Suddenly embroiled in too many scandals to even list, and humiliated by a publicly-exposed (because everyone knew about the NSA superspy ambitions before, but with one major difference: it was a conspiracy theory.... now it is a conspiracy fact) surveillance scandal that makes Tricky Dick look like an amateur, earlier today, as expected, Obama came out and publicly declared "I am not a hacker" and mumbled something about "security", "privacy" and "inconvenience." He went on to explain how the government "welcomes the debate" of all three in the aftermath of the public disclosure that every form of electronic communication is intercepted and stored by the US government (now that said interception is no longer secret, of course) but more importantly how it is only the government, which is naturally here to help, that should be the ultimate arbiter in deciding what is best for all.
Yet the PRISM-gate scandal which is sure to only get worse with time as Americans slowly realize they are living in a Orwellian police state, meant Obama would have to do more to appease a public so furious even the NYT issued a scathing editorial lamenting the obliteration of Obama's credibility. Sure enough, the president did. Reuters reports that the first course of action by the US government will be to... shoot the messenger.
Reuters reports that "President Barack Obama's administration is likely to open a criminal investigation into the leaking of highly classified documents that revealed the secret surveillance of Americans' telephone and email traffic, U.S. officials said on Friday."
And how did Reuters learn this: from "law enforcement and security officials who were not authorized to speak publicly."
The mimetic absurdity of the narrative is just too surreal to even contemplate for more than a minute before bursting out in laughter: the administration's plans to launch criminal charges against those who "leaked" its Nixonian espionage masterplan involving every US (and world) citizen using the Internet, revealed by another group of sources leaking in secret. Pure poetry.
Of course, this was inevitable - once you start down the path of a totalitarian surveillance superstate, you don't stop until all dissent is crushed: either peacefully through submission to debt serfdom, or, well, not so peacefully.
It was unclear on Friday whether a complaint had been submitted by the publicity-shy National Security Agency, which was most directly involved in the collection of trillions of telephone and email communications.
However, one U.S. official with knowledge of the situation said that given the extent and sensitivity of the recent leaks, federal law may compel officials to open an investigation.
A criminal probe would represent another turn in the Obama administration's battle against national security leaks. This effort has been under scrutiny lately because of a Justice Department investigation that has involved searches of the phone records of Associated Press journalists and a Fox News reporter.
But what's worst, is that it may all turn very personal against the same journalists who dared to divulge the NSA's spy-op:
Journalists involved in The Guardian and Washington Post articles have reported in depth on WikiLeaks, the website known for publishing secret U.S. government documents.
The Post report on the PRISM program was co-written by Laura Poitras, a filmmaker who has been working on a documentary on WikiLeaks, with the cooperation of its founder Julian Assange, and who last year made a short film about Bill Binney, a former NSA employee who became a whistleblowing critic of the agency.
Last year, the web magazine Salon published a lengthy article by the author of the Guardian report, Glenn Greenwald, accusing U.S. authorities of harassing Poitras when she left and re-entered the United States. Greenwald also has written frequently about Assange.
The Guardian and Post stories appeared in the same week that U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning went on trial in Maryland accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks.
In an email to Reuters on Friday, Poitras rejected the notion that the trial had any impact on the timing of her story.
"I am fully aware we are living in a political climate where national security reporting is being targeted by the government, however, I don't think fear should stop us from reporting these stories," Poitras wrote.
"To suggest that the timing of the NSA PRISM story is linked in any way to other events or stories I'm following is simply wrong. Like any journalist, I have many contacts and follow multiple stories."
Kris Coratti, a Washington Post spokeswoman, said the timing of the paper's publication of Poitras' story had nothing to do with Manning's trial and that Assange had played no role in arranging or encouraging the story.
Greenwald did not respond to emailed requests for comment. The Guardian's editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, declined to comment.
Needless to say, once political retribution for publicizing the nuances of the police state becomes a personal affair targeting the very journalists whose task is to provide much needed information, the first amendment is basically finished.
Alas, on the path to tyranny the loss of rights and privileges, let alone the occasional amendment written on a very old parchment and which nobody follows or cares about, is inevitable.
And it is up to the citizens of such a tyrannical government to reclaim their nation. Which they will... Just as soon as The Bachelorette/Big Brother (no pun intended)/X Factor is over and the next disability check clears.
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War." Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta." The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
The color scheme ranges from green (least subjected to surveillance) through yellow and orange to red (most surveillance). Note the '2007' date in the image relates to the document from which the interactive map derives its top secret classification, not to the map itself.
The National Security Agency has developed a powerful tool for recording and analysing where its intelligence comes from, raising questions about its repeated assurances to Congress that it cannot keep track of all the surveillance it performs on American communications.
The Guardian has acquired top-secret documents about the NSAdatamining tool, called Boundless Informant, that details and even maps by country the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks.
The focus of the internal NSA tool is on counting and categorizing the records of communications, known as metadata, rather than the content of an email or instant message.
The Boundless Informant documents show the agency collecting almost 3 billion pieces of intelligence from US computer networks over a 30-day period ending in March 2013. One document says it is designed to give NSA officials answers to questions like, "What type of coverage do we have on country X" in "near real-time by asking the SIGINT [signals intelligence] infrastructure."
An NSA factsheet about the program, acquired by the Guardian, says: "The tool allows users to select a country on a map and view the metadata volume and select details about the collections against that country."
Under the heading "Sample use cases", the factsheet also states the tool shows information including: "How many records (and what type) are collected against a particular country."
A snapshot of the Boundless Informant data, contained in a top secret NSA "global heat map" seen by the Guardian, shows that in March 2013 the agency collected 97bn pieces of intelligence from computer networks worldwide. The heat map reveals how much data is being collected from around the world. Note the '2007' date in the image relates to the document from which the interactive map derives its top secret classification, not to the map itself.Iran was the country where the largest amount of intelligence was gathered, with more than 14bn reports in that period, followed by 13.5bn from Pakistan. Jordan, one of America's closest Arab allies, came third with 12.7bn, Egypt fourth with 7.6bn and India fifth with 6.3bn.
The heatmap gives each nation a color code based on how extensively it is subjected to NSA surveillance. The color scheme ranges from green (least subjected to surveillance) through yellow and orange to red (most surveillance).
The disclosure of the internal Boundless Informant system comes amid a struggle between the NSA and its overseers in the Senate over whether it can track the intelligence it collects on American communications. The NSA's position is that it is not technologically feasible to do so.
At a hearing of the Senate intelligence committee In March this year, Democratic senator Ron Wyden asked James Clapper, the director of national intelligence: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
"No sir," replied Clapper.
Judith Emmel, an NSA spokeswoman, told the Guardian in a response to the latest disclosures: "NSA has consistently reported including to Congress that we do not have the ability to determine with certainty the identity or location of all communicants within a given communication. That remains the case."
Other documents seen by the Guardian further demonstrate that the NSA does in fact break down its surveillance intercepts which could allow the agency to determine how many of them are from the US. The level of detail includes individual IP addresses.
IP address is not a perfect proxy for someone's physical location but it is rather close, said Chris Soghoian, the principal technologist with the Speech Privacy and Technology Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If you don't take steps to hide it, the IP address provided by yourinternet provider will certainly tell you what country, state and, typically, city you are in," Soghoian said.
That approximation has implications for the ongoing oversight battle between the intelligence agencies and Congress.
On Friday, in his first public response to the Guardian's disclosures this week on NSA surveillance, Barack Obama said that that congressional oversight was the American peoples' best guarantee that they were not being spied on.
"These are the folks you all vote for as your representatives in Congress and they are being fully briefed on these programs," he said. Obama also insisted that any surveillance was "very narrowly circumscribed".
Senators have expressed their frustration at the NSA's refusal to supply statistics. In a letter to NSA director General Keith Alexander in October last year, senator Wyden and his Democratic colleague on the Senate intelligence committee, Mark Udall, noted that "the intelligence community has stated repeatedly that it is not possible to provide even a rough estimate of how many American communications have been collected under the Fisa Amendments Act, and has even declined to estimate the scale of this collection."
At a congressional hearing in March last year, Alexander denied point-blank that the agency had the figures on how many Americans had their electronic communications collected or reviewed. Asked if he had the capability to get them, Alexander said: "No. No. We do not have the technical insights in the United States." He added that "nor do we do have the equipment in the United States to actually collect that kind of information".
Soon after, the NSA, through the inspector general of the overall US intelligence community, told the senators that making such a determination would jeopardize US intelligence operations and might itself violate Americans' privacy.
"All that senator Udall and I are asking for is a ballpark estimate of how many Americans have been monitored under this law, and it is disappointing that the inspectors general cannot provide it," Wyden toldWired magazine at the time.
The documents show that the team responsible for Boundless Informant assured its bosses that the tool is on track for upgrades.
The team will "accept user requests for additional functionality or enhancements," according to the FAQ acquired by the Guardian. "Users are also allowed to vote on which functionality or enhancements are most important to them (as well as add comments). The BOUNDLESSINFORMANT team will periodically review all requests and triage according to level of effort (Easy, Medium, Hard) and mission impact (High, Medium, Low)."
Emmel, the NSA spokeswoman, told the Guardian: "Current technology simply does not permit us to positively identify all of the persons or locations associated with a given communication (for example, it may be possible to say with certainty that a communication traversed a particular path within the internet. It is harder to know the ultimate source or destination, or more particularly the identity of the person represented by the TO:, FROM: or CC: field of an e-mail address or the abstraction of an IP address).
"Thus, we apply rigorous training and technological advancements to combine both our automated and manual (human) processes to characterize communications ensuring protection of the privacy rights of the American people. This is not just our judgment, but that of the relevant inspectors general, who have also reported this."
She added: "The continued publication of these allegations about highly classified issues, and other information taken out of context, makes it impossible to conduct a reasonable discussion on the merits of these programs."
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
Why is this a scandal now? Big data surveillance has been going on for a decade if not longer. It was made public six or seven years ago. Sure. The easy answer is that Glenn Greenwald in the Gaurdian put out some articles. Is that all? Just an intrepid reporter, who by the way is and his courageous newspaper -- end of story? Are there magic hands making the story happen?
"We'll know our disinformation campaign is complete when everything the American public believes is false." --William J. Casey, D.C.I
"We will lead every revolution against us." --Theodore Herzl
Lauren Johnson Wrote:Why is this a scandal now? Big data surveillance has been going on for a decade if not longer. It was made public six or seven years ago. Sure. The easy answer is that Glenn Greenwald in the Gaurdian put out some articles. Is that all? Just an intrepid reporter, who by the way is and his courageous newspaper -- end of story? Are there magic hands making the story happen?
You knew, I knew, we on this Forum knew...but all too many Americans did not or were in denial. Now, it is pretty difficult to be in denial about both the fact and EXTENT of the electronic spying! As to why now it 'surfaces' I don't know, and such things as that usually come out months or years later - if at all. I really don't care. It could be some internecine warfare or a hidden whistleblower or an 'I don't care if you know - there is nothing you can do about it' attitude. I just want Americans and all World Citizens to rise up against it by any means at their disposal! [i.e. Sieze The Moment!] If anyone believes they don't do certain spying on Americans, or that they don't intercept and record for all time the entire content, I have a nice bridge in Manhattan to sell you, cheap.
Last night I was reading the Tor Wiki [not an easy read!] and their attempts to stay one step ahead of NSA and their ilk. It is not easy, and likely not possible, entirely. Very difficult if you use Windoz; a fighting chance if you use Linux [but, you have to be rather computer savvy - Tor is NOT easy to set up securely unless you greatly simplify you computer system or follow pages and pages of do's and don'ts]!!!
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
Jan Klimkowski Wrote:And the British spooks are committing the very same crimes, using PRISM.
Quote:In a statement to the Guardian, GCHQ, insisted it "takes its obligations under the law very seriously".
And then completely ignores those legal obligations......
Quote:UK gathering secret intelligence via covert NSA operation
Exclusive: UK security agency GCHQ gaining information from world's biggest internet firms through US-run Prism programme
Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk, Friday 7 June 2013 14.27 BST
Documents show GCHQ (above) has had access to the NSA's Prism programme since at least June 2010. Photograph: David Goddard/Getty Images
The UK's electronic eavesdropping and security agency, GCHQ, has been secretly gathering intelligence from the world's biggest internet companies through a covertly run operation set up by America's top spy agency, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.
The documents show that GCHQ, based in Cheltenham, has had access to the system since at least June 2010, and generated 197 intelligence reports from it last year.
The US-run programme, called Prism, would appear to allow GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required to seek personal material such as emails, photos and videos from an internet company based outside the UK.
The use of Prism raises ethical and legal issues about such direct access to potentially millions of internet users, as well as questions about which British ministers knew of the programme.
In a statement to the Guardian, GCHQ, insisted it "takes its obligations under the law very seriously".
The details of GCHQ's use of Prism are set out in documents prepared for senior analysts working at America's National Security Agency, the biggest eavesdropping organisation in the world.
Dated April this year, the papers describe the remarkable scope of a previously undisclosed "snooping" operation which gave the NSA and the FBI easy access to the systems of nine of the world's biggest internet companies. The group includes Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and Skype.
The documents, which appear in the form of a 41-page PowerPoint presentation, suggest the firms co-operated with the Prism programme. Technology companies denied knowledge of Prism, with Google insisting it "does not have a back door for the government to access private user data". But the companies acknowledged that they complied with legal orders.
The existence of Prism, though, is not in doubt.
Thanks to changes to US surveillance law introduced under President George W Bush and renewed under Barack Obama in December 2012, Prism was established in December 2007 to provide in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information about foreigners overseas.
The law allows for the targeting of any customers of participating firms who live outside the US, or those Americans whose communications include people outside the US.
The documents make clear the NSA has been able to obtain unilaterally both stored communications as well as real-time collection of raw data for the last six years, without the knowledge of users, who would assume their correspondence was private.
The NSA describes Prism as "one of the most valuable, unique and productive accesses" of intelligence, and boasts the service has been made available to spy organisations from other countries, including GCHQ.
It says the British agency generated 197 intelligence reports from Prism in the year to May 2012 marking a 137% increase in the number of reports generated from the year before. Intelligence reports from GCHQ are normally passed to MI5 and MI6.
The documents underline that "special programmes for GCHQ exist for focused Prism processing", suggesting the agency has been able to receive material from a bespoke part of the programme to suit British interests.
Unless GCHQ has stopped using Prism, the agency has accessed information from the programme for at least three years. It is not mentioned in the latest report from the Interception of Communications Commissioner Office, which scrutinises the way the UK's three security agencies use the laws covering the interception and retention of data.
Asked to comment on its use of Prism, GCHQ said it "takes its obligations under the law very seriously. Our work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the secretary of state, the interception and intelligence services commissioners and the intelligence and security committee".
The agency refused to be drawn on how long it had been using Prism, how many intelligence reports it had gleaned from it, or which ministers knew it was being used.
A GCHQ spokesperson added: "We do not comment on intelligence matters."
The existence and use of Prism reflects concern within the intelligence community about access it has to material held by internet service providers.
Many of the web giants are based in the US and are beyond the jurisdiction of British laws. Very often, the UK agencies have to go through a formal legal process to request information from service providers.
Because the UK has a mutual legal assistance treaty with America, GCHQ can make an application through the US department of justice, which will make the approach on its behalf.
Though the process is used extensively almost 3,000 requests were made to Google alone last year it is time consuming. Prism would appear to give GCHQ a chance to bypass the procedure.
In its statement about Prism, Google said it "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 back door for the government to access private user data".
Several senior tech executives insisted they had no knowledge of Prism or of any similar scheme. They said they would never have been involved in such a programme.
"If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge," one said. An Apple spokesman said it had "never heard" of Prism.
In a statement confirming the existence of Prism, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence in the US, said: "Information collected under this programme is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats."
A senior US administration official said: "The programme is subject to oversight by the foreign intelligence surveillance court, the executive branch, and Congress. It involves extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-US persons outside the US are targeted, and that minimise the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about US persons."
We Brits are getting a wee bit touchy about media coverage of this subject.
Private and Confidential: Not for publication, broadcast or use on social media. Defence Advisory Notice
There have been a number of articles recently in connection with some of the ways in which the UK Intelligence Services obtain information from foreign sources.
Although none of these recent articles has contravened any of the guidelines contained within the Defence Advisory Notice System, the intelligence services are concerned that further developments of this same theme may begin to jeopardize both national security and possibly UK personnel…
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
Private and Confidential: Not for publication, broadcast or use on social media. Defence Advisory Notice
There have been a number of articles recently in connection with some of the ways in which the UK Intelligence Services obtain information from foreign sources.
Although none of these recent articles has contravened any of the guidelines contained within the Defence Advisory Notice System, the intelligence services are concerned that further developments of this same theme may begin to jeopardize both national security and possibly UK personnel…
Well it is officially a cover if this is the case.
And what they're saying is that everything is a secret.
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
Private and Confidential: Not for publication, broadcast or use on social media. Defence Advisory Notice
There have been a number of articles recently in connection with some of the ways in which the UK Intelligence Services obtain information from foreign sources.
Although none of these recent articles has contravened any of the guidelines contained within the Defence Advisory Notice System, the intelligence services are concerned that further developments of this same theme may begin to jeopardize both national security and possibly UK personnel…
Well it is officially a cover if this is the case.
And what they're saying is that everything is a secret.
Aye. If there is the slightest concern, Blighty goes straight for the big brother cosh every time. Always has done, always will.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
U.S. likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks -officials
Sat Jun 8, 2013 5:53am IST
* Investigation may be required by law, official says
* Articles come in same week as start of WikiLeaks trial
By Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON, June 7 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama'sadministration is likely to open a criminal investigation intothe leaking of highly classified documents that revealed thesecret surveillance of Americans' telephone and email traffic,U.S. officials said on Friday.
The law enforcement and security officials, who were notauthorized to speak publicly, said the agencies that normallyconduct such investigations, including the FBI and JusticeDepartment, were expecting a probe into the leaks to a Britishand an American newspaper.
Such investigations typically begin after an agency thatbelieves its secrets have been leaked without authorizationfiles a complaint with the Justice Department.
It was unclear on Friday whether a complaint had beensubmitted by the publicity-shy National Security Agency, whichwas most directly involved in the collection of trillions oftelephone and email communications.
However, one U.S. official with knowledge of the situationsaid that given the extent and sensitivity of the recent leaks,federal law may compel officials to open an investigation.
A criminal probe would represent another turn in the Obamaadministration's battle against national security leaks. Thiseffort has been under scrutiny lately because of a JusticeDepartment investigation that has involved searches of the phonerecords of Associated Press journalists and a Fox News reporter.
Leaks to media outlets this week have revealed a governmentcampaign of domestic surveillance going far beyond anything thathad been acknowledged previously.
Late on Wednesday, Britain's Guardian newspaper publishedwhat U.S. officials later acknowledged was an order, approved bythe secretive U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,requiring a subsidiary of Verizon Communications to givethe NSA raw data showing phone calls made from numbers withinthe United States and from U.S. numbers to those overseas.
The data did not include the identities of people who madethe calls or the contents of the calls.
On Thursday, the Guardian and the Washington Post publishedslides from a secret NSA powerpoint presentation that describedhow the agency gathered masses of email data from prominentInternet firms, including Google, Facebook and Apple under aTop-Secret program called PRISM.
Some of the companies denied that the NSA and FBI had"direct access" to their central servers, as the Post reported.
On Friday, for example, Facebook founder and Chief ExecutiveMark Zuckerberg said his company "is not and has never been partof any program to give the U.S. or any other government directaccess to our servers."
"We have never received a blanket request or court orderfrom any government agency asking for information or metadata inbulk, like the one Verizon reportedly received," Zuckerbergsaid. "And if we did, we would fight it aggressively. We hadn'teven heard of PRISM" before Thursday, he said.
James Clapper, the director of U.S. national intelligence,condemned the leaks and asserted that the news articles aboutPRISM contained "numerous inaccuracies."
WIKILEAKS
Journalists involved in The Guardian and Washington Postarticles have reported in depth on WikiLeaks, the website knownfor publishing secret U.S. government documents.
The Post report on the PRISM program was co-written by LauraPoitras, a filmmaker who has been working on a documentary onWikiLeaks, with the cooperation of its founder Julian Assange,and who last year made a short film about Bill Binney, a formerNSA employee who became a whistleblowing critic of the agency.
Last year, the web magazine Salon published a lengthyarticle by the author of the Guardian report, Glenn Greenwald,accusing U.S. authorities of harassing Poitras when she left andre-entered the United States. Greenwald also has writtenfrequently about Assange.
The Guardian and Post stories appeared in the same week thatU.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning went on trial inMaryland accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classifieddocuments to WikiLeaks.
In an email to Reuters on Friday, Poitras rejected thenotion that the trial had any impact on the timing of her story.
"I am fully aware we are living in a political climate wherenational security reporting is being targeted by the government,however, I don't think fear should stop us from reporting thesestories," Poitras wrote.
"To suggest that the timing of the NSA PRISM story is linkedin any way to other events or stories I'm following is simplywrong. Like any journalist, I have many contacts and followmultiple stories."
Kris Coratti, a Washington Post spokeswoman, said the timingof the paper's publication of Poitras' story had nothing to dowith Manning's trial and that Assange had played no role inarranging or encouraging the story.
Greenwald did not respond to emailed requests for comment.The Guardian's editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, declined tocomment. (Editing by David Lindsey and David Brunnstrom) http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/06/08...SO20130608
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has slammed a recently exposed NSA mass-surveillance scheme as a "calamitous collapse in the rule of law." Google, Facebook and other tech giants apparently involved have denied giving the NSA access to their servers.
Assange accused the US government of trying to "launder" its activities concerning the large-scale spying program PRISM. The system was made public after a leaked classified National Security Agency (NSA) document was revealed earlier this week.
"The US administration has the phone records of everyone in the United States and is receiving them daily from carriers to the National Security Agency under secret agreements. That's what's come out," he said.
President Barack Obama earlier defended PRISM, saying it was a key part of the country's counterterrorism efforts and that privacy was a necessary sacrifice for the sake of security. He also lashed out at the media, and those who leaked information on the massive spying program.
U.S. President Barack Obama (AFP Photo / Stephen Lam)
"If every step that we are taking to try to prevent a terrorist act is on the front page of the newspapers or any television, then presumably the people that are trying to do us harm are going to be able to get around our preventative measures," Obama said.
Critics of the Obama Administration have accused it of an unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers more government officials are being prosecuted for leaks under Obama than all previous administrations combined. News of PRISM comes just after reports that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of AP reporters' telephone records and tapped Fox News reporter James Rosen's private email.
"Over the last 10 years, the US justice system has suffered from a collapse, a calamitous collapse, in the rule of law," Assange said.
The US tech giants apparently involved in PRISM have rushed to deny they participated in the program; their logos were visible on each the 41 PowerPoint slides of the leaked NSA document.
"Indeed, the US 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," Google CEO Larry Page and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said in a statement.
Google's remarks mirrored those by Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo. All have claimed they have no knowledge of whether the NSA had direct access to their servers, and that only upon legal orders do they provide the government with data on specific persons.
While activists debate the legality and ethics of online espionage and high-tech firms try to distance themselves from the revelations, a former NSA official believes PRISM is largely ineffective, as the amount of data it collects cannot be effectively digested by a surveillance system.
"In fact it adds more of a problem because what that means, quite simply, is that if you go into a larger database, you get more data back no matter what the query is. It's like making a query with Google. If you go in with a Google query you can get tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands or even a million returns. Well, there's no way you can go through that, all of that, to see what you're really interested in. So what that does is make them less proficient at doing their jobs," former NSA analyst William Binney told RT.
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