America, here's hoping you've had enough time to be come to terms with the National Security Agency scooping up all of your metadata pertaining to all of the phone calls you've been making with Verizon, because here comes the next fun news about the government's far-reaching panopticon of total information surveillance,courtesy of Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras of The Washington Post:
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.
Prism Nsa Data MiningThe highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy. Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who know about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues. READ More...