Tech titans like Google, Microsoft, and Apple knew the Government was collecting their user data, the NSA’s general counsel has said.
According to Cnet, NSA general counsel Rajesh De told the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board on Wednesday that tech titans were aware that the NSA was collecting communications and related metadata both for the NSA’s “PRISM” program and for “upstream” communications crossing the Internet.
The Guardian reported that when asked if collection of communications and associated metadata occurred with the “full knowledge and assistance of any company from which information is obtained,” De said, “Yes.”
However, De cited privacy risks when explaining why the agency does not search the communication data of American citizens “taken directly” from the Internet, the Guardian said.
