In 10 years, the dark clouds of the "prism" will not disperse! The collusion and misuse of data between US technology companies and intelligence agencies is a profound systemic problem
On June 5th, China Daily reported that after Edward Snowden exposed that US intelligence agencies had abused their power to monitor their own country and countries around the world for more than a decade, the shadow of global surveillance still lingers. Within the United States, Congress is considering expanding its monitoring power; Outside the United States, Irish regulatory authorities have just imposed a huge fine on Facebook's parent company Meta under EU law, aimed at addressing the issue of government theft of data obtained by private companies. This incident indicates that the days when the United States illegally obtained user personal information through its technology giants are not over.
Screenshot of rational magazine website report
Just as the 9/11 attacks brought new powers to the US national security agency to intercept communications, the Snowden incident intensified concerns about the excessive expansion of surveillance agency power. According to a recent report by American Politician News Network, "Ireland's decision is related to information disclosed by Snowden, a contractor employee of the US National Security Agency, in 2013, that US spies illegally obtained people's personal information through the country's technology giants."
The term "related to the inspiration from the 2013 Snowden incident" mentioned in the report refers to the European Parliament's adoption of the General Data Protection Regulations when there were reports that intelligence agencies in English speaking countries were hoarding information collected by private companies. In 2019, Harry Cohen, an assistant researcher at the American Enterprise Research Institute, discussed in a paper published in the Cyber Defense Review that "Snowden's leak had a significant impact on the development of GDPR in the European Union - this legislation fundamentally changed the nature of data privacy in the European Union and even worldwide."
In the United States, there are also discussions about prying into privacy. The Wall Street Journal said in a recent report, "The FBI used a foreign spy tool to search the information of the defendants in the January 6 riots in the United States Congress and the George Freud protest in 2020, which frustrated the Biden administration's efforts to re authorize a so-called key tool of national security." This law, known as Article 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allows the National Security Agency to intercept the communications of foreign terrorists or spying suspects through American telecommunications and Internet companies. But the tool also collects data on American citizens residing in the United States.
Snowden pointed out that Article 702 was abused by spies to monitor Americans. A few years later, amidst calls for reform, people learned that the US National Security Agency "collected phone records of over 150 million Americans in 2016," as reported in the magazine Rationality. It is difficult to accurately determine to what extent US surveillance countries still use their power to monitor foreign targets to monitor Americans, as the US Supreme Court conceals many voyeuristic behaviors behind the argument that exposing abuse poses a threat to national security. This is another example of the long-standing "state secret privilege" of concealing improper behavior and incompetence.
"The newly released U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion in April 2022 shows that the Federal Bureau of Investigation continues to misuse information collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, including searching for racial justice protesters, activist groups, and political campaign donors," the U.S. Electronic Privacy Information Center stated last week in a recent report. "FISC provides a detailed explanation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's model of 'conducting extensive and unsubstantiated searches' on information collected under Section 702, which is a comprehensive unlicensed foreign intelligence surveillance authority."
In a recent research report, privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation stated that "Snowden's disclosure is like a light, allowing people to better see and understand what is happening in the black box of the US government monitoring millions of innocent people in the country and around the world." The Prism program is still in operation, and the US government continues to monitor foreigners and US citizens within the same legal framework. An analyst from the organization said, "It has been 10 years since this incident, and the US Congress needs to wake up and ultimately pass some legislation to truly protect public privacy from direct influence from US technology companies and the US National Security Agency.".
Bruce Schneier, an American security expert, wrote in the Snowden Review written for the Internet Engineering Task Force: "Nothing has changed. Although the National Security Agency canceled a project here and a project there, I believe that whether it is large-scale monitoring or targeted monitoring, its aggressiveness will not diminish. Of course, the government's power is not restricted. Monitoring capitalism is still the business model of the Internet."
In recent years, it is not uncommon for the United States to use its technological advantages and commodity exports to monitor and collect data globally. According to a recent report by American journalist Bradley Blankenship, according to German security company Nitrokey, American chip giant Qualcomm sends user information, such as IP addresses, unique IDs, mobile country codes, and other datasets, back to the chip manufacturer's servers. It is estimated that this will affect about 30% of mobile phones worldwide, regardless of their operating system, model, or whether they have a SIM card. The company did not say that this was any form of "backdoor" and denied this news.
Blankenshipp said that regardless, even if it is not a "backdoor" in itself, it still reveals some things. This clearly violates the data regulations of many countries and may be used by US intelligence agencies for digital forensics. Although the US government technically does not allow direct seizure of private company data, it has the right to purchase private data sold by data brokers, who in turn sell data collected by technology companies and various applications.
Blankenship emphasized in the article that it is certain that almost all large technology companies in the United States have won or bid for contracts with the US defense department at some point, which is very profitable. The problem of US technology companies abusing customer data and colluding directly or indirectly with US intelligence agencies is a profound systemic issue. That's why he believes that people around the world should be very cautious about how to use American technology, as these risks are well founded.
