U.S. Official Releases Details of Prism Program

By SHIRA OVIDE, WSJ

A top U.S. intelligence official on Saturday declassified some details about the purpose and operations of an effort that obtains information from U.S. Internet companies as part of foreign-surveillance efforts.

James R. Clapper, director of National Intelligence, issued a statement and fact sheet to correct what he characterized as "significant misimpressions" in articles by the Washington Post and Guardian newspapers, which asserted that the government had direct access to computer systems of nine technology companies. The papers based their reports on a presentation from the National Security Agency that used a previously undisclosed term Prism.

Mr. Clapper stressed that the government doesn't "unilaterally obtain information" from the computer servers of the companies. The fact sheet characterized Prism as government technology used to aid in previously known information-gathering efforts, rather than a term to describe a new effort to obtain information from companies.

"PRISM is not an undisclosed collection or data mining program," the fact sheet states. "It is an internal government computer system used to facilitate the government's statutorily authorized collection of foreign intelligence information from electronic communication service providers under court supervision."

(More here.)