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"Today the Washington Post reported that through a $20 million program known as PRISM, a number of US-based Internet companies have allowed the US government to tap &amp;quot;directly into [their] central servers.&amp;quot; Companies that are said to be participating knowingly include: Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, AOL, PalTalk, with Dropbox tipped to be coming up next.\r\n\r\nTo call this a painfully disgraceful flaunting of user privacy would be understatement.\u00A0This breaking information follows news first reported by the Guardian of a massive, pervasive spying effort by the US government on the calling data of its own citizens. Following this leak, NBC is now reporting that &amp;quot;under the post-9/11 Patriot Act, the government has been collecting records on every phone call made in the US.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nUpdate:\u00A0NBC News\u00A0has confirmed\u00A0from two sources that the PRISM program exists.\r\n\r\nAccording to the Washington Post, Microsoft is listed as the first firm to take part in PRISM. Yahoo, Google, and Facebook were next. Apple appears the most recent addition. According to the report, Apple held out for five years after Microsoft became a part of PRISM. Google claims, according to the Post, that its disclosures remain &amp;quot;in accordance with the law.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\n\r\nPhoto via\u00A0Matthew Keys\r\nTo be clear, it\u00A0appears that the complicity of each company involved varies, and the Post suggests that Apple resisted most. The US Justice Department was reportedly given the authority by Congress to\u00A0&amp;quot;compel a reluctant company to 'comply.'\u201D\u00A0We have reached out to the companies involved for comment, and will update this post when we hear back.\r\n\r\nUpdate: Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Apple have denied involvement in the program.\r\nWhat information is the US government accessing?\r\nAccording to the Post's report, collected information includes visual content - still and video - audio recording, email, logs of access, and documents. Put another way: all of it.\r\n\r\nAlthough this program reportedly targets non-US citizens, it appears that &amp;quot;US content&amp;quot; is gathered and US citizens are affected. Reuters deputy technology editor Megan McCarthy said on Twitter that the information being collected under the program is meant to target only non-US persons outside the US and doesn't allow targeting of any US citizens, citing an unnamed senior administration official.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nRight now it is difficult to discern what sort of danger your privacy is in, as each of the listed companies hosts a number of diverse data sets. Microsoft may know everything from your favorite coffee shop, to your credit card number, to your favorite porn haunt. Google and Apple could know the same things about you, obviously.\r\n\r\nWhile there will certainly be\u00A0legal ramifications to this program, it's difficult to parse what will occur. Don't be surprised if you see user lawsuits,\u00A0ACLU involvement and other such activities.\u00A0Right now, it isn't clear how deep the spying has reached.\r\n\r\nWhat was shared? To whom? How often? And when does it damn well stop? That's what we need to know, now.\r\n\r\nRead more:\r\n\r\n\tFacebook, Apple and Google deny participation in US government spying program PRISM\r\n\tThe NSA\u00A0Slides which leaked the program's existence\r\n\tThe\u00A0leaked slide which contains the dates when Apple, Microsoft, Google, and others joined PRISM\r\n\r\nTop Image Credit:\u00A0HarshLight"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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