What is NSA Prism?
PRISM is a clandestine surveillance program under which the United States National Security
Agency (NSA) collects internet communications of foreign nationals from at least nine major US
internet companies. It was launched in 2007.
it was the expansion of the anti terrorist NSA survelliance program wich was implemented by
the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States in the wake of the September 11, 2001,
attacks.
the project objective is to track,filter messages gather intel for NSA or other gov agencies to
intercept or prevent such unwanted attacks to the united state goverment .. to watch wanted
person on their transaction or to find people fugetives in minimal time
surveillance of NSA is legal on us
The National Security Agency programs that collect huge volumes of Internet data within the
United States are constitutional and employ "reasonable" safeguards designed to protect the
rights of Americans, an independent privacy and civil liberties board has found.
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In a report released Tuesday night, the bipartisan, five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties
Oversight Board, appointed by President Barack Obama, largely endorsed a set of NSA
surveillance programs that have provoked worldwide controversy since they were disclosed last
year by former NSA systems administrator Edward Snowden.
However, the board urged new internal intelligence agency safeguards designed to further
guard against misuse.
Under a provision known as Section 702, added in 2008 to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act of 1978, the NSA uses court orders and taps on fibre optic lines to target the data of
foreigners living abroad when their emails, web chats, text messages and other
communications traverse the U.S.
Section 702
Section 702 includes the so-called PRISM program, under which the NSA collects foreign
intelligence from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and nearly every other major U.S.
technology firm.
Because worldwide Internet communications are intermingled on fibre optic lines and in the
cloud, the collection inevitably sweeps in the communications of Americans with no connection
to terrorism or foreign intelligence. Since the Snowden disclosures, activists have expressed
concern that a secret intelligence agency is obtaining private American communications
without individual warrants. Some have questioned how such a program could be legal under
the Constitution.
The board, including a Democratic federal judge, two privacy experts and two former
Republican Justice Department officials, found that the NSA monitoring was legal and
reasonable and that the NSA and other agencies take steps to prevent misuse of Americans'
data. Those steps include "minimization," which redacts the names of Americans from
intelligence reports unless they are relevant.
No trace of 'illegitimate activity'
The board's validation of the controversial NSA surveillance program stands in contrast to its
last report in January, when it argued that the NSA's collection of domestic calling records
under Section 215 was unconstitutional. The Obama administration disagreed but has
proposed to overhaul the program by ending NSA's collection of the records.
The new report will be voted on at a public meeting Wednesday in Washington.
"The board has seen no trace of any such illegitimate activity associated with the program, or
any attempt to intentionally circumvent legal limits," the report says. That said, the board
noted that the rules "potentially allow a great deal of private information about U.S. persons to
be acquired by the government."
In some aspects, the board found, the programs push "close to the line of constitutional
reasonableness. Such aspects include the unknown and potentially large scope of the incidental
collection of U.S. persons' communications," and collection of communications about a target,
such as a foreign terrorist organization, that could capture two innocent American discussing
the organization.
The report offers a set of policy proposals "designed to push the program more comfortably
into the sphere of reasonableness."
For example, the board recommends that NSA and CIA analysts query Section 702 data using
the names or email addresses of Americans "only if the query is based upon a statement of
facts showing that it is reasonably likely to return foreign intelligence information."
Valuable anti-terror tool
In contrast to the widespread questions about whether the NSA's collection of calling records
under Section 215 was a valuable anti-terror tool, U.S. intelligence officials and skeptical
members of Congress have agreed that Section 702 has been responsible for disrupting a series
of terrorist plots and achieving insights into the intentions of foreign adversaries.
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The board said, "Monitoring terrorist networks under Section 702 has enabled the government
to learn how they operate, and to understand their priorities, strategies, and tactics." The
programs have "led the government to identify previously unknown individuals who are
involved in international terrorism, and it has played a key role in discovering and disrupting
specific terrorist plots aimed at the United States and other countries," it added.
Section 702 has its roots in the Terrorist Surveillance Program, a collection program President
George W. Bush ordered after the 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S. without seeking a change in
the law. After administration lawyers deemed aspects of it illegal, and after co-called
warrantless wiretapping was disclosed in news reports, Congress essentially legalized the
program in 2008.
Much about how the government uses Section 702 information remains unknown, including the
extent to which it is used to help authorities investigate and prosecute domestic law
enforcement cases, such as drug cases, unrelated to terrorism or intelligence.
and theres no stoping yet...
if in US is legal to do looking and gather data how will extend its process to gather
information in other countries or other places?
that will be the participation of social medias and its companies to gather their consumers or users submmited information.