Hacker News Reader

>> Things like search warrants? What has been described in the PRISM slides is a interface in which a NSA agent can access a subject's data at will, in a few clicks and an affirmation that "yes, this person is a terrorist".

I'm not sure where you getting that from the slides. They don't explain how an analyst uses the system.

>>Google has officially denied being a part of PRISM. The way you phrased this statement makes it sound like the OP is sneakily leaving out the PRISM implementation, which would be sneaky if Google were a part of PRISM.

Other media reports from insiders (not information on the leaked slides) make it sound like PRISM is more of an NSA internal thing that aggregates data and presents it to analysts. Based on the description of the slides it sounds like the NSA has some integration with the on site premises of the target company.

So it could be as simple as PRISM is just a way of automating the whole process of getting data from a valid warrant which would be consistent with the denials made tech companies. They don't have any contact with 'PRISM' per se; they have just set up their systems to spit out data when they get a valid warrant.

I was quoting and disagreeing with the grandparent comment...which I interpreted as implying that Google is a part of PRISM (which may actually be true, but that would be begging the question in this argument)...

But I do agree with the grandparent that PRISM, as described in the original Washington Post report and in the excerpted slides, do seem to allude to "an interface in which a NSA agent can access a subject's data at will"

Here's the Washington Post:

> There has been “continued exponential growth in tasking to Facebook and Skype,” according to the PRISM slides. With a few clicks and an affirmation that the subject is believed to be engaged in terrorism, espionage or nuclear proliferation, an analyst obtains full access to Facebook’s “extensive search and surveillance capabilities against the variety of online social networking services.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence...

This is not about what the NSA does, this is about whether Google and co are handing out foreign users' data to the NSA. It appears they are.

I hope every non-american netizen realizes that their private communications are being systematically collected by US intelligence. It is now impossible to trust an american company.

Before the Internet, the ECHELON program was shown to have been used for private industrial espionage on foreign compagnies [1]. I assume this is happening on another scale entirely now, with the cooperation of Google, Apple, FB and MSFT.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

Google merely stated that they had not heard of PRISM--probably because they were told it was called something else.

> Google has officially denied being a part of PRISM.

They have denied knowledge of the use of the word "PRISM" to describe anything that they are participating in. So, they've denied nothing in that regard. It just means PRISM is the NSA codename.

Which statement are you referring to? I'm referring to the one that Larry Page issued this afternoon:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html

> 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.

Is "any program" not broad enough?

"Any program" would be broad enough, but he didn't say that at all. He said they are not part of "any program that would give any government direct access to their servers." I could drive a truck through the holes left in that wording.

Do they have indirect access? Some API perhaps? Do they have any means by which they can automate the export of data for whoever they want, perhaps after clicking a checkbox that says that the target is officially under surveillance? Is there some form of data sharing that is brokered through a trusted non-government entity?

He also goes on to say that they follow the law (meaningless if the law says to hand over the data), and they frequently push back (which orders do they push back on? Probably not the orders that they aren't allowed to legally push back on).

He states that they don't follow "broad orders for all data", but this is easily satisfied by the description in the Guardian article that says an analyst simply has to certify each request by saying they believe that there is a 51% probability that the request is legitimate. Obviously, no one at Google even could challenge such requests.