Straining Credibility, Google, Facebook Deny Knowledge of Government Surveillance Program Now Acknowledged by Obama Admin

By Dominic Rushe. America’s tech giants continued to deny any knowledge of a giant government surveillance programme called Prism, even as president Barack Obama confirmed the scheme’s existence Friday.

With their credibility about privacy issues in sharp focus, all the technology companies said to be involved in the program issued remarkably similar statements.

All said they did not allow the government “direct access” to their systems, all said they had never heard of the Prism program, and all called for greater transparency.

In a blogpost titled ‘What the…?’ Google co-founder Larry Page and chief legal officer David Drummond said the “level of secrecy” around US surveillance procedures was undermining “freedoms we all cherish.”

“First, we have not joined any program that would give the US government – or any other government – direct access to our servers. Indeed, the US 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,” they wrote. Read more from this story HERE.

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Although Google and Facebook Deny it, UK Admits its Been Getting Info from US Gov’t Surveillance Program

By Nick Hopkins. The UK’s electronic eavesdropping and security agency, GCHQ, has been secretly gathering intelligence from the world’s biggest internet companies through a covertly run operation set up by America’s top spy agency, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.

The documents show that GCHQ, based in Cheltenham, has had access to the system since at least June 2010, and generated 197 intelligence reports from it last year.

The US-run programme, called Prism, would appear to allow GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required to seek personal material such as emails, photos and videos from an internet company based outside the UK.

The use of Prism raises ethical and legal issues about such direct access to potentially millions of internet users, as well as questions about which British ministers knew of the programme.

In a statement to the Guardian, GCHQ, insisted it “takes its obligations under the law very seriously”. Read more from this story HERE.