Fait accompli?

..... an accomplished thing already done: The enemy's defeat was a fait accompli long before the formal surrender. 

Well, we have not surrendered quite yet, but a lot of people are beginning to believe efforts are futile if they want to continue believing in privacy and even democracy at all. PRISM seems to defeat any efforts toward privacy in communications. And so far it looks like democracy on the web is over. Using the simplest software from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, AOL and Facebook betrays everything you do, say, type, phone, send, record, talk, email, message, what else is there? 
 
PRISM is collecting data on all of us. We know that, and many in the know suggested this a long time before Edward Snowden revealed anything. Bush and Cheney were running the US government when it came into being, of course we suspected foul play. Bush secretly okayed the NSA to do whatever it wanted to do! Using FISA, (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and then the secret court of FISC. (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court)
Barack Obama has continued and expanded that nefarious role of the POTUS.

So you could have been surveilled, been to court, and convicted of something dreadful already! We said democracy was dead, didn't we? 

As of April 2013, PRISM is said to allow the organisation to "receive" emails, video clips, photos, voice and video calls, social networking details, logins and other data held by a range of US internet firms, namely companies as: Microsoft and its Skype division; Google and its YouTube division; Yahoo; Facebook, AOL, Apple and PalTalk.

So what still isn't known?

Security researcher Ashkan Soltani has posted a blog saying there are still five key unanswered questions about Prism:

• How effective is the "51% test" at preventing US citizens' records being swept up by the NSA?
• Are the tech companies trusted with knowing who the potential targets of the NSA investigations are?
• What systems are in place to ensure NSA officials do not overstep their boundaries?
• Bearing in mind Skype has previously denied making changes to its system to "provide law officers greater access", how are its voice calls being intercepted if indeed they are?
• What steps have been taken to ensure third parties cannot intercept the information? 

Then we are being asked to trust that the info we have already, CAN be trusted. What they are forgetting or at least not acknowledging, is that we NEVER have trusted the US agencies to tell any truths since 9-11.

 

pretty picture, ugly data

One more unanswered question: Whose side is PRISM on?

 

What exactly is PRISM?   -  explained

pgp software download  -  Pretty Good Privacy

conspiracy-theory-microsoft  -  I told you so