Newly published NSA documents show agency could grab all Skype traffic

A National Security Agency document shows that the agency had full access to voice, video, text messaging, and file sharing from targeted individuals over Microsoft’s Skype service.

The access, mandated by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant, was part of the NSA’s PRISM program and allowed “sustained Skype collection” in real time from specific users identified by their Skype user names. The nature of the Skype data collection was spelled out in an NSA document dated August 2012 entitled “User’s Guide for PRISM Skype Collection.”