By Andrea Peterson on
Jun 6, 2013 at 10:35 pm
The Utah Data Center as
seen in Google Maps (Credit: The Verge)
Following reports of a top secret program called
PRISM that allows intelligence agencies to access a wide variety of supposedly
private online communications, several of the tech companies implicated in the
report have issued carefully worded statements denying the government has
access to their servers or a backdoor method of entry. But that doesn’t
necessarily mean the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of
Investigations (FBI) don’t have the ability to access their data.
Comparing denials from tech
companies, a clear pattern emerges: Apple denied ever hearing of the
program and notes they “do not provide any government agency with direct access
to our servers and any agency requesting customer data must get a court order;”
Facebook claimed they “do not provide any government organisation with direct
access to Facebook servers;” Google said it “does not have a ‘back door’ for
the government to access private user data”; And Yahoo said they “do not
provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network.”
Most also note that they only release user information as the law compels them
to.
But the PRISM program’s
reported access to data and the now repeatedly confirmed widespread access to
phone records and other types of digital data appears to be almost exactly what
the 2008 Protect America Act (PAA) allows Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts to compel tech companies to do — as
many warned around the time of its passage. If
tech companies are not providing direct access to their servers but are
cooperating with the PRISM program, that leaves at least one other option:
Companies are providing intelligence agencies with copies of their data.
This theory isn’t that much
of a stretch based on prior reporting. Mark Klein, a former AT&T employee testified in 2007 that the company was
splitting and copying all internet traffic coming through his San Francisco
office — with the copies being diverted to a secret room controlled by the NSA.
And numerous NSA whistle blowers have suggested the
agency is hoarding everything everyone is doing online in the name of
protecting Americans from terrorists.
It would also match up with
James Bamford’s Wired report last year about the goal of the massive
NSA data center being built in Utah. Here’s how he describes the ultimate role
of the facility:
“Flowing through its
servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms
of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone
calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data
trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other
digital ‘pocket litter.’”
ThinkProgress does not have
any hard evidence that this is what is happening. But access to copies of all
of this data would seem to fit with the warnings of whistle blowers and the
very narrow wording used by most tech companies in responding to reports of the
PRISM program.
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