America's secret surveillance state was dragged further out of the shadows on Thursday as it emerged that the US is reaching directly into the servers of Facebook, Google and other internet companies to harvest data.
Facebook is among at least nine tech companies that make up the NSA's PRISM programme.
The National Security Agency's (NSA) classified PRISM programme reportedly
allows the government to collect virtually limitless amounts of information
from emails, pictures and social media accounts.
The disclosure of the programme comes one day after it emerged that the
government has been tracking the phone calls of millions of Americans for
the last seven years, sparking accusations the Obama administration is
trampling civil liberties.
Unlike the phone tracking programme, where telecom companies are forced to
hand over records, PRISM appears to allow the NSA to freely search the tech
firms' networks at any time.
PRISM also allows the government access to the content of online accounts,
whereas the phone programme provides data on the time and location of a call
but does not tell investigators what was said.
A secret slide show obtained by The
Guardian and The
Washington Post appear to indicate that the nine companies are
willing participants in the programme, beginning with Microsoft in 2007.
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