I am glad a post like this reached the front page. There have been many aspects of this story that are odd to me and should be odd to anyone here once they move past the visceral outrage of being told the NSA has direct access to your e-mails and Facebook account. Obviously other people realize this, but I haven't seen many comments about it (and I have to blame myself partly for that).
I find it odd that the NSA has managed to basically gain admin access to the databases of Facebook, Google, Skype, Microsoft, etc. without anyone working for these tech companies coming forward. I know some people have proposed theories as to why, but I haven't found them to be very convincing.
I also find the denials from all of these companies puzzling if the NSA slides are accurate. While some people have tried to read non denials out of the denials, these readings have seemed contrived as several of them seem pretty air tight to me when I read them (Google's is a good example).
The $20 million annual price tag is also laughable, especially to those who have a feel for how much large technical projects cost (and this one would be gigantic).
If we found out that PRISM was simply a software system for companies to comply with FISA warrants that they were already complying with, with those companies pushing data related to individually identified persons and without supplying any more data than they already were or are legally required to, I would not be overly surprised. And this entire thing would be a non story. The details definitely matter.
What really keeps me from settling on that idea entirely is that I don't think that could be true without Snowden having some kind of malicious intent (or being very mistaken about the nature of the systems he had access to). He seems like a true believer civil libertarian, and does not seem evil or stupid.
If this program is really nothing special, than the government should have no problem declassifying more information about it. But even if they do, will we believe them?
I find it odd that the NSA has managed to basically gain admin access to the databases of Facebook, Google, Skype, Microsoft, etc. without anyone working for these tech companies coming forward. I know some people have proposed theories as to why, but I haven't found them to be very convincing.
I also find the denials from all of these companies puzzling if the NSA slides are accurate. While some people have tried to read non denials out of the denials, these readings have seemed contrived as several of them seem pretty air tight to me when I read them (Google's is a good example).
The $20 million annual price tag is also laughable, especially to those who have a feel for how much large technical projects cost (and this one would be gigantic).
If we found out that PRISM was simply a software system for companies to comply with FISA warrants that they were already complying with, with those companies pushing data related to individually identified persons and without supplying any more data than they already were or are legally required to, I would not be overly surprised. And this entire thing would be a non story. The details definitely matter.
What really keeps me from settling on that idea entirely is that I don't think that could be true without Snowden having some kind of malicious intent (or being very mistaken about the nature of the systems he had access to). He seems like a true believer civil libertarian, and does not seem evil or stupid.
If this program is really nothing special, than the government should have no problem declassifying more information about it. But even if they do, will we believe them?