Did it really? It seems that PRISM is the software support etc. to semi-automate the FISA procedure at the Internet companies. Google claimed never to have heard the term 'PRISM' but that could easily be true-but-insignificant.
(It's possible that the "PRISM" name is also being used by the NSA to cover old-fashioned wiretapping of emails etc., but that wouldn't involve the Internet companies as opposed to ISPs.)
Well, yes, really, insomuch as can be expressed in typical human language:
> > First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.
That's a broad flat out denial. And in my opinion, it includes such options as reserving an omni-admin account for the government, and if such an arrangement exists, then Larry Page should be pilloried for issuing a lie. But until such an arrangement can be shown (and why couldn't it? If there's a NSA official who can leak about it successfully, why is it impossible to imagine that google has at least one such conscientious objector?), it seems a little unfair and counter productive to judge Google with inescapable circular logic.
But that's perfectly compatible with them being in PRISM. It seems PRISM is indeed not a backdoor or a means of direct access for the US Government, but is a conduit for FISA requests to be approved by Google's (and other firms') lawyers. They hadn't heard the term "PRISM" but that's because the US "intelligence community" hadn't used it to them when discussing the system.
They could be regularly piping filtered information to serve the US's Government's interests, as part of project they know by another name but happens to have the code name "PRISM".
There; no "back door", no "direct access", no "PRISM", not "broad", as said elsewhere in the release.
Did it really? It seems that PRISM is the software support etc. to semi-automate the FISA procedure at the Internet companies. Google claimed never to have heard the term 'PRISM' but that could easily be true-but-insignificant.
(It's possible that the "PRISM" name is also being used by the NSA to cover old-fashioned wiretapping of emails etc., but that wouldn't involve the Internet companies as opposed to ISPs.)