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I must be in the minority here, but I'm no more concerned now than before reading this, and I'm still not super concerned if it works the way I think it does. I
by losvedir 13y ago
I must be in the minority here, but I'm no more concerned now than before reading this, and I'm still not super concerned if it works the way I think it does. It doesn't answer the main question of HOW MANY USERS are being watched like this.
We already knew from Prism that Microsoft is providing data to the NSA, and we already knew that it included real time video, emails, messages, etc. So this is more of a behind-the-scenes of how it's done, but if you stopped to consider before what Prism meant then it sort of implies everything here.
BUT, I still don't know whether this tapping of Skype calls, providing of decrypted messages, etc, applies only to a few specific people who the government has warrants for, or for all of Microsoft's users. I still think it's the former based on that Prism slide that said it cost $10M/yr, which is clearly not enough to handle ALL of Microsoft's and Google's and Apple's data.
If anything, I applaud Prism in that it's just a more efficient way of doing what the NSA is already cleared to do.
I'm MORE concerned about the warrantless Verizon metadata tracking for millions of subscribers, Clapper's lies before Congress about said data, the DoJ classifying the FISC's rulings that something or other is unconstitutional, the inability of companies to discuss NSLs.
But this release is just clarification on what we already knew, and we still don't know whether PRISM is oh-my-god-the-government-is-tapped-into-everything or just a convenient front-end on the government's warrant-obtained data (which is a good thing, AFAICT).
- eelke 13y agoYes, it's a fairly detailed description of how it's done, but to me this information doesn't seem to broaden the scope or intrusiveness of the surveillance apparatus that has been uncovered so far, the convenient interface for warranted querying that is PRISM.
- ma2rten 13y agoOn April 5, according to this slide, there were 117,675 active surveillance targets in PRISM's counterterrorism database. The slide does not show how many other Internet users, and among them how many Americans, have their communications collected "incidentally" during surveillance of those targets. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-...
- losvedir 13y agoOh, wow, I'm not sure how I hadn't see that before. Thanks for the info. Now to ponder how I feel about it...
- lern_too_spel 13y agoThe slide itself says 117675 records, not active surveillance targets.