14 DAY TRIAL // Nearly ten months later, the NSA is trying to play the honesty card and has released a document explaining what PRISM is in its own words.
The truth is that the file doesn’t really reveal much that we didn’t already know thanks to Edward Snowden’s leaked files and the fact that it has probably spent all these months making sure all the words are in their right place and that nothing is out of place doesn’t really help with NSA’s credibility.
The file coming from the NSA’s Office of Civil Liberties and Privacy confirms that the collection of Internet data has been done with the knowledge of the service providers. This isn’t exactly the first time the NSA has made this statement, throwing some of the blame over to the tech companies, but it’s always been denied by corporations.
Furthermore, this statement has also been criticized given how damaging it is to the image of tech companies.
The NSA document then goes on to explain how the data collection happens. One way is through the PRISM program, which legally forces service providers, namely Google, Yahoo, Facebook and others, to turn over to the NSA communications of a specific target.
Tech companies have admitted to receiving such demands, but the gag orders have prevented them from sharing more than this. Either way, they never knew about the name of the program the NSA was using.
The second way the NSA gathers data is by compelling ISPs such as AT&T to “lawfully intercept” Internet traffic going through their networks. This is what the leaked files mentioned as “upstream” collection. Basically, the NSA orders Internet providers to tap their own networks and to hand over the collected data.
As always, this file also mentions the fact that US persons, meaning people living in the United States or the country’s citizens, were never targeted by PRISM. However, the agency didn’t shy away from using the “identifier” of such an individual, whether that’s a phone number or an email address, to search through the collection of data when they had an inkling that it might return foreign intelligence information.
This means that if anyone in the United States talks online to a person from Europe, for instance, chances are their data is going to be looked at.
If the NSA realizes that it has mistakenly targeted a US person, it “must cease collection immediately” and delete the collected data.
The fact that the NSA chose to share this information is rather amusing considering the fact that it has been accusing Edward Snowden and the reporters handling the leaked files of aiding the enemies of the United States.