The Verison metadata issue was pretty big I thought, but am I the only one who didn't really think much of PRISM? I mean isn't PRISM just a name for "send out NSLs to these companies that have a bunch of data"? Something we've known about forever?
Someone please enlighten me, I'm not trying to be sarcastic/edgy/whatever.
I think there is more to PRISM than we know right now. You should read Glenn Greenwald's latest article if you haven't' already. [1]
In my opinion, he makes a lot of good points in it.
"If, as NSA (and Silicon Valley) defenders claim, Prism is nothing more than a harmless little drop-box mechanism for delivering to the government what these companies were already providing, why would Yahoo possibly be in court so vigorously resisting it and arguing that it violates their users' Fourth Amendment rights? Similarly, how could it possibly be said - as US government officials have - that Prism has been instrumental in stopping terrorist plots if it did not enhance the NSA's collection capabilities? The denials from the internet companies make little sense when compared to what we know about the program. At the very least, there is ample reason to demand more disclosure and transparency about exactly what this is and what data-access arrangements they have agreed to."
Someone please enlighten me, I'm not trying to be sarcastic/edgy/whatever.