Misrepresentation

PRISM did not target US citizens, or so we're told by the NSA director. He said the program, authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, targeted only Internet users outside of the U.S. “It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States.”  Perhaps.  PRISM is just one of many programs.


Then we're told by the president and others that government surveillance targets only a small number of Americans, but that's not what the court order says.

The actual court order for just the Verizon probe says they are to deliver continually and on a daily basis all details for all calls (i) between the U.S. and abroad; or, (ii) wholly within the U.S.

That's ALL calls; every call.  If you have a Verizon phone or talk to someone who has a Verizon phone, you were part of the surveillance sample ordered by the court.  That's 144.8 millions customers, all day, every day.

That's just the Verizon case.  There will be similar court orders for AT&T and other carriers.

Responses are mixed.  The ALCU has filed a lawsuit.  Some folks are furious while others don't seem to mind being spied on.

This blog will be noticed by other government surveillance programs, I suppose.  But we knew that.

UPDATE JUL 4:  The French do the same thing.  It's illegal there too.  The operation is designed, say experts, to uncover terrorist cells. But the scale of it means that "anyone can be spied on, any time", Le Monde says.  Sound familiar?

Court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama

Curious how it works?
You didn't know that there were secret collection centers installed by the government in the AT&T building and others.  They monitor pretty much everything including content.  Know what a fiber splitter is?
The battle in the courts (unnoticed, perhaps, by the media).