The PRISM program has been a smashing success for the NSA. At the time of the leaks, (2013)
it provided the NSA access to 91% of the internet traffic collected under FISA Amendments Act section 702. Because much of the world uses communication channels run by American internet firms, PRISM’s back door gives U.S. intelligence direct ac
Keks in old Grey lady
PRISM information is not only available to the United States. Snowden’s leaks confirmed that the United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had access to PRISM and used it to write reports.
Canada’s Communications Security Establishment claimed not to be part of PRISM, but admitted the existence of a similar homegrown program that provided direct access to citizen communications.
Every country questioned after the Snowden leak said something similar: Yes, we have a sinister surveillance apparatus, but it’s for national security! And besides, it’s only for spying on people in other countries! It’s fine!
Enter the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing treaty.
Established during World War II and strengthened by the Cold War, the Five Eyes alliance allows confidential intelligence to flow freely between the five primary Anglophone countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Snowden called Five Eyes nothing less than a “supra-national intelligence organization that does not answer to the known laws of its own countries.”