Reports: NSA siphons data from 9 major
Reports: NSA siphons data from 9 major Net firms
7:09 PM, June 6, 2013
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The National Security Agency and the FBI are siphoning personal data
from the main computer servers of nine major U.S. Internet firms, The
Washington Post and the London-based Guardian are reporting.
The Post writes that the agencies are "extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person's movements and contacts over time."
The technology
companies involved are as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk,
AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple. The cloud-storage service Dropbox was
described as "coming soon."
PalTalk has hosted significant traffic during the Arab Spring and in the ongoing Syrian civil war.
The top secret program, code-named PRISM, was established in 2007 and had not been disclosed publicly before.
The operation was approved by special federal judges under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Some members of Congress knew of the operation but could not comment.
The program was outlined in a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation intended for senior intelligence analysts. It was classified as top secret "with no distribution to foreign allies," the Guardian writes.
Obama administration officials declined to comment.
The Post says the technology companies are knowingly participating in the secret program, but the Guardian reports that all denied knowledge of the spying, even the presentation "claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies."
Google issued a statement that said the company "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."
The revelation comes a day after the Guardian reported that a special intelligence court had ordered Verizon to turn over call information to the NSA.
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from the main computer servers of nine major U.S. Internet firms, The
Washington Post and the London-based Guardian are reporting.The Post writes that the agencies are "extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person's movements and contacts over time."
The technology
companies involved are as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk,
AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple. The cloud-storage service Dropbox was
described as "coming soon."PalTalk has hosted significant traffic during the Arab Spring and in the ongoing Syrian civil war.
The top secret program, code-named PRISM, was established in 2007 and had not been disclosed publicly before.
The operation was approved by special federal judges under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Some members of Congress knew of the operation but could not comment.
The program was outlined in a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation intended for senior intelligence analysts. It was classified as top secret "with no distribution to foreign allies," the Guardian writes.
Obama administration officials declined to comment.
The Post says the technology companies are knowingly participating in the secret program, but the Guardian reports that all denied knowledge of the spying, even the presentation "claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies."
Google issued a statement that said the company "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."
The revelation comes a day after the Guardian reported that a special intelligence court had ordered Verizon to turn over call information to the NSA.
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