[zepto]

The problem is that what you are saying is false, and the links you provide don’t back up your assertion in the slightest.

Perhaps some of these companies ‘joined’ prism willingly, but Google and Apple both deny having done so.

The dates you quote are from slides indicating when prism started to acquire data from these companies. They have nothing to do with membership or joining.

Data was obtained from these companies without their particpation, and they have taken measures to harden their systems since this was made public, for example in Google’s case prism obtained data by intercepting their underground fiber optic cables. Data was previously sent unencrypted between data centers along these, but after the intrusion was discovered, Google moved to encrypting this traffic.

If you can find evidence that either of these companies willingly became members of prism, then please present it.

Otherwise, you are repeating false claims.

[lawnchair_larry]

You are correct that parent is wrong (and horribly wrong, to the point of downright fabrication beyond anything Snowden has ever said), but actually you are also wrong. Under PRISM, data cannot be taken without participation. The simple reason for that is that “participation in PRISM” more or less means you respond to court orders.

You are confusing it with other programs. The one you are referring to was reported as a joint operation with GCHQ called MUSCULAR.

Google and Apple’s denials of PRISM participation are kind of semantic. One, they do not refer to it by any NSA codename, so they can truthfully say they don’t participate in something called PRISM, whatever PRISM supposedly is. Second, PRISM was incorrectly described as direct server access without approval. Both companies can truthfully claim that they do not participate in such a program, whether that program is PRISM or not. The truth is that they do “participate”, but that isn’t what PRISM actually enables.

That’s the best denial they can give due to the nature of the gag order.

From trumancenter.org:

If the NSA’s descriptions are accurate, the NSA’s PRISM program allows them to seek electronic data on non-U.S. Persons under FISA warrants applied to foreign electronic traffic travelling through U.S. servers with filters and controls to prohibit use of data of U.S. Persons that may get caught up in the dragnet. The expressly prohibits the use of FISA warrants toward U.S. Persons, but it is not as clear as to what happens to data on U.S. Persons that get picked up in large dragnets aimed at non-U.S. Persons. Much of the accuracy of claims depend on the certified disclosures to Congress by the Attorney General that such safeguards exist and are in place.

So, “participation” means you respond to FISA warrants, which isn’t optional.

[zepto]

I’m not wrong.

We know they respond to fisa warrants. Nobody claims otherwise.

But - also know from Snowden we know that that PRISM is not just an aggregation of responses to fisa warrants.

PRISM also involved intercepting Google’s bulk traffic from their fiber without Google’s knowledge, and various other kind of interception.

If you equate PRISM with aggregating fisa warrants responses, then what you say is true.

However it is not actually accurate to make that equation.

And even if court ordered data was aggregated as part of PRISM, that doesn’t constitute ‘participating’ in PRISM in any by the most semantically stretched way, since they didn’t know about it.

If you are going to argue like this, you may as well say that the end users ‘participated’ in prism, by giving their data to these companies. In a way that’s true.

But it’s not true in the common understanding of what it means to participate.

[lawnchair_larry]

No, that’s not correct. As I said, that was MUSCULAR, not PRISM.

The interception against US companies like Google was not done in the US, and there is a good reason for that. You are mixing up different programs.

Feel free to dig up the original reporting. They were distinct programs. PRISM requests are serviced by the provider and go through the FBI.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUSCULAR_(surveillance_progr...

[zepto]

I stand corrected.

[lawnchair_larry]

Thanks, nobody ever owns it after digging in ;)

This is what I meant by quasi-voluntary. They were not oblivious and hacked without their knowledge (under PRISM, that is - they were other ways), but they didn’t exactly have a choice.

[docPangloss]

Replying to the person stating I provided "false" info, which is all supported by links and sources!:

It’s always “conspiracy theory”...until it becomes “conspiracy fact” years later.

Read Google’s (or Apple’s, or Yahoo’s) denial of participation in PRISM. The statements are examples of “Lying by Omission.” Verizon actually shared documents/orders it received from NSA, astonishingly. If one understand the basics of law, the omissions and doublespeak deniability are the most revealing and damning:[1] [2]

* “We have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers.”: The NSA is not “the U.S. government”; neither are the contract intel companies that have access to data as middleman for NSA.

* “...does not have direct access or a ‘back door’ to the information stored in our data centers.”: But Google does not deny “indirect” access or a ‘door’ – otherwise its crafty attorney would have stated “neither direct nor indirect” and certainly would not have narrowed the access point to only a “back door.” Doublespeak.

* Regarding giving data to the government upon request: “Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process.” ‘Frequently pushes back’ – that’s laughable.

* “Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period.” Perhaps the press stated ‘open-ended’ but that’s not what Edward Snowden stated or leaked in documents. The prism program is not about “open-ended” access.[2]

The similarity of statements by the legal teams of Google, Apple, and Yahoo leads one to believe they are adhering to NDAs and FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) restrictions about what they may say about PRISM or whether they ever heard of the program. So Apple, Yahoo, and Google all used doublespeak deniability in the carefully crafted legal pressers.

[1] http://www.thepaepae.com/google-denies-prism-direct-access-o...

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/07/doublespeak-denials-and-br...

Other resources:

[3] NSF / DARPA (indirect NSA) funding that backed the inception of Google: https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...

[4] The PRISM slides: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism...

[5] References to Snowden’s leaked docs (one needs to investigate the offlinds to original leaked docs; difficult to obtain): https://www.cloudwards.net/prism-snowden-and-government-surv...

[6] A money paper trail: NSA paid the companies for compliance! (but these companies and their legal teams denied – and continue to deny – either having known about the PRISM program or making data accessible to the NSA and related contractors via said program): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/23/nsa-prism-cost...

___

When in doubt, check your assumptions...because your assumptions are likely invalid.

[ksk]

I think you're correct in general (in terms of standards of evidence), but if we are to accept Google's claims at face value, then why would you not also accept the leaked emails as evidence of collaboration?

Specifically, this[1] email exchange:

NSA Director (Keith Alexander) to Google's CEO :-

"It was good seeing you recently after the meeting earlier this month"

"Google’s participation in refinement, engineering and deployment of the solutions will be essential."

Make of that what you will..

[1] : https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nsa-google_n_5273437

[zepto]

They are evidence of some kind of collaboration.

The problem is that evidence of collaboration doesn’t substantiate anything at all about participation in prism or any other illegal or underhanded scheme.

We know that Google does have portals to service lawful government information requests.

It’s also entirely possible that Google participated in some kind of analytics development based on their web indexing and nothing to do with private user data.

Either of these would be at least plausible explanations for these comments as “they joined prism and handed over all data to the NSA”.

Innuendo is not evidence.

[ksk]

I guess we'll have to wait for another leak to get confirmation on the exact nature of the relationship.

[zepto]

Absolutely.

But until we do, there is no evidence to support these claims.

[aborsy]

But the NSA doesn’t need willingness.

If you operate in the United States, you must obey the US laws, among which are the espionage programs (claimed to be national security measures).

[zepto]

Sure, but that’s irrelevant.

Not only do we not have evidence of willingness. We don’t have evidence they even knowingly participated, whether willing or not.

[fsflover]

> Perhaps some of these companies ‘joined’ prism willingly, but Google and Apple both deny having done so.

And you of course trust them.

[zepto]

No, but not trusting them doesn’t mean that I accept any old bullshit people want to say about them without supporting evidence.

[fsflover]

Practically everything that Snowden leaked turned out to be true. I would not call that bullshit.

[zepto]

I am not calling Snowden’s leaks bullshit either.

Nothing Snowden leaked actually corroborates DocPangloss’s claims.

Snowden showed that these orgs were compromised by prism, not that they willingly joined.

That’s the point.

[fsflover]

> Snowden showed that these orgs were compromised by prism, not that they willingly joined.

Not true. Snowden showed that Apple and Google were "commercial partners" with PRISM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure....

[zepto]

That doesn’t mean they willingly joined PRISM, knew that they had joined, or knew what data the NSA was taking.

As has been discussed elsewhere there are legitimate and legal reasons for them to cooperate with the NSA in certain ways.

Those two words change nothing more than that there was a partnership of some kind.

No evidence has ever been produced of these companies knowingly participating in the kind of bulk data collection that PRISM is asserted to be.

I’m not claiming to be certain they didn’t participate.

I am claiming that the evidence clearly doesn’t not support that claim yet.