The People's Liberation Army says the PRISM program is frightening

Jun 17, 2013 07:43 GMT  ·  By

The Chinese government and the country’s army, which has been accused on numerous occasions of launching cyber espionage attacks, usually don’t respond in an aggressive manner to the espionage-related accusations brought against them.

They usually reiterate the fact that China opposes hacking of any kind, and they highlight the fact that they too are victims of cybercrime and cyber espionage.

However, a recent article published on People’s Liberation Army Daily catalogues the NSA’s PRISM program as being “frightening.” In addition, the US is named a “habitual offender” when it comes to network monitoring, China.org.cn reports.

“US intelligence agencies are habitual offenders with regards to network monitoring and espionage,” reads the article attributed to the PLA's Foreign Languages Institute.

“There is reason to believe US intelligence agencies, while collecting antiterrorism information online have also 'incidentally' collected a lot of information in other fields.”

After their last meeting, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart said they talked about the matter of cyber espionage and claimed to have reached consensus on many issues.

In the meantime, almost half of Hong Kong’s citizens believe Edward Snowden, the individual who leaked the details of the PRISM program, should not be extradited to the US.