PRISM: NSA’s Loophole

As Americans, most are aware to some extent that the government spies on us. Edward Snowden, though he was a criminal, released information about the National Security Agency tracking our every move, giving us a glimpse of the government’s secrets. The NSA reassures us: only high risk citizens have their information collected. But what lies between the lines is the definition of collect. NSA defines collect as having workers physically review the information, not gather the files. Each and every one of our conversations are housed in a database organized by the NSA called PRISM. That conversation with your mom earlier today—recorded. And the email from your boss saying you being laid off, also recorded. Any communication …show more content…
The companies, for the most part, were not lying when they claimed to have no knowledge about supplying information to the NSA in a program by the name of PRISM. Each company responded viscerally, the Apple spokesman saying, “We have never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order” (Lee). This demonstrates what the NSA wanted and has planned--complete ignorance for citizens on what’s occurring. If the companies withholding the data are blind to these sensitive matters, they are able to misinform the media with utmost ease. Now, the line between who knows in the industry and who doesn’t is somewhat blurred because a PRISM presentation slide stated, “PRISM collects communications ‘directly from the servers’ of U.S. Internet companies” (Lee). Since they are collecting it in this “direct” manner, there has been some discrepancies of who knows about the information transfer. It appears, however, that this could potentially mean the companies are willing givers of the information, which in turn, would draw the conclusion company representatives were previously lying (Lee). Although it wasn’t clear if they were being informed on this or not, the companies replying negatively on the topic of PRISM when it was clearly being used shows that the NSA …show more content…
Trust built from the start of our country teeters between a united nation and a dysfunctional one. One of the main breaches of trust comes from the interpretation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The NSA director claimed in 2005 that the Fourth Amendment stated “unreasonable search and seizure,” was not allowed, declining the fact that “probable cause” existed all together (America’s Surveillance State). This in turn meant the NSA searching without warrants was justifiable, since they were scanning people who didn’t have a specific reason. However, it merely demonstrates once again how the NSA slipped through loops in order to make these searches legal--when in fact, they were not. Several years later, according to the Guardian, FISA court-approved orders were passed that let the NSA “keep data that could potentially contain details of US persons for up to five years” (Ball, Greenwald). This order also included many other details about the legality of keeping communications with “usable intelligence,” but what comes into question is the definition of what “usable intelligence” is (Ball, Greenwald). This term is very flexible and can be used by the NSA in a manipulative manner to collect whatever they please. The constitution was put in place to maintain privacy rights--not to have the government tiptoe around them. Passed from another government agency, it’s no surprise that