No one should be surprised by this. This program was simply another extension of the US's march towards authoritarianism. Much like the patriot act and our secret warrants, founded on a dubious premise that over the last 20 years have largely borne no fruit in terms of protecting our freedoms and safety but have instead eroded them. This is a system designed to protect the larger system from any civs who may be getting a little too rebellious.
The title is misleading, it appears to me, since the claim "did not prevent a single terrorist attack" isn't backed up with even a grammatically correct sentence.<p>> a judge ruled beginning of September 2020 that not [one single terrorist attack had been stopped with the help of the NSA's phone surveillance program (sic)<p>If you trail the linked articles you end up with this 9th circuit opinion:<p>> The panel wrote that to the extent the public statements of government officials created a contrary impression, that impression is inconsistent with the contents of the classified record.<p>It's my reading that pertains specifically to the case before the court and not a conclusive determination about the entirety of the PRISM program.
You'd think if it had stopped any attacks, the program's proponents would be shouting it from the rooftops. But no- nothing. Not even attempts to lie ("oh, we stopped several attacks, but we can't tell you <i>anything</i> about them...")<p>PRISM is a phenomenal waste of trust and money.
While I'm absolutely opposed to PRISM and similar programs, I think it's a little disingenuous to suggest that the only potential value was from stopping terrorist attacks. Look at this leaked powerpoint slide:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism-week-in-life-straight.png" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism-week-in-life-straig...</a><p>If you want to argue against PRISM-like programs, it would behoove you to tackle their actual purpose. We shouldn't just argue that PRISM isn't good at catching terrorists, we should argue that the total value of intelligence gained from it is not worth sacrificing our privacy for.
I want Snowden to be pardoned. And I think the data collection network was both illegal and morally wrong.<p>But that doesn't make me believe these kinds of articles. Most of these types of articles for the past numerous years have the same formula. Case X proves it was useful, case X is determined to not be relevant to the data collection methods, typically by someone biased. And it's always a judge out of one of the most liberal places. (and I'm liberal / democrat)<p>It's weaksauce, and most of the people here are unwilling to see past it because they also agree with my first paragraph. We can have freedom and "live more dangerously". That's pretty much the entire point of how America came to be. We shouldn't spy on all of our people - and yes that comes with consequences. That's not the same as spying on specific people that we know will or may cause harm.
It has been argued that PRISM was more about corporate espionage under the ruberic of counter-terrorism than anything else. In the book The Shadow Factory, James Bamford points out the ridiculously low prices that were available for overseas traffic to be routed into the US and then back to a neighboring country, sometimes even a different region of the same country... anything to get overseas telecoms to route traffic through a PRISIM splitter (the allegation Bamford makes is that bribery was involved to get these routing deals in place as well).<p>It’s certainly a fanciful story but does anyone <i>really</i> doubt that the post 9/11 US government would do this?
I very strongly recommend reading Dark Mirror by Bart Gellman.<p><a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781594206016" rel="nofollow">https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781594206016</a><p>It's a look at the reporting of PRISM and other Snowden leaks by the guy who first broke the leaks. Pet jarring look at how the program can't to be, and how it evolved.
I referenced PRISM in a comment to a recent Apple article on HN a couple of days ago. It triggered HN and Apple fans and the comment ultimately got shadow-banned by moderators.[1]<p>Anyway, it’s astonishing that so many people willfully continue to use products/services offered by the core companies that are members of PRISM surveillance. Members provide access to ALL user data/information to NSA et al. Here are some technology/telecom company members (and approx. date joined):<p>* Microsoft (2007)<p>* Yahoo! (2008)<p>* Facebook (2009)<p>* Google (2009) / YouTube (2010)<p>* Apple (2012)<p>* Dropbox (tbd)<p>* Verizon (and probably T-Mobile/Sprint, AT&T, etc.)<p>These member companies are effectively an extension of three letter agencies (intel) and are above the law.<p>A dozen+ countries participate in PRISM, too.[2]<p>Want to Break Out of the PRISM? It’s relatively easy. The nonprofit Prism-Break provides people a path to get started.[3]<p>Resources/Notes:<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24738743" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24738743</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#Companies" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#C...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://prism-break.org/en/" rel="nofollow">https://prism-break.org/en/</a>
> Between 2014 and 2017, 13 Islamist terrorist attacks took place in Europe after which 24 offenders were convicted. All 24 of them - one hundred per cent - were already known to the authorities prior to the attack and had been classified as violent.<p>Right below:<p>> What we do need is better trained and better equipped police officers so that they can identify potential threats faster.<p>If the violent offenders are already known to police then how is training cops to identify threats going to help? The threats were already known by police to be violent.<p>The article doesn’t really provide any new developments. The company also claims to be the next Google with private security in mind. To me it feels like marketing blog speak.<p>There are not any new developments about PRISM as related to Big Tech but having it in the title will make sure it reaches #1.
> NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack<p>Because terrorist attacks that were prevented didn't happen, there is no way to know. We could only speculate by correlating terrorist attacks and surveillance, but there are so many external variables that it is effectively impossible to prove causation.<p>What the ruling said is that the NSA surveillance program resulted in only one conviction related to terrorism, and that it could have been made without it. i.e. it didn't help catch any terrorist, which is a different claim. The end result is the same: the NSA surveillance program is illegal and considered ineffective, but unlike the title claim, it is a fact.
The submitted title is subtly editorialized to the point of being incorrect. The article only says that the phone surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack. It does not say that PRISM did not prevent a single terrorist attack. These are very different claims.<p>Even where the article does use PRISM, it uses it incorrectly. PRISM is not the program that involved storing telecommunications metadata. The article claims that was one part of PRISM. This contradicts all public reporting on the two programs.
And this is why we need to also halt the EARN IT Bill<p><a href="https://act.eff.org/action/stop-the-earn-it-bill-before-it-breaks-encryption-a7904e20-2083-4d5e-88ae-44ee5fef7a5d" rel="nofollow">https://act.eff.org/action/stop-the-earn-it-bill-before-it-b...</a><p>If only just to save the cost to taxpayers and companies for a useless policy.
Edward Snowden's recent appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast[1] was extremely interesting, and they discuss this case, among other things. Snowden is a great speaker.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rl82OQDoOc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rl82OQDoOc</a>
Its only a huge waste of time and money, if you believe the <i>purported</i> justification - that it was to stop terrorist attacks.<p>If you believe it was part of the new governance apparatus, I think you would consider it an unmitigated success.
You can't prove that would-be terrorists weren't dissuaded by the knowledge that PRISM existed.<p>What is the point of terrorizing a country that is already terrorizing its own citizens through unwarranted prying mass surveillance?
I would expect more digging and investigation before inferring that criminal activity was not reduced in a more significant way. The linked source is a NYT article that makes conclusions based on a few selected reports.
I understand the intent, and agree, but Tutanota's blog posts are really low quality. I'm sure there are much better and more in-depth articles we could be reading about this.
This is a pretty garbage article. It confuses PRISM, which is a data integration project to ingest data from the FBI into the NSA's databases, with Stellar Wind, which is the phone metadata collection program that this article is about.
PRISM sucks, but would we really know if it led to stopping an attack? Would it's use be hidden with parallel construction?<p>On the other hand, there is probably tremendous marketing value in publicizing any wins produced by the system.
Why is there so little call for reform from congress and new administrations etc?<p>Obama or Trump had no part in building the original system so why do they continue it? Is the political class as a whole 100% on board with authoritarian, privacy invading, controlling America?
I'm very much against government (and corporate) spying, but as a mental gymnastic, why was this program a flop?<p>Assuming it didn't stop one act of terror (as this article assumed/the judge ruled), why?<p>We know that in the hands of corporations and political machines all of this data can be used with pinpoint accuracy. Is sussing out "who's likely going to commit an act of terror" categorically different than "who's likely to buy a massage from a local spa" or "who's likely to vote for party X"?
But we were told it would save lives and was for saving the world?<p>That means it's completely impossible for such things to be a lie doesn't it?<p>As long as you say something is for saving the world or doing good and accuse all others who might raise questions about it of being terrorists/communists/racists/nazis etc it simply has to be true doesn't it?<p>I mean as long as someone just says something is to save lives or for justice or to save the world you have to completely accept it without question don't you?<p>You don't question it at all right?<p>Or else that would make you pure black hearted evil wouldn't it?<p>To take something done in the name of good intentions and apply rational thought and reasoning to it in the interest of affirming whether or not it would actually do good for the world or others or to achieve its goals makes you the literally the equivalent of a rapist doesn't it?<p>I mean I just got done reading a recent hn article <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24714880" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24714880</a> that is completely unrelated in any way whatsoever at all to anything mentioned above and I am completely shell shocked, dumbfounded!<p>I mean how could this happen?<p>Seriously, we were told it was to save lives?<p>And it was said by people in official positions with credentials; which means it is literally physically impossible to be wrong in any way at all, we all know this is true!<p>God this is all too much to take, I really need a holiday. I really hope we have a complete coronovirus lockdown for as long as it takes to kill off this virus for good so we can get back to normal and I can have one.
Not only did it not prevent any terrorist attack, but was used openly as a way to build opposition research on political opponents in the USA since 2016 but probably earlier.<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-unmasking-q-a-11589481210" rel="nofollow">https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-unmasking-q-a-11589481210</a>