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lawdawg | 12 years ago

Bravo Edward, and yet very little is said about PRISM at all. When will we finally get to the bottom of what PRISM actually is? When will the public get access to the entire set of slides? How much exactly did Edward know about PRISM, or did he just stumble onto these slides and assume the worst?

So many questions, so few answers. Hopefully the coming weeks sheds more light onto this.

discuss

order

mortehu|12 years ago

> When will we finally get to the bottom of what PRISM actually is?

Is there any particular reason why you don't believe the fact sheet from the Director of National Intelligence[1] or Marc Ambinder[2]?

According to these sources (selected excerpts):

> PRISM is not an undisclosed collection or data mining program.

> PRISM is a kick-ass GUI that allows an analyst to look at, collate, monitor, and cross-check different data types provided to the NSA from internet companies located inside the United States.

> All such information is obtained with FISA Court approval and with the knowledge of the provider based upon a written directive from the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence.

1. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8dPmI7DfkxMejNyazZYMl93dlk/...

2. http://theweek.com/article/index/245360/solving-the-mystery-...

jdp23|12 years ago

I don't believe the DNI because of his testimony to Congress in February claiming that the National Security Agency does not “wittingly” collect data on millions of Americans. We now know they've been collecting data for tens of millions of Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint/Nextel customers since 2006.

More recently he also claimed that PRISM wasn't a previous-disclosed data collection program. It hadn't been previously disclosed before; and it is collecting data.

So, let me turn this around. Is there any particular reason why you do believe him?

Marc Ambinder's article, by contrast, is quite believable. But going beyond the quote you pulled, he also has lists quite a few open questions about PRISM collecting data on US persons. So it seems to me that we're still a long way from the bottom.

acqq|12 years ago

...and the FISA Court makes the blanket orders allowing the security organizations to have billions of collections in the U.S, see the output of the program made by NSA:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-boundless-in...

It is all "legal" in a sense that there are court orders, but there are no real checks as the orders are blanket ones.

Moreover, to read your mail older than 180 days from any provider according to the current laws they don't need any order at all to do it legally:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/04/fourth-amendment-em...

mtgx|12 years ago

No, I do not believe him. He's lied before and committed perjury. Why should I believe him now?

lawdawg|12 years ago

No reason, but PRISM as explained in #1 doesn't seem like that big of a deal, or at least, not that much more shocking then what we already knew.