Cameron Smith: Government data grab: Privacy and the PRISM

  Last week The Guardian released a classified order from the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) requiring Verizon to hand over a massive amount of information about their phone customers. According to Senator Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), the PRISM program used to sweep up massive amounts of information has been in operation since 2007.

  Subsequently The Washington Post released a classified slide show about the PRISM program which identified major participant companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple.