

In the days since the leak, the implicated companies have vehemently denied knowledge of and participation in PRISM, and have rejected allegations that the US government is able to directly tap into their users' data.īoth the companies and the government insist that data is only collected with court approval and for specific targets. On June 6th, The Guardian and The Washington Post published reports based on the leaked slides, which state that the NSA has "direct access" to the servers of Google, Facebook, and others. Section TOC Title Why is PRISM a big deal?Ĭlassified presentation slides detailing aspects of PRISM were leaked by a former NSA contractor. The US government insists that it is only allowed to collect data when given permission by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. There’s a lot we still don’t know about how PRISM works, but the basic idea is that it allows the NSA to request data on specific people from major technology companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and others. It’s the latest evolution of the US government’s post-9/11 electronic surveillance efforts, which began under President Bush with the Patriot Act, and expanded to include the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) enacted in 20.

What the hell is PRISM? PRISM is a tool used by the US National Security Agency (NSA) to collect private electronic data belonging to users of major internet services like Gmail, Facebook, Outlook, and others.

Clapper downplays the scandal, asking the public to simply trust that the agency respects civil liberties. US national intelligence director responds: Following the outbreak of the PRISM story, the US national intelligence director, James Clapper, release multiple statements regarding the leak. Both publications say that according to the slides, PRISM is considered a highly classified program that allows the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation to retrieve data directly from Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple.Ĭompanies deny knowledge and participation in PRISM: While the Post and the Guardian allege based on the leak that the NSA had direct access to the servers of Microsoft, Google, Apple, and others, spokespeople representing the companies deny involvement in the program, let alone knowledge of it. Sure, there were earlier reports that this was happening, such as in Dana Priest and William Arkin’s excellent book Top Secret America.PRISM is revealed in leaked slides: The Washington Post and The Guardian obtain a leaked 41-slide security presentation. Rather than operating in an absence of good faith and trust, with individuals suing to enforce their civil rights, Obama emphasizes human dignity and potential, not material potential, in a cosmopolitan collectivity of shared, yet shifting, alliances. Unlike either the strong individual-rights (or civil-liberties) state or the strong welfare state, this third tradition is premised on forging alliances and on collective goodwill. Obama does not distinguish between these spheres rather than having the state regulate society, or having society freed from state regulation, he advances a collaborative state and market and promotes a fully encompassing social sphere, or a collectivity. One of the themes of Out of Many, One: Obama and the 3rd American Political Tradition was that Obama relies on social technology to merge the public, the private, and the social spheres.
