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PRISM is an electronic surveillance program, used to manage foreign intelligence collected from Internet and other electronic service providers and classified as top secret, that has been run by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) since 2007. PRISM is a government codename for a collection effort known officially as US-984XN.

Reports based on leaked documents describe the PRISM program as enabling in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. It provides for the targeting of any customers of participating corporations who live outside the United States, or American citizens whose communications include web content of people outside the United States. Data which the NSA is able to obtain under PRISM allegedly includes email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice over IP conversations, file transfers, login notifications and social networking details.

According to the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, PRISM cannot be used to intentionally target any Americans or anyone in the United States. Clapper said a secret court, Congress and the executive branch oversee the program and extensive procedures ensure the acquisition, retention and dissemination of data accidentally collected about Americans is kept to a minimum.

The Washington Post noted that the leaked document indicated that the PRISM SIGAD is "the number one source of raw intelligence used for NSA analytic reports." The President's Daily Brief, an all-source intelligence product, cited PRISM data as a source in 1,477 items in 2012. The leaked information came to light one day after the revelation that the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had been requiring the telecommunications company Verizon to turn over to the NSA logs tracking all of its customers' telephone calls on an ongoing daily basis.

NSA whistleblower William Binney has stated that PRISM is just another source of input of information. "The telecoms were giving NSA access to their communication lines. The Narus devices that the NSA put in different rooms around the AT&T fiber-optic network, or Verizon's network, couldn’t collect everything. They could get most of it, but they couldn’t get it all. So in order to get all the data, they had to go to the service providers to fill in the blanks. That’s what the PRISM program is for—to fill in the blanks. It also gives the FBI basis for introducing evidence into court."

"A parallel program, code-named BLARNEY, gathers up metadata as it streams past choke points along the backbone of the Internet. BLARNEY’s summary, set down in the slides alongside a cartoon insignia of a shamrock and a leprechaun hat, describes it as “an ongoing collection program that leverages IC and commercial partnerships to gain access and exploit foreign intelligence obtained from global networks.”

A related program, a big data or data mining system based on cloud computing and Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) technology known as "Boundless Informant", was disclosed in top secret documents leaked to the Guardian and reported on June 8, 2013.

History

PRISM is a "Special Source Operation" in the tradition of NSA's intelligence alliances with as many as 100 trusted U.S. companies since the 1970s. PRISM was launched in December 2007 to replace the Terrorist Surveillance Program. The latter was implemented in the wake of the September 11 attacks under the George W. Bush Administration but was widely criticized and had its legality questioned, because it was conducted without approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). PRISM was authorized by an order of the FISC . Its creation was enabled by the Protect America Act of 2007 under President Bush and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which legally immunized private companies that cooperated voluntarily with US intelligence collection and was renewed by Congress under President Obama in 2012 for five years until December 2017. According to The Register, the act "specifically authorizes intelligence agencies to monitor the phone, email, and other communications of U.S. citizens for up to a week without obtaining a warrant" when one of the parties is outside the U.S.

PRISM was first publicly revealed on June 6, 2013, after classified documents about the program were leaked by a career intelligence officer to the Washington Post and The Guardian. The leaked documents included 41 Power Point slides, four of which were presented to the public in newspaper articles. The documents identified several technology companies as participants in the PRISM program, including (date of joining PRISM in parentheses) Microsoft (2007), Yahoo! (2008), Google (2009), Facebook (2009), Paltalk (2009), YouTube (2010), AOL (2011), Skype (2011), and Apple (2012). The speaker's notes in the briefing document reviewed by the Washington Post indicated that "98 percent of PRISM production is based on Yahoo, Google and Microsoft."

The slide presentation stated that much of the world's electronic communications pass through the United States, because electronic communications data tend to follow the least expensive route rather than the most physically direct route, and the bulk of the world's internet infrastructure is based in the United States. The presentation noted that these facts provide United States intelligence analysts with opportunities for intercepting the communications of foreign targets as their electronic data pass into or through the United States.

According to the Washington Post, the intelligence analysts search PRISM data using terms intended to identify suspicious communications of targets whom the analysts suspect with at least 51 percent confidence to not be United States citizens, but in the process, communication data of some United States citizens are also collected unintentionally. Training materials for analysts tell them that while they should periodically report such accidental collection of non-foreign United States data, "it's nothing to worry about."

Former employees of the National Security Agency added further information: The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause ".

• In an interview on ABC News in January 2006 NSA whistleblower Russ Tice stated "...the number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA could be in the millions if the full range of secret NSA programs is used. That would mean for most Americans that if they conducted, or you know, placed an overseas communication, more than likely they were sucked into that vacuum."
• In an interview on RT in December 2012 NSA whistleblower William Binney had stated "...the FBI has access to the data collected, which are basically the emails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it. All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason – they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they’ve done for the last 10 years at least." On June 6, 2013 he estimated that the NSA also collects records on 3 billion calls per day.

In a technology conference in March 2013, Ira "Gus" Hunt, the Chief Technology Officer for the Chief Information Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) stated "The government collects vast amounts of data that become valuable when you can connect it with something else that arrives at a future point in time. Since you can’t connect dots you don’t have, it drives us into a mode of we fundamentally try to collect everything and hang onto it forever – forever being in quotes, of course”.

U.S Senators Mark Udall and Ron Wyden had classified knowledge of the program as members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, but were unable to speak of it when they warned in a Dec. 27, 2012, floor debate according to the Washington Post 6/6/2013. They commented in 2011 that the government has secretly interpreted Section 215 of the Patriot Act in a way that they portray as twisted, allowing the Federal Bureau of Investigation to conduct some kind of unspecified domestic surveillance that they say does not dovetail with a plain reading of the statute. In June 2013 former NSA director, turned whistleblower William Binney confirmed and clarified the Senators allegation by stating "the government is using a secret interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act which allows the government to obtain any data in any third party, like any service provider… any third party… any commercial company – like a telecom or internet service provider, libraries, medical companies – holding data about anyone, any U.S. citizen or anyone else. In other words, the government was using the antiquated, bogus legal argument that it was not acting color of law using governmental powers, and that it was private companies just doing their thing (which the government happened to order all of the private companies to collect and fork over)".

Response from companies

Corporate executives of several companies identified in the leaked documents told The Guardian that they had no knowledge of the PRISM program in particular and also denied making information available to the government on the scale alleged by news reports. Statements of several of the companies named in the leaked documents were reported by TechCrunch as follows:

• Facebook: "We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers. When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinize any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law."
• Google: "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 backdoor for the government to access private user data."
• Apple: "We have never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order."
• Microsoft: "We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don't participate in it."
• Yahoo!: "Yahoo! takes users' privacy very seriously. We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network."
• Dropbox: "We've seen reports that Dropbox might be asked to participate in a government program called PRISM. We are not part of any such program and remain committed to protecting our users' privacy."

According to a fact sheet released by the Director of National Intelligence, "Under Section 702 of FISA, the United States Government does not unilaterally obtain information from the servers of U.S. electronic communication service providers. All such information is obtained with FISA Court approval and with the knowledge of the provider based upon a written directive from the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. In short, Section 702 facilitates the targeted acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning foreign targets located outside the United States under court oversight. Service providers supply information to the Government when they are lawfully required to do so."

The Associated Press pointed out that these company denials were "carefully worded" to be technically true and yet make it impossible to determine how much information was actually provided to the NSA. Lee Tien, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed out that: "A company could say 'We've never heard of the PRISM program.' Well, maybe the government didn't call it that. Or the company could say 'We don't allow backdoor access!' Well, maybe they allow front door access." Bloomberg News noted that "it's hard to imagine" the companies "were unaware of the arrangement, however they choose to describe it."

In response to the technology companies' denials of the NSA being able to directly access the companies' servers, the New York Times reported that sources had stated the NSA was gathering the surveillance data from the companies using other technical means in response to court orders for specific sets of data. The Washington Post suggested, "It is possible that the conflict between the PRISM slides and the company spokesmen is the result of imprecision on the part of the NSA author. In another classified report obtained by The Post, the arrangement is described as allowing 'collection managers content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,' rather than directly to company servers." "If these companies received an order under the FISA amendments act, they are forbidden by law from disclosing having received the order and disclosing any information about the order at all," Mark Rumold, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told ABC News.

On May 28, 2013, Google was ordered by United States District Court Judge Susan Illston to comply with National Security Letter issued by the FBI to provide user data without a warrant. Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in an interview with VentureBeat said "I certainly appreciate that Google put out a transparency report, but it appears that the transparency didn’t include this. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were subject to a gag order."

The New York Times reported on June 7, 2013 that "Twitter declined to make it easier for the government. But other companies were more compliant, according to people briefed on the negotiations." The other companies held discussions with national security personnel on how to make available data more efficiently and securely. In some cases, these companies made modifications to their systems in support of the intelligence collection effort. The dialogues have continued in recent months, as Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has met with executives including those at Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Intel. These details on the discussions provide insight into the disparity between initial descriptions of the government program including a training slide which states "Collection directly from the servers" and the companies" initial denials.

While providing data in response to a legitimate FISA request approved by FISC is a legal requirement, modifying systems to make it easier for the government to collect the data is not. This is why Twitter could legally decline to provide enhanced access to its systems. Other than Twitter, the companies were effectively asked to construct a locked mailbox and provide the key to the government, people briefed on the negotiations said. Facebook, for instance, built such a system for requesting and sharing the information.

Response from United States government

Shortly after publication of the reports by the Guardian and the Washington Post, the United States Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, released a statement confirming that for nearly 6 years the government of the United States had been using large internet services companies such as Google and Facebook to collect information on foreigners outside the United States as a defense against national security threats. The statement read in part, "The Guardian and The Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They contain numerous inaccuracies." He went on to say, "Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons located outside the United States. It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States." Clapper concluded his statement by stating "The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans." On March 12, 2013, Clapper had told the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that the NSA does "not wittingly" collect any type of data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.

Clapper also stated that "the NSA collects the phone data in broad swaths, because collecting it (in) a narrow fashion would make it harder to identify terrorism-related communications. The information collected lets the government, over time, make connections about terrorist activities. The program doesn’t let the U.S. listen to people’s calls, but only includes information like call length and telephone numbers dialed."

On June 8, 2013, Clapper issued an additional statement and fact sheet about PRISM, emphasizing that "the surveillance activities published in The Guardian and The Washington Post are lawful and conducted under authorities widely known and discussed, and fully debated and authorized by Congress." The fact sheet stated that PRISM "is an internal government computer system used to facilitate the government’s statutorily authorized collection of foreign intelligence information from electronic communication service providers under court supervision, as authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (50 U.S.C. § 1881a)." It further stated that the "information is obtained with FISA Court approval and with the knowledge of the provider based upon a written directive from the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence." It claimed that the Attorney General provides FISA Court rulings and semi-annual reports about PRISM activities to Congress, "provid an unprecedented degree of accountability and transparency."

The President of the United States, Barack Obama, defended the government's surveillance programs, saying that they were legally authorized and had helped prevent terrorist attacks. "What you’ve got is two programs that were originally authorized by Congress, have been repeatedly authorized by Congress. Bipartisan majorities have approved them. Congress is continually briefed on how these are conducted. There are a whole range of safeguards involved. And federal judges are overseeing the entire program throughout." In a separate statement, the President claimed that "Congress has been briefed 13 times on the programs since 2009." He also said that having a debate about how to balance security issues with privacy concerns is healthy for democratic government, but he cautioned, "You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. You know, we’re going to have to make some choices as a society."

In contrast to their swift and forceful reactions the previous day to allegations that the government had been conducting surveillance of United States citizens' telephone records, Congressional leaders had little to say about the PRISM program the day after leaked information about the program was published. Several lawmakers declined to discuss PRISM, citing its top-secret classification, and others said that they had not been aware of the program.

Court review of PRISM under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

On June 8, 2013, the Director of National Intelligence issued a fact sheet stating that PRISM was conducted "under court supervision, as authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (50 U.S.C. § 1881a)." Section 702 provides that “the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence may authorize jointly, for a period of up to 1 year from the effective date of the authorization, the targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information." In order to authorize the targeting, the A.G. and DNI need to get an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) pursuant to Section 702 or certify that “intelligence important to the national security of the United States may be lost or not timely acquired and time does not permit the issuance of an order."

Unlike a Fourth Amendment search warrant, the court order under Section 702 does not require a showing of “probable cause supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Rather the A.G. and DNI must certify to FISC that “a significant purpose of the acquisition is to obtain foreign intelligence information." They do not need to “identify the specific facilities, places, premises, or property at which an acquisition . . . will be directed or conducted." Specifically, the A.G. and DNI’s certification to FISC needs to:

(A) attest that—

(i) there are procedures in place that have been approved, have been submitted for approval, or will be submitted with the certification for approval by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that are reasonably designed to:

(I) ensure that an acquisition authorized under subsection (a) is limited to targeting persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States; and

(II) prevent the intentional acquisition of any communication as to which the sender and all intended recipients are known at the time of the acquisition to be located in the United States;

(ii) the minimization procedures to be used with respect to such acquisition—

(I) meet the definition of minimization procedures under section 1801 (h) or 1821 (4) of this title, as appropriate; and

(II) have been approved, have been submitted for approval, or will be submitted with the certification for approval by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court;

(iii) guidelines have been adopted in accordance with subsection (f) to ensure compliance with the limitations in subsection (b) and to ensure that an application for a court order is filed as required by this chapter;

(iv) the procedures and guidelines referred to in clauses (i), (ii), and (iii) are consistent with the requirements of the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States;

(v) a significant purpose of the acquisition is to obtain foreign intelligence information;

(vi) the acquisition involves obtaining foreign intelligence information from or with the assistance of an electronic communication service provider; and

(vii) the acquisition complies with the limitations in subsection (b);

(B) include the procedures . . .  ;

(C) be supported, as appropriate, by the affidavit of any appropriate official in the area of national security who is—

(i) appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate; or

(ii) the head of an element of the intelligence community;

(D) include—

(i) an effective date for the authorization that is at least 30 days after the submission of the written certification to the court; or

(ii) if the acquisition has begun or the effective date is less than 30 days after the submission of the written certification to the court, the date the acquisition began or the effective date for the acquisition; and

(E) if the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence make determination . . . , include a statement that such determination has been made.

After getting a FISC order or determining that there are exigent circumstances, the A.G. and DNI “may direct, in writing, an electronic communication service provider to—

(A) immediately provide the Government with all information, facilities, or assistance necessary to accomplish the acquisition in a manner that will protect the secrecy of the acquisition and produce a minimum of interference with the services that such electronic communication service provider is providing to the target of the acquisition; and

(B) maintain under security procedures approved by the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence any records concerning the acquisition or the aid furnished that such electronic communication service provider wishes to maintain.”

If the electronic communication service provider complies with the direction, it is released from liability to its users for providing the information and reimbursed for the cost of providing it.

If the electronic communication service provider fails to comply with the direction, the A.G. may request an order from FISC to enforce the directive. Failure to comply with an enforcement order is punishable with contempt of court.

An electronic communication service provider can also petition FISC to set aside the direction. However, FISC may only set aside the direction if it “does not meet the requirements of , or is otherwise unlawful.” If FISC denies the challenge and orders the electronic communication service provider to comply with the directive, failure to comply with that order is also punishable with contempt of court.

Involvement of other countries

In the United Kingdom, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has had access to the PRISM program on or before June 2010 and wrote 197 reports with it in 2012 alone. PRISM may have allowed GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required to seek personal material.

Germany did not receive any raw PRISM data, according to a Reuters report.

Response from outside the US

• The German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, Peter Schaar, condemned the program as "monstrous".
• Sophie in 't Veld, a Dutch Member of the European Parliament, called PRISM "a violation of EU laws".

Discussed counter measures

After the leak several media sources discussed possible counter measures against the NSA spying. Most of the articles regarding counter measures strongly encourage users to use free open source encryption to protect their communication. Possible counter measures as discussed in the media coverage include:

• Browser: Use of open-source browsers such as Firefox or proprietary freeware such as Opera instead of Internet Explorer (Microsoft), Chrome (Google) and Safari (Apple). In addition, the use of TorBrowser as a "slow but anonymous way of browsing the Internet".
• Email: Encryption of email communication using the open source encryption tool GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG).
• Hard disk drive: Using open source hard disk encryption tools such as TrueCrypt to prevent cloud providers such as Dropbox to be able to look into the files.
• IP address: Use of (commercial) Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) operating from outside the US to encrypt the user's internet traffic and anonymize the IP addresses, browsing activity as well as search queries.
• Instant Messaging: Using open source instant messaging tools such as Jitsi for VoIP (video calls) or Pidgin for chat messages in conjunction with open source encryption plugins such as Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) instead of Skype (Microsoft), Google Hangouts and Paltalk.
• Web search: Using alternative search engines instead of Google, Yahoo or Bing (Microsoft) such as Ixquick or DuckDuckGo.

See also

References

1. Leger, Donna Leinwand (June 8, 2013), "Parts of NSA's PRISM program declassified", USA Today, retrieved 9 June 2013.
2. ^ "US intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program". The Washington Post. June 6, 2013. Retrieved June 6, 2013.
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50. ^ "U.S. CODE: Title 50, section 1881a. Procedures for targeting certain persons outside the United States other than United States persons".
51. Official Bill of Rights in the National Archives
52. Hopkins, Nick (7 June 2013). "UK gathering secret intelligence via covert NSA operation". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 June 2013.
53. Morris, Nigel; Sengupta, Kim; Burrell, Ian (06-07-2013). "Thousands of Britain's may have been spied on by GCHQ as link to Prism scandal is laid bare". Independent. Retrieved 06-07-2013. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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56. Collier, Kevin (7 June 2013). "Does the NSA's PRISM spying program violate EU law?". The Daily Dot.
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58. ^ http://www.pcworld.com/article/2041044/how-to-protect-your-pc-from-prism.html

External links

• SIGINT (overview), NSA.
• Bennie, William, The government is profiling you (video), MA, US: MIT: explains the recent history of domestic spying at NSA.

v t e National Security Agency
Locations	Alaska Mission Operations Center Colorado Cryptologic Center Consolidated Intelligence Center CSSG Dorsey Road European Cryptologic Center European Technical Center Fort Meade Friendship Annex Georgia Cryptologic Center Hawaii Cryptologic Center Interagency Training Center Kent Island Misawa Security Operations Center Multiprogram Research Facility Pine Gap RAF Menwith Hill Roaring Creek Room 641A Salt Creek Sugar Grove Texas Cryptologic Center Utah Data Center
Leaders	Ralph Canine John A. Samford Laurence Hugh Frost Gordon Blake Marshall Carter Noel Gayler Samuel C. Phillips Lew Allen Bobby Ray Inman Lincoln D. Faurer William Eldridge Odom Bill Studeman John Michael McConnell Kenneth Minihan Michael Hayden Keith B. Alexander Michael S. Rogers Paul Nakasone
Divisions	CSS Special Collection Service SSO TAO NSOC
Technology	ANT catalog FROSTBURG HARVEST Secure Terminal Equipment (STE) STU-I STU-II STU-III WARRIOR PRIDE
Controversy	Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present) Church Committee Edward Snowden LOVEINT James Bamford NSA warrantless surveillance (2001–2007) Pike Committee Russ Tice Thomas Andrews Drake Thomas Tamm Matthew Aid
Programs	Boundless Informant Dropmire ECHELON Fairview Insider Threat Program MUSCULAR MYSTIC PRISM Real Time Regional Gateway Stellar Wind TRAILBLAZER Turbulence Upstream XKeyscore
Databases	DISHFIRE Main Core MAINWAY MARINA PINWALE
Other	Dundee Society Institute for Defense Analyses National Cryptologic Museum National Cryptologic School National Vigilance Park NSA Hall of Honor VENONA Vulnerabilities Equities Process Zendian Problem

• Current events from June 2013
• 2007 establishments in the United States
• Counter-terrorism policy of the United States
• Espionage
• National Security Agency
• Obama administration controversies
• Privacy in the United States
• Privacy of telecommunications
• Secret government programs
• Surveillance
• Surveillance scandals
• United States national security policy
• War on Terror