What is known about NSA's PRISM program
(Updated: August 19, 2016) In June last year the Snowden-leaks started with the disclosure of the PRISM -program. For many people it stands for NSA surveillance in general because they often have still no idea what PRISM is actually about. Therefore, this article presents almost everything we know about the PRISM program, combining information from my earlier postings and from other media and government sources. It shows that PRISM is not about bulk or mass surveillance, but for collecting communications of specifically identified foreign targets. NSA also has no "direct access" to the servers of companies like Microsoft, Facebook and Google - it's actually a unit of the FBI that picks up data related to specific identifiers. In total, ca. 227 million internet communications are collected under the PRISM program each year, contributing to reports about counter-intelligence, terrorism and weapons proliferation. Anually, NSA analysts write more than 20.000 PRISM-based repor