The Surveillance Programs Prism, More Insight Into Fisa,...

From the massive amount of information Snowden leaked to the world came three revelations regarding the specifics of three surveillance programs: Prism, more insight into FISA, and XkeyScore. In simple terms, Prism is an example of the US government using its corporate power to force major communications companies, including Google and Apple, to create a backdoor that could be opened regardless of whether those companies were ever notified. A constant point of access such as Prism facilitates the free collection of everything from emails, internet searches, or documents shared using those mediums, thereby making nearly all internet activity subject to the scrutiny of the government. As for the case of FISA, the public learned that the court had used its power to extend their capability in terms of cellular surveillance. During one of his first interviews after the leak, Snowden described the Verizon document, which detailed the FISA court ruling which forces Verizon Mobility, among other providers, to share all of their data with the NSA, as an example of the NSA â€Å"using an authority that was intended to be used to seek warrants against individuals, and applying it to the whole of society.† And finally, there’s XkeyScore: a program best described as a search engine for intelligence community. Frequently described as the NSA’s â€Å"widest-reaching† program, XkeyScore is a â€Å"program [which] allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing