PRISM

PRISM

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, a White House watchdog group that condemned the Obama administration’s phone surveillance program earlier this year, has released another report — and civil liberties groups aren’t happy about it. The report took on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which the NSA, CIA, and FBI have used to justify collecting the contents of emails and other electronic communications from web services or directly through internet backbone cables. It’s the rule that governs PRISM, one of the first surveillance systems to be revealed by Edward Snowden. According to the board, though, it’s completely legal. The board addresses two known programs that are run under Section 702: PRISM collection and upstream collection. PRISM isn’t the only surveillance database, but here, it refers to a program where the government requests data from an internet service provider or a web service.

Read the full story at The Verge.

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