NSA paid millions to cover Prism compliance costs for tech companies

NSA Paid Millions To Cover Prism Compliance Costs For Tech Companies

www.theguardian.com

• Top-secret files show first evidence of financial relationship


The material provides the first evidence of a financial relationship between the tech companies and the NSA.


The National Security Agency paid millions of dollars to cover the costs of major internet companies involved in the Prism surveillance program after a court ruled that some of the agency's activities were unconstitutional, according to top-secret material passed to the Guardian.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This is the latest in revelations from Mr. Snowden,
top secret documents show that taxpayers are footing the
bill for compliance costs; millions paid to Google and Yahoo,
Microsoft and Facebook even after a court ruled that some of
the agency's activities were unconstitutional.

documents passed to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden describe the problems the decision created for the agency and the efforts required to bring operations into compliance. The material provides the first evidence of a financial relationship between the tech companies and the NSA

The article lncludes photos of some top secret documents,
Of course, most of the companies deny that they are cooperating,
deny knowledge of Prism, some of them refuse to provide any statement.

The responses further show the disparity between how the NSA describes the
operation of its data collection program and what the companies themselves say.

Additionally, it appears that the destruction of The Gaurdians hardrives were only
symbolic, as they have documents they have not released.

The Guardian informed the White House, the NSA and the ODNI
that it planned to publish the documents and asked further questions.
The NSA declined to comment beyond requesting the redaction of
the name of an individual staffer in one of the documents.

Where, what is this all leading to???
In the mean time, rest. No one is spying on you.

www.theguardian.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I am so shocked and surprised....



ETA, but it is not the FIRST evidence of a fincancial relationship: PCWORLD article.

reply to post by pianopraze


Piano,

Thanks for the link, I guess The Gaurdian is trying to make news
with the taxpayer funding. Its a given that the people are paying for it.

Love how we are paying for invasions, everywhere.
And, of course its not happening either, so it must be a huge waste
of money. Sorry to laugh, I do find it a serious matter.

ETA: now that they can read our thoughts.

Compliance, complicity.

"the Prism surveillance program after a court ruled that some of the
agency's activities were unconstitutional"

Wheels within wheels,
deals within deals.

Tax dollars for Spies.

I wonder if this program is as inefficient as say....
Cash for clunkers...

Furthermore, the bill didn't come cheap. The U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court, which is charged with monitoring the NSA's surveillance programs, ruled in 2011 that the agency violated section 702 of FISA as well as the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, the court ordered the programs to cease within 30 days unless specific "upstream collection" practice problems were fixed.

"Upstream collection is when the NSA gets a copy of Internet traffic as it flows through major telecommunications hubs and searches through for 'selectors,' like an email address or a keyword," Parker Higgins, an activist at Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in a blog post.

www.informationweek.com...

What a great 2013 year, the so-called "Black Budget" has been uncovered... Hooray for Snowden !
Now we know what they do with the hard earned citizen's money.They essentially lie, break laws and pay by the 6 digits, pretty usa, eh ?

I guess it's time you guys speak about all this to friends and relatives because the last thing i'm hearing Obama has called a not-so independant comity to review all this.It's comedy all over again, careful guys before it's too late

To me this do no come as a surprise because we all know that most of the government agencies are contracted to private companies.

The government is a corporation it has been a corporation for decades, we actually have a illegal system of government because is not longer run by the people and for the people, is run by the corporations and for the corporations.

Every agency is run with private companies in contracting businesses.

Congress is nothing but an extension bought and pay for by corporate groups.

No surprise at all.

Payola has become the American way. Corruption in our government and industry is so wide-spread that the few that follow the law and refuse to play the game, end up going bankrupt. It is a completely corrupt symbiotic relationship.

Originally posted by TheMasterOne
the last thing i'm hearing Obama has called a not-so independant comity to review all this. It's comedy all over again,

I wont be holding my breath on that one, not to mention
The doublespeak coming from the man as of late is stupefying.

reply to post by marg6043


True marg, it is no suprise.
And your point is well made with the news that even as this was found
to be illegal by the court, the snooping continued, funded in the millions.

Originally posted by ProfEmeritus
It is a completely corrupt symbiotic relationship.

Indeed, it is.
I recall that the DOD DARPA director went to Google.
techcrunch.com...

Just one example.

reply to post by burntheships


Occurs if funded by the millions is a bastardized marriage of government with the corporate interest that are behind the data mining with a bonus for the corporate government of spying on every American in the nation, one profit from the other, data mining for personalized propaganda targeting and the other data mining for spying and thin out dissenters and possible domestic terrorist.

Originally posted by marg6043
reply to post by burntheships

 

one profit from the other, data mining for personalized propaganda targeting and the other data mining for spying and thin out dissenters and possible domestic terrorist.

Indeed Marg, this is the dark truth of it, its darker than I even imagined. As I researched
this aspect I found that there are around 100 companies involved with different software
companies, and other tech companies that are paid under none other than In Q Tel....
linked with the CIA. Much of the current work is data mining, creating narratives
from data.

Connect the dots, the NSA is getting data upstream "as it travels" ....oh
they say it is only meta data. But, there are programs that create the narrative
for them, they do not even need an analyst to interpret.

And, this is in addition to Google, Yahoo, Facebook, etc.
.

United Scame of Amerikka is now a Corporate Fascist Military Industrial Complex.

So they created NSA to spy on their worst enemy, the citizens, by keeping their ears and eyes on internet trends.

I bet the word "revolution" has seen a 300 million fold increase on the net lately

The fact that none of the responders to this OP deny it, PROVES that just about everyone on ATS agrees with it, and understands how corrupt this administration is. This NSA scandal was conducted with the full approval of Obama and his cohorts. Lets remember this when the Obama apologizers try to defend his criminal acts.

Prism is older than we realized. Goes back to 1999.

fortress.wa.gov...!OpenDocument

Do you think that Prism is a joke? It's not a joke to Century Link or the NSA.

news.centurylink.com...

en.wikipedia.org...(surveillance_program)

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter
Do you think that Prism is a joke? It's not a joke to Century Link or the NSA.

news.centurylink.com...

en.wikipedia.org...(surveillance_program)

One is a tech company (since 1994) initials for Professional Resources in Information Systems Management.

www.prisminc.com...


And one is the name of an NSA surveillance program.

Don't really think they are related.

originally posted by: bg_socalif
Don't really think they are related.

You should do more digging into the area of the Qwest takeover of USWest and Joe Nacchio's "14-year Kafkaesque journey".
For a start...

"I am neither a lawyer nor an academic but I did experience a 14-year Kafkaesque journey through our federal criminal-justice system, a system that is expensive, brutal and where winning at all cost is the mantra of prosecutors. " - Joe Nacchio source www.cnbc.com...

There is a narrative there that you can explore... it has to do with the U.S. government compelling telecoms to spy on citizens on behalf of certain intelligence agencies desire to accumulate surveillance data on American citizens.. Nacchio was an opponent of turning over massive amounts of data (read: all of it) to the national security apparatus, therefore, Nacchio was targetted for insider trading.

originally posted by: bg_socalif

Don't really think they are related.

And if you do due diligence on PRISM you will see that the telecom program goes back to USWest days and Qwest took it over. It now belongs to CenturyLink by acquisition. That's exactly how the CIA/NSA would do it. PRISM, as a telecom product, has always been something the Telco uses to say "Oh, we are going into these markets and we are going to defeat cable! Rah, Rah, Rah!". But that never happens. It's a front for CIA domestic surveillance.

The problem with PRISM (as a telecom sales gimmick) has barely penetrated any markets in over 15 years (they are always promising to defeat cable!)_ and the markets they do penetrate are so controlled so that PRISM only goes to "select" areas.

Do you think you really know what PRISM is?
en.wikipedia.org...(surveillance_program)

What happens when you sign up for PRISM? The Company installs surveillance equipment into your home and YOU PAY THEM so that THEY CAN download all of your TV watching habits. It's IPTV. Any PRISM subscriber is handing over all of their viewing data to the CIA/NSA surveillance establishment... voluntarily and they pay a subscription fee to the provider to have their TV viewing data handed over to Big Brother.

TiVo also used this same trick to gain access to your living rooms.

TLR It's just another sneaky way for some elements of corporations & governments to collude together to keep us disinformed and enchanted under their spell of disinfotainment.