June 2013

The top-secret PRISM program allows the U.S. intelligence community to gain access from nine Internet companies to a wide range of digital information, including e-mails and stored data, on foreign targets operating outside the United States. The program is court-approved but does not require individual warrants. Instead, it operates under a broader authorization from federal judges who oversee the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Some documents describing the program were first released by The Washington Post on June 6. The newly released documents below give additional details about how the program operates, including the levels of review and supervisory control at the NSA and FBI. The documents also show how the program interacts with the Internet companies. These slides, annotated by The Post, represent a selection from the overall document, and certain portions are redacted.

[Commentary] In the public debate thus far over the NSA's mass surveillance programs, Americans have obsessed over our right to protect our emails, phone calls, and other communications from warrantless spying. But an issue that is just as important has been almost completely ignored: should the U.S. government be collecting the communications of foreigners without a warrant or any suspicion of wrongdoing?

Unlike spying on U.S. citizens, where the government may well be breaking the law, spying on foreigners is almost certainly legal. But is it wise? We don't think so. Unfettered U.S. spying on foreigners will cause serious collateral damage to America's technology companies, to our Internet-fueled economy, and to human rights and democracy the world over. Rampant surveillance harms both privacy and our long-term national security.

[Christopher Jon Sprigman is a law professor at New York University. Jennifer Granick is the director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society.]

[Commentary] As New York Times media correspondent David Carr put it: “If you add up the pulling of news organization phone records (The Associated Press), the tracking of individual reporters (Fox News), and the effort by the current administration to go after sources (seven instances and counting in which a government official has been criminally charged with leaking classified information to the news media), suggesting that there is a war on the press is less hyperbole than simple math.” In this unprecedented global war, President Obama has been backed by the combined power of Justice Department prosecutors, FBI surveillance agents, State Department diplomats and, perhaps most troubling of all, a cadre of high-profile Benedict Arnolds within the media itself.

[Commentary] On June 28 I am submitting a proposal to my fellow Federal Communications Commission members to modernize our E-rate program to ensure all of our children and their teachers, access to the best learning technology. But first, we need clear goals to modernize the program and I propose three, leading with providing our schools and libraries with affordable access to high capacity broadband.

We must maximize the cost effectiveness of purchases made using E-Rate support to ensure that we are meeting our broadband goals at the lowest possible cost. And we need to ensure the administrative efficiency of the program. Second, we have to revitalize the program to ensure it is efficiently targeted to those goals. We must be data-driven, and willing to follow the data wherever it leads, including taking a hard look at where we're spending money today. And, we have to consider how best to distribute funding fairly, consider eliminating support for outdated services, and reallocate any savings toward investments in more bandwidth. Third, we need to use this opportunity to bring to the table state and local officials, foundations, network operators and innovators building the next generation of learning tools and content. We must leverage the ongoing massive private investments in networks and ensure that investments in connectivity are the foundation for real positive change in classrooms. To do that, all stakeholders need to be working hand-in-hand.