who wrote it owned slaves and treated African-Americans as an inferior class. So, there you go!
SearchIndia.com Responds:
OK, we get your point.
So it’s been United States of Chutias since 1776! 😉
Update: I’m writing from memory about the Indian government demands on Blackberry…what I recollect was that the Indian govt wanted the ability to access Blackberry any time. That is different from making a copy of all voice and electronic communications and storing it forever as the NSA is doing.
guruji, is trying to be sarcastic. only way to get rid of this depressing information from problematic mind is by being sarcastic.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
No, he’s not.
He’s saying, Queen Anne is Dead!