
Google, Apple and Facebook Deny Participating In Alleged NSA “PRISM” Program - rasterizer
http://marketingland.com/google-apple-facebook-deny-nsa-prism-program-47323
======
eksith

      Email		: GPG/PGP (The End!)
      Web		: Tor (Browser bundle)
      Voice/Txt	: RedPhone, Silent Circle, Cellcrypt, TrustCall, TextSecure
      Data		: TrueCrypt, Scramdisk, PGPDisk
    

We can all pretend this is still a Democracy (it's not and never has been;
it's a _Representative Republic_ and our representatives are mostly evil
and/or stupid) and think those who have power will relinquish it voluntarily
or you can actually do something about your own privacy.

Edit: Dear God, I feel like I'm turning into Stallman! (Which, on closer
inspection, may be a good thing)

~~~
pyre

      Email: PGP-encryped.
      Browsing Traffic: Routed through Tor
      Voice/Text: Encrypyed.
      Other Sensitive Data: TrueCrypt Hidden Partition
    
      Seeing your interrogator pull out a rubber hose,
      and realize that none of that matters: Priceless
    

\----

    
    
      | think those who have power will relinquish
      | it voluntarily
    

Yea. It was pretty crazy when the Secret Service sided with GW Bush and the
Marines sided with Obama, and Bush made his last stand to retain the
Presidency at the Oval Office. I don't look forward to when/if Obama is voted
out of office...

~~~
drivebyacct2
>Yea. It was pretty crazy when the Secret Service sided with GW Bush and the
Marines sided with Obama, and Bush made his last stand to retain the
Presidency at the Oval Office. I don't look forward to when/if Obama is voted
out of office...

I feel stupid. What are you talking about? Or is this a joke scenario or
something? Sorry if I'm being daft.

~~~
pyre
I'm being sarcastic about the idea that 'the people in power' aren't going to
relinquish it.

If the people in office get voted out, they leave. If they didn't, we might
have a problem.

~~~
fakeer
>>If the people in office get voted out, they leave

This is dangerous that after they and someone replaces them the story repeats
like a record player in a lop, only with louder volume. (I wish I could think
of a better analogy)

~~~
drivebyacct2
Well, I mean, the scenario you're describing where a leader becomes a tyrant
and is deposed of by their successor is basically a totalitarian dictatorship.

I think that's a bit of a (very large) stretch. I think the "President" and
the military are separate enough in this country that we don't run a huge risk
of "THE GOVERNMENT" (ie, a "leader" and militia to empower them) could or
would act as a cohesive force against the US.

Usually when you see this, you see fractioned militia that support the next
successor or what not.

------
betterunix
We do not provide _direct_ access to our servers. We just have a system that
sends _copies_ of our data to _their_ servers. We really do care about your
privacy!

~~~
rasterizer
Google flatout says "no backdoors".

~~~
droopyEyelids
All these denials cover one specific thing that they're not doing, not the
spirit of all things that could be done. Mirroring all traffic to an
additional destination isn't providing a back door, but it accomplishes much
of the same function.

~~~
Aqueous
Does 'backdoor' necessarily mean 'pull' as opposed to 'push?'

~~~
jlgreco
Ask a lawyer; I'm sure they did.

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sneak
These sorts of orders are all gag-ordered by default. They have to lie to
everyone about their existence, including co-workers and spouses, or they go
immediately to jail.

It's individual criminal liability for disclosing. They are literally required
to dodge under federal law to stay out of jail.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter#Doe_v....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter#Doe_v._Ashcroft)

~~~
rdtsc
Wonder if they are ever subpoenaed in court to testify about it, if they lie
they commit perjury if they tell they truth they break the rules of the NSL.

At the same time the govt probably does want them to cooperate, and doesn't
want it to be a completely adversarial situation. I can see them buttering
these companies up and offering "talking points" on how to specifically dodge
these kind of questions. For example Dept. of State have media training, they
set up adversarial training situations with fake role playing journalists
asking "tough" questions then train employees to dodge them successfully. Very
useful.

Same here I can see maybe PR spokespeople are urged maybe to say "we are not
spying" because maybe the word "spying" has a specific meaning and given some
technicality what they are doing is not "spying", stuff like that. Kind of
like NSA has been saying they are not looking at everyone's emails. Well they
are not people doing that, it all gets archived and stored probably based on
some pattern. So they can clearly and proudly say they are not "reading" our
information.

~~~
hga
" _Wonder if they are ever subpoenaed in court to testify about it, if they
lie they commit perjury if they tell they truth they break the rules of the
NSL._ "

That would only come into play if they're partly immunized and compelled to
testify, in the Congress or a grand jury; otherwise they could plead the 5th.

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stdgy
1) Considering these programs may be authorized by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Courts, and thus may be legal, none of these responses are
actually denials. Far from it.

2) Moreover, if the alleged companies were knowingly providing user data to
the US government as members of the PRISM program, they would be unable to
confirm or deny this fact because it would be illegal for them to do so. The
orders for compliance are accompanied with gag orders.

------
brown9-2
Of course they wouldn't know about the project name that the NSA uses
internally.

------
janardanyri
These are obviously not actual denials given how carefully they're worded.

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chris_mahan
What if the terms of PRISM means that if asked, the company must deny any
knowledge of it or of sharing data... And that the existence of such denial
order must also be denied.

~~~
smokeyj
The first rule of PRISM and NSLs is you DO NOT TALK about PRISM and NSLs.

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downandout
Well, these denials were just proven to be false by a statement issued by
James Clapper, the US Director of National Intelligence. The statement
confirms the existence and active use of the program, though he insists that
the data is only used for targeting non-US persons. Here is his statement:

 _"The Guardian and The Washington Post articles refer to collection of
communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act. They contain numerous inaccuracies.

Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the
acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons
located outside the United States. It cannot be used to intentionally target
any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United
States.

Activities authorized by Section 702 are subject to oversight by the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive Branch, and Congress. They
involve extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure
that only non-U.S. persons outside the U.S. are targeted, and that minimize
the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired
information about U.S. persons.

Section 702 was recently reauthorized by Congress after extensive hearings and
debate.

Information collected under this program is among the most important and
valuable foreign intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect
our nation from a wide variety of threats.

The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely
legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the
security of Americans."_

In any event, each of these denials were just refuted by the man in charge of
the program. So much for trusting anything any of these companies say ever
again.

~~~
btilly
I do not see where in James Clapper's statement there is a claim that Google,
Apple or FB participated in PRISM.

That said, the only way I can square his statement with the facts is that when
you collect information on EVERYONE, then you haven't targeted ANYONE in
particular. Which is exactly what this warrant enables the FBI to do.

Also it should be noted that all denials have included the admission that
companies are forced to comply with lawful requests. A request that comes
complete with a warrant from a judge will be usually seen as lawful, even
though there might be issues with the warrant. Thus a company could "only
comply with lawful requests" and also turn over all of their data under a
warrant like this.

That said, Google has been vocal enough in protesting government attempts to
troll through its data that I am inclined to give them the benefit of the
doubt on this one. But I think that we'll soon have more details.

------
elathan
I don't now if the graph is real ([http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-
images/Guardian/Pix/audio/video...](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-
images/Guardian/Pix/audio/video/2013/6/6/1370553948414/Prism-001.jpg)), but
Microsoft bought Skype in 2011. :)

~~~
lurchpop
removed. mirror?

~~~
thomasjoulin
I guess this : [http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-
images/Guardian/Pix/audio/video...](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-
images/Guardian/Pix/audio/video/2013/6/6/1370553948414/Prism-001.jpg)

~~~
elathan
Yup, this is it.

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leoh
If there weren't a hard-document supporting the spying, it seems to be Verizon
would deny any NSA ties, too. And it gets worse: there's a good chance that
upper management at Verizon didn't even know about the NSA program, anyways,
let alone spokespeople.

------
monkmartinez
Deny, deny, deny... it will all blow over in a few days... makes me sick.

------
ekianjo
What is the denial worth if, anyway, these companies are obliged by the secret
agreement not to reveal the fact that they participate in it?

------
dshibarshin
Does the NSA really need to have an agreed upon backdoor to have the ability
to access the information they seek?

~~~
mtgx
Most of these use encrypted communications. NSA may be able to crack specific
communications, but they can't crack all of them from Google, Skype, Facebook,
iMessage in real time.

Getting access to it "voluntarily" makes thing so much easier. It says in the
slides the PRISM program only costs them $20 million a year.

~~~
nwh
I wager they have control of many root CAs. They could literally MITM any
connection they want to.

~~~
jonknee
This is the best guess if you take both the leaked documents and the
companies' denials as accurate. They can use a real prism to duplicate the
fiber traffic before/after Google/Apple/Facebook's servers and their root
certs to take a peek within.

~~~
tlack
Do you have any more information about how viable this would be? It's a threat
I hadn't considered before.

~~~
jonknee
They're definitely doing the fiber portion, see:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A>

------
julianozen
Wow. Look at the beautiful apple bullshit. Cause they've never "heard of prism
specifically" cause the government never called it that. And of course apple
never gave the government access to the servers. They just handed the data
over

