Government defends surveillance programs: NSA director, General Keith Alexander, tells Congress that "over 50" terrorist plots were stopped by surveillance efforts since 9/11. Meanwhile, President Obama defends the NSA’s program in an interview on the Charlie Rose program, but offers no new information about PRISM.

Public pressure results in action from Congress: Amid mounting public concern, widespread media reports, and interest from lawmakers in the leak, a bipartisan group of eight US senators announce a bill to declassify the court opinions that allow the NSA to conduct PRISM surveillance, as well as the phone records program that leaked days before PRISM went public.

Whistleblower reveals himself: The man responsible for the leak, 29-year-old Booz Allen Hamilton contractor Edward Snowden, reveals himself. He describes himself as a whistleblower, and in refuge in Hong Kong, says he does not expect to see home again.

President Obama responds: The president attempts to deflect outrage about the PRISM program, claiming that Congress has known about it and approve it for years, but says he welcomes debate.

UK Government allegedly involved in PRISM: The Guardian reports that the UK government is also involved in the PRISM program, and that the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has been able to view private internet user-data since 2010 under the NSA’s program.

US national intelligence director responds: Following the outbreak of the PRISM story, the US national intelligence director, James Clapper, release multiple statements regarding the leak. Clapper downplays the scandal, asking the public to simply trust that the agency respects civil liberties.

Companies deny knowledge and participation in PRISM: While the Post and the Guardian allege based on the leak that the NSA had direct access to the servers of Microsoft, Google, Apple, and others, spokespeople representing the companies deny involvement in the program, let alone knowledge of it.

PRISM is revealed in leaked slides: The Washington Post and The Guardian obtain a leaked 41-slide security presentation. Both publications say that according to the slides, PRISM is considered a highly classified program that allows the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation to retrieve data directly from Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple.

The what

What the hell is PRISM? PRISM is a tool used by the US National Security Agency (NSA) to collect private electronic data belonging to users of major internet services like Gmail, Facebook, Outlook, and others. It’s the latest evolution of the US government’s post-9/11 electronic surveillance efforts, which began under President Bush with the Patriot Act, and expanded to include the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) enacted in 2006 and 2007.

There’s a lot we still don’t know about how PRISM works, but the basic idea is that it allows the NSA to request data on specific people from major technology companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and others. The US government insists that it is only allowed to collect data when given permission by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Why is PRISM a big deal?

Classified presentation slides detailing aspects of PRISM were leaked by a former NSA contractor. On June 6th, The Guardian and The Washington Post published reports based on the leaked slides, which state that the NSA has "direct access" to the servers of Google, Facebook, and others. In the days since the leak, the implicated companies have vehemently denied knowledge of and participation in PRISM, and have rejected allegations that the US government is able to directly tap into their users' data.

Both the companies and the government insist that data is only collected with court approval and for specific targets. As The Washington Post reported, PRISM is said to merely be a streamlined system — varying between companies — that allows them to expedite court-approved data collection requests. Because there are few technical details about how PRISM operates, and because of the fact that the FISA court operates in secret, critics are concerned about the extent of the program and whether it violates the constitutional rights of US citizens.

Critics have questioned the constitutional validity of PRISM



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How was PRISM created?

As The Washington Post reported, The Protect America Act of 2007 led to the creation of a secret NSA program called US-984XN — also known as PRISM. The program is said to be a streamlined version of the same surveillance practices that the US was conducting in the years following 9/11, under President George W. Bush’s "Terrorist Surveillance Program."

The Protect America Act allows the attorney general and the director of national intelligence to explain in a classified document how the US will collect intelligence on foreigners overseas each year, but does not require specific targets or places to be named. As the Post reports, once the plan is approved by a federal judge in a secret order, the NSA can require companies like Google and Facebook to send data to the government, as long as the requests meet the classified plan's criteria.