So How Do We Even Begin to Talk About #PRISM? [#geekgirl]
Should We All Just Call Ourselves Winston Now?
“PRISM is an electronic surveillance and has been operated by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) since 2007.[1][2] PRISM is a government codename for a data collection effort known officially as US-984XN.[3][4] The stated purpose of this national security program[5] is to combat terrorism.[5][6]
Documents leaked by whistle-blower Edward Snowden[7] in June 2013 describe the PRISM program as enabling in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. It provides for the targeting of any customers of participating corporations who live outside the United States, or American citizens whose communications include web content of people outside the United States. Data which the NSA is able to obtain under PRISM allegedly includes email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice over IP conversations, file transfers, login notifications and social networking details.[8]”
As the Wikipedia entry quoted above suggests, PRISM seems to render present Western sociopolitical realities into an all round “surveillance-states-ahoy” basket, with Ed Snowden cast as the whistle-trumpeting hero (how about throwing Bradley Manning some acknowledgement crumbs here as well, eh?). The horrific boot-stamped-human-face logo of the world envisioned in Orwell’s “1984” has now insidiously replaced any workable versions of democracy you care to name. Worse, we’ve been apathy-sleeping through it the entire time, willingly sacrificing our personal liberties/data by blissfully throwing them into hugely compromised tech-cloudnets and selling out our freedoms for the banal reality of social media connection-drivel…
…and if this were instead a yellow press article complete with an oily sensationalist headline, it’d be about now that I’d be beginning to offer a propaganda-fed negation of the above statements, with oodles of referenced links listed in an attempt to established a credible argument for the absolute + incontestable need for government-puppeted and technology enforced surveillance. Instead, please immerse your fine selves in the following and make up your own (now overtly monitored) minds:
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NSA leaker is a patriot not a traitor
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Video of Ed Snowden’s Interview With The Guardian
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PRISM Class Action Suit
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US spy leaker Edward Snowden ‘missing’ in Hong Kong
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Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?
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The Irrationality of Giving Up This Much Liberty to Fight Terror
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Nine reasons you should care about NSA’s PRISM surveillance
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NSA WHISTLEBLOWER: The Feds Can Make Anyone Look Suspicious