WASHINGTON, D.C. — New reports say that U.S. intelligence agencies operated a program that extracted email, photographs, and other private communications from some of the largest internet companies in America.
The reports come from two newspapers: The Guardian and The Washington Post.
According to the two publications, the data mining program got access to the central servers of nine major firms, including Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo, and Facebook.
The Washington Post says it had been provided a detailed presentation document on the program, which is said to be called PRISM. It also reports that PRISM has been running since 2007 and is now the leading source of raw material for the National Security Agency.
Several of the tech giants that are named in the reports denied any knowledge of PRISM, or having their data mined by U.S. agencies.
These latest reports follow others that came out earlier in the week, of Verizon being ordered to turn over customer records to the NSA.
