Three Different Prisms? Parliament Seeks Clarity in NSA Scandal

[lovuian]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/merkel-chief-of-staff-testifies-before-parliament-on-nsa-spying-a-913268.html

In addition to testimony from Schindler and Maassen, officials also read a written statement from the NSA in response to a query from the German government. According to the statement, there are three separate Prism programs, all of them unconnected to each other. Meeting participants say the NSA response said that one of the Prism programs was only used internally. That program had thus far remained secret. Another of the programs was used by the Pentagon in Afghanistan. Yet another NSA tool -- vaguely described in the statement and allegedly "totally unrelated to the first" -- carries the name PRISM and "tracks and queries requests pertaining to our Information Assurance Directorate."

The NSA response, meeting participants said, focused primarily on the Prism program that whistleblower Edward Snowden made public -- a tool that allows the NSA to engage in the vast surveillance of electronic communication connections. In the response, the US intelligence agency vehemently denied that the program is used to indiscriminately collect huge quantities of data in Germany. The collection of data, the response said, is subject to court authorization and is primarily used to combat terrorism. Its use is "focused, targeted, judicious and far from sweeping," the one-page response says.

The document sounds reassuring, but so too have many denials issued in recent days. In fact, the NSA response says little about how the monitoring of 500 million data connections each month can be considered focused or targeted. Furthermore, the court the statement refers to, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA), is secret and, according to US media reports, confirms virtually every surveillance request made by US intelligence.

[lovuian]

1. kick

for a friend

[Catherina]

2. This thing just keeps avalanching

But it was not, he said, according to meeting participants, used to collect data. Rather, he insisted, it was an analytical tool. He also stated that his agency's use of XKeyscore in no way represented a violation of German law. ...

The acknowledgement marks a significant step forward in the German debate over US surveillance techniques. Even as the German populace has been extremely unnerved by revelations that the NSA monitors some 500 million data communications each month, Merkel's government has done little to answer questions regarding the extent to which Berlin cooperates with Washington on surveillance activities. This week's article in SPIEGEL also cited an NSA document indicating that the German was "modifying its interpretation of (privacy laws) to afford the BND more flexibility in sharing protected information with foreign partners."

...

Still, he was unable to conceal the fact that the central questions have not yet been answered. What exactly is the nature of NSA activity on German soil?

Bad week for certain governments. No wonder these guys hate answering questions. Every time they do, it reveals even more.

The careful parsing in their answers when they keep repeating "under this program" at the end of every answer only begs more questions.

I wonder how much time all the NSA stations in countries like Germany have left.