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U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program

U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post. The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind. Equally unusual is the way the NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. London’s Guardian newspaper reported Friday that GCHQ, Britain’s equivalent of the NSA, also has been secretly gathering intelligence from the same internet companies through an operation set up by the NSA. PRISM was launched from the ashes of President George W. The court-approved program is focused on foreign communications traffic, which often flows through U.S. servers even when sent from one overseas location to another.

NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily | World news The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April. The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries. The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing. The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19. The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual.

NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program Through a PRISM darkly: Tracking the ongoing NSA surveillance story It was a relatively quiet week for internet news until Guardian blogger Glenn Greenwald dropped a bombshell on Thursday, with a story that showed the National Security Agency was collecting data from Verizon thanks to a secret court order. But that was just the beginning: the Washington Post later revealed an even broader program of surveillance code-named PRISM, which involved data collection from the web’s largest players — including Google, Facebook and Apple — and then the Wall Street Journal said data is also being gathered from ISPs and credit-card companies. This story is moving so quickly that it is hard to keep a handle on all of the developments, not to mention trying to follow the denials and non-denials from those who are allegedly involved, and the threads that tie this particular story to the long and sordid history of the U.S. government’s surveillance of its own citizens. The Guardian leak The leak widens The Washington Post leak The ongoing fallout Zuckerberg denial

Revealed: how Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages | World news Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian. The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month. The documents show that: • Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal; • The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail; • Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a "team sport".

White House Defends Phone-Record Tracking as 'Critical Tool' WASHINGTON—The National Security Agency's monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency's activities. The disclosure this week of an order by a secret U.S. court for Verizon Communications Inc. VZ -0.35 % 's phone records set off the latest public discussion of the program. But people familiar with the NSA's operations said the initiative also encompasses phone-call data from AT&T Inc. T -0.45 % and Sprint Nextel Corp. The agency is using its secret access to the communications of millions of Americans to target possible terrorists, said people familiar with the effort. The NSA's efforts have become institutionalized—yet not so well known to the public—under laws passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Civil-liberties advocates slammed the NSA's actions. But Sen. Sen.

MATRIX – Ce que nos données Gmail révèlent de notre vie sociale Que contiennent les métadonnées transmises par Google à la National Security Agency (NSA) américaine ou celles qu’observe en France la Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (DGSE) ? Les métadonnées sont l’enveloppe d’une donnée, son contenant. Dans le cadre d’une conversation téléphonique, ce seront par exemple les fadettes, les factures détaillées des appels émis et reçus et les numéros contactés, mais pas le contenu de la conversation. Dans le cas d’un courrier électronique, ce sera le nom et l’adresse de la personne à qui l’on écrit, le volume de courriers envoyés et reçus, etc. L’accès à ces données techniques constitue-t-il de l’espionnage ? C’est tout le débat depuis que l’ampleur de la collecte de données par les autorités américaines a été révélé, il y a quelques semaines, par l’ancien consultant de la NSA Edward Snowden. >> Lire la tribune cosignée par César Hidalgo parue dans Le Monde daté du 27 juin : « Il est temps de parler des métadonnées«

Doublespeak Denials Of PRISM Hid The Truth About Participation “Direct Access” didn’t mean no access. “Back door” didn’t mean no door. “Only in accordance with the law” didn’t mean PRISM is illegal. And you didn’t need to have heard of a codename to have participated. Larry, Zuck, you didn’t spell out your denials of the NSA’s data spying program in plain English, and now we know why. [Update: This article and its headline have been edited, see explanation below.] The New York Times says you knowingly participated in the NSA’s data monitoring program. But you were probably cornered by Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act restrictions about what you could say about PRISM. Sadly, you really were working with the NSA to give it access to our private data, so your supposedly candid statements full of technicalities just broke our hearts, as the truth has come to light. The terms you used disguised what was going on. Now these excuses ring hollow. That’s a threat to your business, and our way of life. [Image Credit]

PRISM revelations result in lost business for US cloud companies The revelations about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) broad monitoring of traffic and access to the data of cloud providers spurred by the actions of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden may or may not have hurt national security, depending on who you ask. But according to a recent survey by the industry organization Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the exposure of NSA’s PRISM program is having a very real impact on the bottom line of US cloud service providers in the form of lost overseas customers. Concerns about NSA surveillance are hardly new. Two years ago, I was interviewing the CIO of a major Canadian healthcare organization for a story on cloud computing, and asked if he had considered using US cloud providers or software-as-a-service. At the time, the concern might have sounded a bit paranoid. The PRISM revelations are also making it harder for US companies to get new business abroad. Concerns about government access to cloud data weren’t limited to the US alone.

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