On Sunday, the NSA turns off a massive mass peep

The US National Security Agency on Sunday completes a program of mass wiretapping. Such a statement on Friday made in the administration of the President of the United States. Instead, the agency will have to introduce a new program with greatly reduced capabilities.

This event is regarded as a victory for the fighters for privacy, achieved together with technology companies that refused to go to meet the government agency at the expense of the security and privacy of their users. Despite numerous calls for “black moves” in encrypting mobile devices and software, such giants as Apple and Google did not agree to make concessions.

The PRISM mass interception program will close two and a half years after it was exposed by Edward Snowden, at that time a former employee of the CIA and NSA agencies. Mass wiretapping without trial and warrants became possible after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
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Now the NSA will not be able to gather information about all calls made by US citizens to process these so-called. “Metadata” in attempts to detect “suspicious actions”. Now the agency will need to receive a court decision to be able to track the calls of a particular person or group of persons for up to six months.

The simple conclusion of the presidential commission that considered this problem played a significant role in the decision to close the program: for all the existence of the program, it has not led to any success in the fight against terrorism.

Since the decision of the administration comes into force against the backdrop of increased terrorist activity, some officials would like to keep a massive wiretap until at least 2017. But such a proposal is unlikely to pass, since in November 2016 the presidential election will be held in the United States. Already collected over the years of the program data will be stored on the servers of the NSA until February next year.

In early June 2013, CIA officer Edward Snowden handed the NSA's secret information to the Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers regarding total surveillance by US intelligence agencies of information communications between citizens of many countries around the world using existing information networks and communication networks, including information about the PRISM project. , as well as X-Keyscore and Tempora.

Snowden was put on the international wanted list by the US authorities. Shortly after the revelations, he fled from the United States, first to Hong Kong, then to Russia, where he spent more than a month in the transit zone of the Sheremetyevo airport. In 2013, he received temporary asylum in Russia, and in 2014, a three-year residence permit.