USA/FILE: Reports on U.S. surveillance of Americans fuel debate over privacy, security

Record ID: 858233

  • Title: USA/FILE: Reports on U.S. surveillance of Americans fuel debate over privacy, security
  • Date: 7th June 2013
  • Summary: WASHINGTON D.C., UNITED STATES (JUNE 07, 2013) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF WASHINGTON POST NEWSPAPER HEADLINES ON INTERNET SURVEILLANCE ACTIVITY
  • Embargoed: 22nd June 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • City:
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Crime,Communications,Politics,Science / Technology
  • Reuters ID: LVACCKPA3M3UWEODNKT5WQH8KDMV
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Reports of sweeping U.S. government surveillance of Americans' phone and Internet activity put the Obama administration on the defensive on Friday (June 07), adding pressure on President Barack Obama to explain why such tactics are necessary.
    The Washington Post reported late on Thursday (June 06) that federal authorities have been tapping into the central servers of companies including Google, Apple and Facebook to gain access to emails, photos and other files allowing analysts to track a person's movements and contacts.
    That added to privacy concerns sparked by a report in Britain's Guardian newspaper that the National Security Agency (NSA) had been mining phone records from millions of customers of a subsidiary of Verizon Communications.
    Obama, who pledged to run the most transparent administration in U.S. history, did not mention the surveillance furor in two meetings with supporters on Thursday evening.
    He may be forced to broach the subject during his meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a California summit on Friday, in which U.S. concerns about alleged Chinese hacking of American secrets were expected to be high on the agenda.
    Members of the U.S. Congress are routinely briefed by the NSA on secret surveillance programs, but it is not yet clear how much they knew about the widespread surveillance of private Internet activity reported by the Washington Post.
    The Washington Post said the surveillance program involving firms including Microsoft, Skype and YouTube, code-named PRISM and established under Republican President George W. Bush in 2007, had seen "exponential growth" under the Democratic Obama administration.
    It said the NSA increasingly relies on PRISM as a source of raw material for its intelligence reports.
    James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said the report contained "numerous inaccuracies," and some of the companies identified by the Washington Post denied that the NSA and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) had "direct access" to their central servers.
    Microsoft said it does not voluntarily participate in government data collection and only complies "with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers."
    The White House sought on Thursday to defend the National Security Agency's secret collection of telephone records from millions of Americans as a "critical tool" to prevent attacks. National Intelligence Director James Clapper said the data was only used in specific investigations of non-U.S. citizens.
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