NSA paid millions to cover Prism compliance costs for tech companies

The National Security Agency (NSA) paid millions of dollars to cover the costs of major Internet companies involved in the Prism surveillance program after a court ruled that some of the agency's activities were unconstitutional.

The technology companies -- which the NSA says includes Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook -- incurred the costs to meet new certification demands in the wake of the ruling from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court. While the ruling on October 2011 that the NSA violated the fourth amendment by not separating domestic from foreign communications in its Prism operation, did not concern the Prism program directly, documents passed to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden describe the problems the decision created for the agency and the efforts required to bring operations into compliance. The material provides the first evidence of a financial relationship between the tech companies and the NSA.