Tuesday, June 11, 2013

PRISM : Everyone is a foreigner somewhere

                                              Image from Prism/US Overview PowerPoint slide

While DefMin Airshow MacKay prevaricates in the House about the extent to which Canada is complicit in the NSA 'foreigner' surveillance program PRISM outed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, former NSA and other foreign government officials are more forthcoming :

Guardian : NSA 'offers intelligence to British counterparts to skirt UK law'
The US National Security Agency circumvents UK law by offering, rather than being asked for, intelligence from global websites to their British counterparts, according to David Blunkett, who was home secretary at the time of the 9/11 attacks. British agents have to seek ministerial approval to request information from the US.
DutchNews : Dutch security service has received information via PRISM:  [h/t Min Reyes]
Dutch security service AIVD has also received information on email and social media traffic via US spy system PRISM, the Telegraaf reports on Tuesday. 
If the AIVD lists an American address as suspicious, it is supplied all the information within five minutes.
Der Spiegel : Prism Exposed: Data Surveillance with Global Implications
Former NSA employees Thomas Drake and Bill Binney told SPIEGEL in March that the facility would soon store personal data on people from all over the world and keep it for decades. This includes emails, Skype conversations, Google searches, YouTube videos, Facebook posts, bank transfers -- electronic data of every kind. 
The NSA's research projects aim to forecast, on the basis of telephone data and Twitter and Facebook posts, when uprisings, social protests and other events will occur. 
Gus Hunt, the CIA's chief technology officer, made a forthright admission in March: "We fundamentally try to collect everything and hang onto it forever." What he meant by "everything," Hunt also made clear: "It is really very nearly within our grasp to be able to compute on all human-generated information," he said.
Seen on twitter : Prism is currently reported to be searching for Sara Connor.
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4 comments:

West End Bob said...

Great graphic, M'Lady . . . .

Boris said...

Can I use Prism to back-up my hard-drive? I mean, they could really turn a program like that into a public service.

Alison said...

Bob : The graphic is from one of the PRISM PowerPoint slides published by the Guardian here. I just added a note under it in case that wasn't clear.

Boris : Yes, so many missed opportunities here. How about a game? Celebrity Prism! Players are given four Prism data points on a celebrity somewhere in the world and the first player to figure out who it is in under 5 minutes wins.

Steve said...

do not protest if you on facebook, cause they will use it against you at trial.

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