The National Security Agency reportedly has direct access to all your
private data stored by Apple, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, and
other major Internet companies, reveals the Guardian.

Access to
your data is made available through a program called PRISM which gives
officials access to your email, video and voice chats, videos, photos,
stored files, file transfers, search history, and more.

The
Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide
PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution
to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence
operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims
"collection directly from the servers" of major US service providers.

When
confronted about the program an Apple spokesman said told CNBC "We have
never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with
direct access to our servers.."

In a statement, Google said:
"Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data. We disclose
user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all
such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have
created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not
have a back door for the government to access private user data."

NSA
access to this information was apparently enabled by changes to
surveillance laws introduced under President Bush and renewed under
Obama in December 2012.

According to the presentation, Microsoft
was the first to join the program in December of 2007. It was followed
by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in
2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program
in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due
to come online.

While companies may be legally obliged to reply
with requests for users' communications under US law, the PRISM program
gives intelligence services direct access to companies' servers. This
means they can directly and unilaterally obtain an individual's
communications without having to request them or obtain court orders.

The
presentation claims PRISM was introduced to overcome what the NSA
regarded as shortcomings of Fisa warrants in tracking suspected foreign
terrorists. It noted that the US has a "home-field advantage" due to
housing much of the internet's architecture. But the presentation
claimed "Fisa constraints restricted our home-field advantage" because
Fisa required individual warrants and confirmations that both the sender
and receiver of a communication were outside the US.

According
to the Guardian more than 77,000 intelligence reports have cited the
PRISM program. Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's Center for
Democracy, is astonished that the NSA would ask companies to do this.
"It's shocking enough just that the NSA is asking companies to do this,"
he said. "The NSA is part of the military. The military has been
granted unprecedented access to civilian communications. This is
unprecedented militarisation of domestic communications infrastructure.
That's profoundly troubling to anyone who is concerned about that
separation."

Many more details can be found in the full Guardian report linked below...

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