[b][b]US admits monitoring internet firms' servers

US admits monitoring internet firms' servers
Responding to media reports, spy chief says programme only targeted "non-US persons" located outside the country.
Last Modified: 07 Jun 2013 08:39

The National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading US internet companies to spy on foreigners, the Washington Post has reported.

According to the newspaper, even though US citizens were not the intended targets of surveillance, this has allowed investigators to examine emails, photos and other documents of tens of millions of Americans that can be used to track people and their contacts over time.

In a statement on Thursday, James Clapper, director of national intelligence, said the Post article contains "numerous inaccuracies".

Clapper said while the programme, code-named PRISM, collects information concerning "non-US" persons located outside the country, it cannot be used for any citizens or anyone within the US.

"Information collected under this programme is among the most important and valuable foreign intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats," he said.
Analysis: US government snooping on internet firms

"The unauthorised disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal programme is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans."

The highly classified national security programme had not been disclosed publicly before.

A US government source, who was not authorised to comment publicly on the programme, confirmed its existence to the Reuters news agency late on Thursday.

Clapper said PRISM, referred to as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, was recently reauthorised by Congress after "extensive hearings and debate".

The programme's participants, the Post said, include Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple.

Firms respond

The report came on the same day that another newspaper, Britain's Guardian, revealed that the US government is collecting telephone records of millions of Americans as part of US national security efforts.

In Washington, the Guardian report fuelled an ongoing debate over whether the US government is violating citizens' privacy rights while trying to protect them from attacks.

That debate is sure to escalate with the Post's report, which said the NSA and FBI are extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs to build a database involving trillions of communications by Americans.

Al Jazeera's Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington, said that there have been many news stories over the years about intelligence gathering but this is the first time a particular story is leading all local newscasts.

She said change is possible and the programme could end if there is a large enough outcry.

In statements released late on Thursday, Google, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook denied that the government had "direct access" to their central servers.

"Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully.

"From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a 'back door' for the government to access private user data," the company said in a statement.

In a statement, Facebook's Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan said: "Protecting the privacy of our users and their data is a top priority for Facebook,"

"We do not provide any government organisation with direct access to Facebook servers,"

US Attorney General Eric Holder said on Thursday that members of Congress were fully briefed on the intelligence-gathering programme that included the daily collection of telephone records from Verizon Communications.
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Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/06/20136722756636173.html

You guys just don't get it.

Let me break this down for you real simple.

1) They collect ALL data on ALL citizens. Everything you do online, who you associate with, what sites you visit, what words you search for, the content of your emails, texts, voice calls, what you post on Facebook.

2)they house all of this data in giant data centers called fusion centers.

3) They run data mining alogarthms on this giant all encompassing dataset.

4)these alogarithms can categorize individuals based on their behavior patterns, i.e. what the say, where they go, who they know, what kind of photos they post on Facebook.

5)Here is a scary example, they click a button and run a search and end up with a list of all Americans who fall into a behavior pattern that would be indicative of a far right political ideology. or behavior that would be indicative of opposing the views or ideology of the current administration. etc

Scary.. America is Evil

.

eat large pizza

Yet when GEJ wanted to do this for the sake of national security,he was lambasted by the largely illiterate populace.
Even the moronic opposition banked on the illiteracy of the people to score cheap political points.