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"The Washington Post published an investigative report uncovering the government-run PRISM program, which allegedly monitored US citizen's Internet activity illegally, but now the paper is stepping away from its initial claim that nine tech firms knowingly provided data to the government.\r\n\r\nEarly reports of PRISM left two key allegations unanswered: Did the US government illegally monitor its citizens online, and did the tech companies involved work with authorities complicity.\u00A0Predictably the government denied the first question. For the second, the initial answer seemed to be yes.\r\n\r\nThe Post previously claimed that\u00A0Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL and Apple\u00A0&amp;quot;participate knowingly&amp;quot;. The phrase that stood out in the report (it has been repurposed by numerous tech blogs and news sites across the Web) since it suggested that US firms willingly agreed to a process that -- at best -- could violate the rights of millions in the US if their data is accidentally monitored by the NSA.\r\n\r\nHours after the news broke, and every company bar PalTalk and AOL\u00A0denied any knowledge of the program and allegations of their involvement, the Post has changed its stance. The phrase\u00A0\u00A0&amp;quot;participate knowingly&amp;quot; has been removed from the article,\u00A0a new passage suggests the firms were unaware of PRISM:\r\nIt is possible that the conflict between the PRISM slides and the company spokesmen is the result of imprecision on the part of the NSA author. In another classified report obtained by The Post, the arrangement is described as allowing \u201Ccollection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,\u201D rather than directly to company servers.\r\nThis new text, added to the denials from Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo and others, suggests that the NSA did not have direct access to the data systems. That initial suggestion was an assumption that the Post made based on the contents of the leaked slides.\r\n\r\nNonetheless, the paper's new stance is a huge admission.\u00A0For one thing, it adds to the growing claim that the agency instead accessed the information indirectly. In such a case, the most likely method would be via ISPs or mobile operators, but that remains unconfirmed.\r\n\r\nComing hot on the heels of another leak, showing that the NSA collected phone records belonging to Verizon customers, it would cast US service providers in a very poor light.\r\n\r\nThe move is an embarrassing one for the Post, particularly given that its new update appears driven by the responses of the companies, the very same companies that it says it got responses from before publishing its story.\r\n\r\nThe Post story says that &amp;quot;several companies [that it] contacted&amp;quot; denied knowledge of the program, and &amp;quot;asserted that they responded only to targeted requests for information&amp;quot;, but it cites only quotes from Google and Facebook.\r\n\r\nTNW, like other media, received responses from seven companies, each of which was quick to respond after the initial reports went live. If the Post's update is driven by the companies, questions must asked as to why it made the direct accusation against the companies in the first place.\r\n\r\nHat tip to Andy Baio\r\n\r\nHeadline image via Thinkstock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/us/2013/06/07/wapost-backtracks-on-claim-tech-companies-participate-knowingly-in-prism-data-collection/?fromcat=all>