[lern_too_spel]

PRISM doesn't give the government additional access to anything. It simply ingests data that the FBI has already collected by wiretapping individuals under investigation.

Edit (responding too fast):

> It by default gives government access without anyone at Google or anywhere else granting that access at time of use.

Where did you get that idea? All the documents show that it ingests data the FBI already has, for individuals the companies already manually approved after potentially fighting about it with a judge. You simply made up an illegal system out of whole cloth that wouldn't last a minute in court if anybody challenged it, unlike the phone metadata program, which went through two courts to conclude its illegality.

Edit 2:

> Page five lists the companies and page six lists the per company agreement date. Unless you're trying to argue that Google didn't respond to wiretapping requests from the FBI at all before 2009.

The FBI has to set up a system for canonicalizing and routing data from each different company. Those dates list when the FBI did that for each company. Since almost nobody (including suspected terrorists, apparently) uses Apple's email service, their system was the lowest priority to support.

This is well documented, both in Snowden's documents and in documents the government later declassified. Once again, if PRISM were as you described it, it would be flagrantly illegal and shut down long before the phone metadata program.

Edit 3:

iMessage was launched near the end of 2011, and FBI's DITU handles content collection via wiretaps. When are you going to address the fact that the program from your fever dreams is insanely illegal and that it doesn't match any of the documents? If you would like me to respond normally, upvote my comments, so I don't get rate-limited.

[monocasa]

It's automated systems for those requests. It by default gives government access without anyone at Google or anywhere else granting that access at time of use.

It does record the request though which is why NSA tried to exceed the bounds of that with MUSCULAR.

Edit to respond to your edit: Page five lists the companies and page six lists the per company agreement date. Unless you're trying to argue that Google didn't respond to wiretapping requests from the FBI at all before 2009.

Edit 2 since apparently this is how we're doing this:

> Since almost nobody (including suspected terrorists, apparently) uses Apple's email service, their system was the lowest priority to support.

There's a fuck ton of metadata that iMessage reports back up; PRISM isn't just about email. And yes, iPhones are the most common smartphone in the world. I guarantee you that Apple isn't last because they were a low priority, that's absolutely absurd.

Edit 3:

Your argument that "it would be illegal and shutdown like the other illegal programs documented here if it were actually illegal" has to be one of the hottest takes I've heard.

And the PRISM collection was part of what the Supreme Court dismissed not because it isn't illegal, but because you can't prove that affected the claimant personally without a breach to national security, so they can't prove they have standing, so the case had to be dismissed. https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/amnesty_v_clapper_scotus_o...

[lern_too_spel]

> they can't prove they have standing,

The plaintiffs in Clapper v Amnesty would have standing if the program worked as you described. No documents have ever been released saying the program works as you described, including the documents Snowden leaked after that case. If such docu6were released, the case would be relitigated. Here is an article describing how it actually works, linking to multiple sources: https://www.cnet.com/news/no-evidence-of-nsas-direct-access-...

> "it would be illegal and shutdown like the other illegal programs documented here if it were actually illegal"

How did one illegal program turn into multiple "illegal programs"? How do you come up with this stuff?

[monocasa]

> The plaintiffs in Clapper v Amnesty would have standing if the program worked as you described.

No, because the way the system works is that information makes it's way to the NSA on the presence of certain search terms and is prefiltered before it ends up in their hands. The ruling by the supreme court in the case of PRISM is that amnesty international can't prove that they were among the search terms ever searched for, so they can't prove that they standing. Only if there was a leak of the actual keys slated for collection (or if the NSA agreed to release that, which would never happen), then they could relitigate.

This is in contrast to the bulk call data, where, because the NSA was collecting from everyone who made calls, standing could be confirmed.

> How did one illegal program turn into multiple "illegal programs"?

I'm bundling it up with the other programs Snowden leaked.

[lern_too_spel]

> No, because the way the system works

That's not how the system works. The system allows collection of data to/from specific non-Americans outside the US. Amnesty International didn't know that it was for specific individuals at the time they filed their suit, but Snowden's leaks and later the DNI confirmed it.

> I'm bundling it up with the other programs Snowden leaked

Once again, only one of them (phone metadata collection) was illegal. The other programs he leaked, including PRISM, are so legal that nobody with any sense would attempt to challenge them.