Posted on 06/08/2013 5:23:45 PM PDT by NaturalBornConservative
Heads or Tails?
- By: Larry Walker II -
Carla Dean: “Well, who's gonna monitor the monitors of the monitors?” – Quotes from Enemy of the State
PRISM is allegedly a covert collaboration between the NSA, FBI, and nearly every tech company you rely on daily. PRISM has allegedly allowed the government unprecedented access to your personal information for at least the last six years. I say allegedly because every tech company in question denies its existence.
According to the Washington Post:
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… Equally unusual is the way the NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”
However, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google have all given full-throated denials of any involvement whatsoever. According to Google (emphasis mine):
You may be aware of press reports alleging that Internet companies have joined a secret U.S. government program called PRISM to give the National Security Agency direct access to our servers. As Google’s CEO and Chief Legal Officer, we wanted you to have the facts.
First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.
Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process. Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period. Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false.
Schism
Now we hear that the federal government may be launching an investigation in order to find the person who leaked details regarding PRISM to The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers. In other words, the government wants to know who, within its ranks, blew the whistle. Sounds like another government-manufactured conundrum to me.
Great, so now the government is going to waste time and resources finding out who leaked the details of a program which never existed. Seems to me like the White House would be a great place to start, especially since its Deputy National Security Adviser, Ben Rhodes, has a master’s degree in fiction-writing from New York University. What's up with that? I mean, in the mind of a fiction writer, wouldn’t it seem like one of the best ways to deal with a series of scandals would be to manufacture an even bigger one, and then quash it?
By that time won’t everyone have forgotten about Benghazi, the IRS Scandal, James Rosen, Eric Holder, Verizon, the Budget Crisis, Illegal Immigration, the Secret Kill List, Obamacare and everything else? Well, not in the real world. Nevertheless, for my two cents, if there is a leak investigation, in an effort to save both time and precious taxpayer resources, it should be performed by a Special Prosecutor, and should begin and end at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Great post.
indeed, who will monitor the monitors. Obama?
If this thing gets legs, it’s going to put a big dent in Cloud Computing.
That’s more evidence of its nonexistence.
I can tell you that if I were an Amazon cloud or Verizon customer right now, I would pull the plug on both of them, never to return.
If it doesn’t exist, why are there top secret documents about it?
If it doesn’t exist, why investigate the leak? If it was a fake memo sent to identify a potential leak, the unique wording of each version of the document would reveal who it was given to, thus identifying the leak.
“I can tell you that if I were an Amazon cloud or Verizon customer right now, I would pull the plug on both of them, never to return.”
What about Microsoft? From what I have read, they were the first to sign up for
the program. Will you dump Windows?
> Great post.
indeed, who will monitor the monitors. Obama?
Obama is watching you.right now through your Kinect ...
Actually I know of a program that can be installed on cell phones that will allow them to turn on your camera an look at you or whatecer it’s ponted at and also activate the speaker covertly so they can listen into you obversation called FlexiSpy. Years ago the FBI could dil a certain phone number, put your number in and listen into your conversation. That’s been awhile back too.
Actually I know of a program that can be installed on cell phones that will allow them to turn on your camera and look at you or whatever it’s ponted at and also activate the speaker covertly so they can listen into your conversation called FlexiSpy. Years ago the FBI could dial a certain phone number, put your number in and listen into your conversation. That’s been awhile back too.
The whole spying on domestic communication has nothing to do with terrorism. Terrorism is only incidental (note that they didn’t even have a hint of the Boston bombing unless it was a failed FBI sting), the real purpose is for total control within the US. Remember ... without the mark of the beast, you will not be able to buy or sell.
I have not used Windows for years—only Linux and Mac.
Good on you! Mostly Mac here, and a lot of AIX.
Top Secret Documents - All I see referred to is “a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation” which includes the words “top secret”. It contains the seal of “Special Source Operations” which no one has ever seen or heard of before, and is allegedly the NSA term for alliances with trusted U.S. companies. It was supposedly used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the “program”. What part of this proves that such a program ever existed?
And furthermore, if the government already has “back door” access to all the data, then why does it continue to make requests to companies like Google to hand over user data? Does that make sense?
“Like other technology and communications companies, Google regularly receives requests from governments and courts around the world to hand over user data. In this report, we disclose the number of requests we receive from each government in six-month periods... http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/?metric=targets
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