What we know about PRISM, the NSA's data goldmine

The agency's powerful data-scooping tool exists, and it isn't supposed to read your emails

Yes, PRISM is technically legal, but the NSA reportedly can't read your emails or watch your video chats.
(Image credit: AP Photo)

We now know a lot more about PRISM, the top secret National Security Agency program that apparently allows the U.S. government to mine all sorts of electronic communications, than we did Thursday morning. For one (big) thing, we know it exists, thanks to simultaneous reports in The Washington Post and Britain's The Guardian.

But there's plenty we don't know, because the program, after all, is a classified secret. The disclosure of the PRISM program, launched in 2007, was accompanied by the leak of a training PowerPoint presentation, The Washington Post says, by a "career intelligence officer" who has had first-hand experience with PRISM. The officer wanted "to expose what he believes to be a gross intrusion on privacy." You can read some of the PowerPoint slides, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper's response to the leak.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.