Originally published on Friday, July 05, 2013
What else can the NSA access? A few weeks ago, it was revealed that the NSA has been participating in a program that collects the phone records of millions of U.S. citizens. One news article stated that Verizon was required on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries.1 While the news has centered around Verizon mostly, it is important to note some recent articles that have slowly started to uncover more details regarding this popular topic. The Washington Post and The Guardian recently reported the existence of another program used by the NSA and the FBI that scours the nation’s main Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, emails, documents and connection logs to help analysts track a person’s movements and contacts. It was not clear whether the program, called PRISM, targets known suspects or broadly collects data from other Americans. This program apparently collects data directly from well-known corporations. Many are surprised to learn that not just Verizon, but also other familiar companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple are included in this program and are just as susceptible to the NSA. Dropbox is rumored to be added to this program soon also.2 Obviously, these newly released reports have left many citizens wanting more information. Click here to read the full article, with details from The Washington Post, and here to learn about PRISM. 1 Source 2 Source
