United States government Executive branch life Shortly after publication of the reports by
The Guardian and
The Washington Post, the United States
Director of National Intelligence,
James Clapper, on June 7, 2013, released a statement confirming that for nearly six years the government of the United States had been using large internet services companies such as Facebook to collect information on foreigners outside the United States as a defense against national security threats. The statement read in part, "
The Guardian and
The Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They contain numerous inaccuracies." He went on to say, "Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons located outside the United States. It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States." Clapper later admitted the statement he made on March 12, 2013, was a lie, or in his words "I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner by saying no." On June 7, 2013, U.S. President
Barack Obama, referring to the PRISM program and the NSA's telephone calls logging program, said, "What you've got is two programs that were originally authorized by Congress, have been repeatedly authorized by Congress. Bipartisan majorities have approved them. Congress is continually briefed on how these are conducted. There are a whole range of safeguards involved. And federal judges are overseeing the entire program throughout." He also said, "You can't have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. You know, we're going to have to make some choices as a society." In separate statements, senior Obama administration officials (not mentioned by name in source) said that Congress had been briefed 13 times on the programs since 2009. On June 8, 2013, Director of National Intelligence Clapper made an additional public statement about PRISM and released a
fact sheet providing further information about the program, which he described as "an internal government computer system used to facilitate the government's statutorily authorized collection of foreign intelligence information from electronic communication service providers under court supervision, as authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (50 U.S.C. § 1881a)." The fact sheet stated that "the surveillance activities published in
The Guardian and the
Washington Post are lawful and conducted under authorities widely known and discussed, and fully debated and authorized by
Congress." In a closed-doors Senate hearing around June 11, FBI Director
Robert Mueller said that Snowden's leaks had caused "significant harm to our nation and to our safety." On June 18, NSA Director Alexander said in an open hearing before the House Intelligence Committee of Congress that communications surveillance had helped prevent more than 50 potential terrorist attacks worldwide (at least 10 of them involving terrorism suspects or targets in the United States) between 2001 and 2013, and that the PRISM web traffic surveillance program contributed in over 90 percent of those cases. According to court records, one example Alexander gave regarding a thwarted attack by al Qaeda on the New York Stock Exchange was not in fact foiled by surveillance. Several senators wrote Director of National Intelligence Clapper asking him to provide other examples. U.S. intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told various news outlets that by June 24 they were already seeing what they said was evidence that suspected terrorists had begun changing their communication practices in order to evade detection by the surveillance tools disclosed by Snowden.
Legislative branch In contrast to their swift and forceful reactions the previous day to allegations that the government had been conducting surveillance of United States citizens' telephone records, Congressional leaders initially had little to say about the PRISM program the day after leaked information about the program was published. Several lawmakers declined to discuss PRISM, citing its top-secret classification, and others said that they had not been aware of the program. After statements had been released by the president and the Director of National Intelligence, some lawmakers began to comment: Senator
John McCain (R-AZ) • June 9, 2013, "We passed the Patriot Act. We passed specific provisions of the act that allowed for this program to take place, to be enacted in operation." Senator
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee • June 9, "These programs are within the law," "part of our obligation is keeping Americans safe," "Human intelligence isn't going to do it." • June 9, "Here's the rub: the instances where this has produced good—has disrupted plots, prevented terrorist attacks, is all classified, that's what's so hard about this." • June 11, "It went fine. ... We asked him (
Keith Alexander) to declassify things because it would be helpful (for people and lawmakers to better understand the intelligence programs). ... I've just got to see if the information gets declassified. I'm sure people will find it very interesting." Senator
Rand Paul (R-KY) • June 9, "I'm going to be seeing if I can challenge this at the Supreme Court level. I'm going to be asking the internet providers and all of the phone companies: ask your customers to join me in a class-action lawsuit." Representative
Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), principal sponsor of the
Patriot Act • June 9, "This is well beyond what the Patriot Act allows." "President Obama's claim that 'this is the most transparent administration in history' has once again proven false. In fact, it appears that no administration has ever peered more closely or intimately into the lives of innocent Americans." Senator
Mark Udall (D-CO) • June 9, "I don't think the American public knows the extent or knew the extent to which they were being surveilled and their data was being collected. ... I think we ought to reopen the Patriot Act and put some limits on the amount of data that the National Security (Agency) is collecting. ... It ought to remain sacred, and there's got to be a balance here. That is what I'm aiming for. Let's have the debate, let's be transparent, let's open this up." Representative
Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) • June 9, "We will be receiving secret briefings and we will be asking, I know I'm going to be asking to get more information. I want to make sure that what they're doing is harvesting information that is necessary to keep us safe and not simply going into everybody's private telephone conversations and Facebook and communications. I mean one of the, you know, the terrorists win when you debilitate freedom of expression and privacy." Following these statements some lawmakers from both parties warned national security officials during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee that they must change their use of sweeping National Security Agency surveillance programs or face losing the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that have allowed for the agency's mass collection of telephone metadata. "Section 215 expires at the end of 2015, and unless you realize you've got a problem, that is not going to be renewed," Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., author of the USA Patriot Act, threatened during the hearing.
The New York Times, however, reported in July 2013 that in "more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation's surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects, but also people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage and cyberattacks." After Members of the U.S. Congress pressed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to release declassified versions of its secret ruling, the court dismissed those requests arguing that the decisions can't be declassified because they contain classified information.
Reggie Walton, the current FISA presiding judge, said in a statement: "The perception that the court is a rubber stamp is absolutely false. There is a rigorous review process of applications submitted by the executive branch, spearheaded initially by five judicial branch lawyers who are national security experts, and then by the judges, to ensure that the court's authorizations comport with what the applicable statutes authorize." The accusation of being a "rubber stamp" was further rejected by Walton who wrote in a letter to Senator Patrick J. Leahy: "The annual statistics provided to Congress by the Attorney General ...—frequently cited to in press reports as a suggestion that the Court's approval rate of application is over 99%—reflect only the number of
final applications submitted to and acted on by the Court. These statistics do not reflect the fact that many applications are altered to prior or final submission or even withheld from final submission entirely, often after an indication that a judge would not approve them."
The U.S. military The U.S. military has acknowledged blocking access to parts of
The Guardian website for thousands of defense personnel across the country, and blocking the entire
Guardian website for personnel stationed throughout Afghanistan, the Middle East, and South Asia. A spokesman said the military was filtering out reports and content relating to government surveillance programs to preserve "network hygiene" and prevent any classified material from appearing on unclassified parts of its computer systems.
Australia The Australian government has said it will investigate the impact of the PRISM program and the use of the
Pine Gap surveillance facility on the privacy of Australian citizens. Australia's former foreign minister
Bob Carr said that Australians should not be concerned about PRISM but that cybersecurity is high on the government's list of concerns. The Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop stated that the acts of
Edward Snowden were treachery and offered a staunch defence of her nation's intelligence co-operation with the United States.
Brazil Brazil's president at the time,
Dilma Rousseff, responded to Snowden's reports that the NSA spied on her phone calls and emails by cancelling a planned October 2013
state visit to the United States, demanding an official apology, which by October 20, 2013, hadn't come. Also, Rousseff classified the spying as unacceptable between more harsh words in a speech before the
UN General Assembly on September 24, 2013. As a result,
Boeing lost out on a US$4.5 billion contract for fighter jets to Sweden's
Saab Group.
Canada Canada's national cryptologic agency, the
Communications Security Establishment (CSE), said that commenting on PRISM "would undermine CSE's ability to carry out its mandate."
Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart lamented Canada's standards when it comes to protecting personal online privacy stating "We have fallen too far behind" in her report. "While other nations' data protection authorities have the legal power to make binding orders, levy hefty fines and take meaningful action in the event of serious data breaches, we are restricted to a 'soft' approach: persuasion, encouragement and, at the most, the potential to publish the names of transgressors in the public interest." And, "when push comes to shove," Stoddart wrote, "short of a costly and time-consuming court battle, we have no power to enforce our recommendations."
European Union On 20 October 2013 a committee at the
European Parliament backed a measure that, if it is enacted, would require American companies to seek clearance from European officials before complying with United States warrants seeking private data. The legislation has been under consideration for two years. The vote is part of efforts in Europe to shield citizens from online surveillance in the wake of
revelations about a far-reaching spying program by the
U.S. National Security Agency. Germany and France have also had ongoing mutual talks about how they can keep European email traffic from going across American servers.
France On October 21, 2013, the French Foreign Minister,
Laurent Fabius, summoned the U.S. Ambassador,
Charles Rivkin, to the
Quai d'Orsay in
Paris to protest large-scale spying on French citizens by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Paris prosecutors had opened preliminary inquiries into the NSA program in July, but Fabius said, "... obviously we need to go further" and "we must quickly assure that these practices aren't repeated."
Germany Germany did not receive any raw PRISM data, according to a Reuters report.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that "the internet is new to all of us" to explain the nature of the program; Matthew Schofield of
McClatchy Washington Bureau said, "She was roundly mocked for that statement." Gert-René Polli, a former Austrian counter-terrorism official, said in 2013 that it is "absurd and unnatural" for the German authorities to pretend not to have known anything. In October 2013, it was reported that the NSA monitored Merkel's cell phone. The United States denied the report, but following the allegations, Merkel called President Obama and told him that spying on friends was "never acceptable, no matter in what situation."
Israel Israeli newspaper
Calcalist discussed the
Business Insider article about the possible involvement of technologies from two secretive Israeli companies in the PRISM program—
Verint Systems and
Narus.
Mexico After finding out about the PRISM program, the Mexican Government has started constructing its own spying program to spy on its own citizens. According to Jenaro Villamil, a writer from
Proceso,
CISEN, Mexico's intelligence agency has started to work with
IBM and
Hewlett Packard to develop its own data gathering software. "Facebook, Twitter, Emails and other social network sites are going to be priority."
New Zealand In New Zealand,
University of Otago information science Associate Professor Hank Wolfe said that "under what was unofficially known as the
Five Eyes Alliance, New Zealand and other governments, including the United States, Australia, Canada, and Britain, dealt with internal spying by saying they didn't do it. But they have all the partners doing it for them and then they share all the information."
Edward Snowden, in a live streamed Google Hangout to
Kim Dotcom and
Julian Assange, alleged that he had received intelligence from New Zealand, and the NSA has listening posts in New Zealand.
Spain At a meeting of European Union leaders held the week of 21 October 2013,
Mariano Rajoy, Spain's prime minister, said that "spying activities aren't proper among partner countries and allies". On 28 October 2013 the Spanish government summoned the American ambassador,
James Costos, to address allegations that the U.S. had collected data on 60 million telephone calls in Spain. Separately,
Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, a Spanish secretary of state, referred to the need to maintain "a necessary balance" between security and privacy concerns, but said that the recent allegations of spying, "if proven to be true, are improper and unacceptable between partners and friendly countries".
United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, the
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), which also has its own surveillance program,
Tempora, had access to the PRISM program on or before June 2010 and wrote 197 reports with it in 2012 alone. The
Intelligence and Security Committee of the
UK Parliament reviewed the reports GCHQ produced on the basis of intelligence sought from the US. They found in each case a warrant for interception was in place in accordance with the legal safeguards contained in UK law. In August 2013,
The Guardian newspaper's offices were visited by technicians from GCHQ, who ordered and supervised the destruction of the hard drives containing information acquired from Snowden.
Companies The original
Washington Post and
Guardian articles reporting on PRISM noted that one of the leaked briefing documents said PRISM involves collection of data "directly from the servers" of several major internet services providers. Statements of several of the companies named in the leaked documents were reported by
TechCrunch and
The Washington Post as follows: •
Microsoft: "We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data, we don't participate in it." •
Yahoo!: "Yahoo! takes users' privacy very seriously. We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network." "We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order." On May 28, 2013, Google was ordered by United States District Court Judge
Susan Illston to comply with a
National Security Letter issued by the FBI to provide user data without a warrant. Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in an interview with
VentureBeat said, "I certainly appreciate that Google put out a
transparency report, but it appears that the transparency didn't include this. I wouldn't be surprised if they were subject to a
gag order."
The New York Times reported on June 7, 2013, that "Twitter declined to make it easier for the government. But other companies were more compliant, according to people briefed on the negotiations." The other companies held discussions with national security personnel on how to make data available more efficiently and securely. and the companies' denials.
Post-PRISM transparency reports In response to the publicity surrounding media reports of data-sharing, several companies requested permission to reveal more public information about the nature and scope of information provided in response to National Security requests. On June 14, 2013, Facebook reported that the U.S. government had authorized the communication of "about these numbers in aggregate, and as a range." In a press release posted to its web site, the company reported, "For the six months ending December 31, 2012, the total number of user-data requests Facebook received from any and all government entities in the U.S. (including local, state, and federal, and including criminal and national security-related requests) – was between 9,000 and 10,000." The company further reported that the requests impacted "between 18,000 and 19,000" user accounts, a "tiny fraction of one percent" of more than 1.1 billion active user accounts. That same day, Microsoft reported that for the same period, it received "between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts from U.S. governmental entities (including local, state and federal)" which impacted "a tiny fraction of Microsoft's global customer base." Google issued a statement criticizing the requirement that data be reported in aggregated form, stating that lumping national security requests with criminal request data would be "a step backwards" from its previous, more detailed practices on its website's transparency report. The company said that it would continue to seek government permission to publish the number and extent of FISA requests.
Cisco Systems saw a huge drop in export sales because of fears that the National Security Agency could be using backdoors in its products. On September 12, 2014, Yahoo! reported the U.S. Government threatened the imposition of $250,000 in fines per day if Yahoo didn't hand over user data as part of the NSA's PRISM program. It is not known if other companies were threatened or fined for not providing data in response to a legitimate FISA requests.
Public and media response Domestic in
Columbus, Ohio, United States, satirizing comprehensive
surveillance of
telecommunications The New York Times editorial board charged that the Obama administration "has now lost all credibility on this issue," and lamented that "for years, members of Congress ignored evidence that domestic intelligence-gathering had grown beyond their control, and, even now, few seem disturbed to learn that every detail about the public's calling and texting habits now reside in a N.S.A. database." It wrote with respect to the
FISA-Court in context of PRISM that it is "a perversion of the American justice system" when "judicial secrecy is coupled with a one-sided presentation of the issues." According to the New York Times, "the result is a court whose reach is expanding far beyond its original mandate and without any substantive check." Robertson questioned whether the secret FISA court should provide overall legal approval for the surveillance programs, saying the court "has turned into something like an administrative agency." Under the changes brought by the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008, which expanded the US government's authority by forcing the court to approve entire surveillance systems and not just surveillance warrants as it previously handled, "the court is now approving programmatic surveillance. I don't think that is a judicial function." Robertson also said he was "frankly stunned" by the New York Times report The
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an international non-profit
digital-rights group based in the U.S., is hosting a tool, by which an American resident can write to their government representatives regarding their opposition to mass spying. The Obama administration's argument that NSA surveillance programs such as PRISM and
Boundless Informant had been necessary to prevent acts of terrorism was challenged by several parties. Ed Pilkington and Nicholas Watt of
The Guardian said of the case of
Najibullah Zazi, who had planned to bomb the
New York City Subway, that interviews with involved parties and U.S. and British court documents indicated that the investigation into the case had actually been initiated in response to "conventional" surveillance methods such as "old-fashioned tip-offs" of the British intelligence services, rather than to leads produced by NSA surveillance. Michael Daly of
The Daily Beast stated that even though
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who conducted the
Boston Marathon bombing with his brother
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, had visited the
Al Qaeda-affiliated
Inspire magazine website, and even though Russian intelligence officials had raised concerns with U.S. intelligence officials about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, PRISM did not prevent him from carrying out the Boston attacks. Daly observed that, "The problem is not just what the National Security Agency is gathering at the risk of our privacy but what it is apparently unable to monitor at the risk of our safety."
Ron Paul, a former Republican member of Congress and prominent
libertarian, thanked Snowden and Greenwald and denounced the mass surveillance as unhelpful and damaging, urging instead more transparency in U.S. government actions. He called Congress "derelict in giving that much power to the government," and said that had he been elected president, he would have ordered searches only when there was
probable cause of a crime having been committed, which he said was not how the PRISM program was being operated.
New York Times columnist
Thomas L. Friedman defended limited government surveillance programs intended to protect the American people from terrorist acts: Yes, I worry about potential government abuse of privacy from a program designed to prevent another 9/11—abuse that, so far, does not appear to have happened. But I worry even more about another 9/11. ... If there were another 9/11, I fear that 99 percent of Americans would tell their members of Congress: "Do whatever you need to do to, privacy be damned, just make sure this does not happen again."
That is what I fear most. That is why I'll reluctantly, very reluctantly, trade off the government using data mining to look for suspicious patterns in phone numbers called and e-mail addresses—and then have to go to a judge to get a warrant to actually look at the content under guidelines set by Congress—to prevent a day where, out of fear, we give government a license to look at anyone, any e-mail, any phone call, anywhere, anytime. Political commentator
David Brooks similarly cautioned that government data surveillance programs are a necessary evil: "if you don't have mass data sweeps, well, then these agencies are going to want to go back to the old-fashioned eavesdropping, which is a lot more intrusive." Conservative commentator
Charles Krauthammer worried less about the legality of PRISM and other NSA surveillance tools than about the potential for their abuse without more stringent oversight. "The problem here is not constitutionality. ... We need a toughening of both congressional oversight and judicial review, perhaps even some independent outside scrutiny. Plus periodic legislative revision—say, reauthorization every couple of years—in light of the efficacy of the safeguards and the nature of the external threat. The object is not to abolish these vital programs. It's to fix them." In a blog post,
David Simon, the creator of
The Wire, compared the NSA's programs, including PRISM, to a 1980s effort by the City of Baltimore to add dialed number recorders to all pay phones to know which individuals were being called by the callers; the city believed that drug traffickers were using pay phones and pagers, and a municipal judge allowed the city to place the recorders. The placement of the dialers formed the basis of the show's first season. Simon argued that the media attention regarding the NSA programs is a "faux scandal." Simon had stated that many classes of people in American society had already faced constant government surveillance. Political activist, and frequent critic of U.S. government policies,
Noam Chomsky argued, "Governments should not have this capacity. But governments will use whatever technology is available to them to combat their primary enemy – which is their own population." A
CNN/
Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted June 11 through 13 and released in 2013 found that 66% of Americans generally supported the program. However, a Quinnipiac University poll conducted June 28 through July 8 and released in 2013 found that 45% of registered voters think the surveillance programs have gone too far, with 40% saying they do not go far enough, compared to 25% saying they had gone too far and 63% saying not far enough in 2010. Other polls have shown similar shifts in public opinion as revelations about the programs were leaked. In terms of economic impact, a study released in August by the
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found that the disclosure of PRISM could cost the U.S. economy between $21.5 and $35 billion in lost cloud computing business over three years.
International Sentiment around the world was that of general displeasure upon learning the extent of world communication data mining. Some national leaders spoke against the NSA and some spoke against their own national surveillance. One national minister had scathing comments on the National Security Agency's data-mining program, citing Benjamin Franklin: "The more a society monitors, controls, and observes its citizens, the less free it is." Some question if the costs of hunting terrorists now overshadows the loss of citizen privacy.
Nick Xenophon, an Australian independent senator, asked
Bob Carr, the
Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs, if e-mail addresses of Australian parliamentarians were exempt from PRISM, Mainway, Marina, and/or Nucleon. After Carr replied that there was a legal framework to protect Australians but that the government would not comment on intelligence matters, Xenophon argued that this was not a specific answer to his question.
Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said, "We knew about their past efforts to trace our system. We have used our technical resources to foil their efforts and have been able to stop them from succeeding so far." However CNN has reported that terrorist groups have changed their "communications behaviors" in response to the leaks.
China rally to support Snowden, June 15, 2013 Reactions of internet users in China were mixed between viewing a loss of freedom worldwide and seeing state surveillance coming out of secrecy. The story broke just before U.S. President
Barack Obama and
General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping met in California. When asked about NSA hacking China, the spokeswoman of
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China said, "China strongly advocates cybersecurity." The party-owned newspaper
Liberation Daily described this surveillance like
Nineteen Eighty-Four-style. Hong Kong legislators
Gary Fan and
Claudia Mo wrote a letter to Obama stating, "the revelations of blanket surveillance of global communications by the world's leading democracy have damaged the image of the U.S. among freedom-loving peoples around the world."
Ai Weiwei, a Chinese dissident, said, "Even though we know governments do all kinds of things I was shocked by the information about the US surveillance operation, Prism. To me, it's abusively using government powers to interfere in individuals' privacy. This is an important moment for international society to reconsider and protect individual rights."
Europe Sophie in 't Veld, a Dutch
Member of the European Parliament, called PRISM "a violation of EU laws." protest at
Checkpoint Charlie in
Berlin, Germany (June 18, 2013) , Germany wearing
Chelsea Manning and
Edward Snowden masks (June 19, 2013) The German
Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, Peter Schaar, condemned the program as "monstrous." He further added that White House claims do "not reassure me at all" and that "given the large number of German users of Google, Facebook, Apple or Microsoft services, I expect the German government ... is committed to clarification and limitation of surveillance."
Steffen Seibert, press secretary of the Chancellor's office, announced that
Angela Merkel will put these issues on the agenda of the talks with
Barack Obama during his pending visit in Berlin. Wolfgang Schmidt, a former lieutenant colonel with the
Stasi, said that the Stasi would have seen such a program as a "dream come true" since the Stasi lacked the technology that made PRISM possible. Schmidt expressed opposition, saying, "It is the height of naivete to think that once collected this information won't be used. This is the nature of secret government organizations. The only way to protect the people's privacy is not to allow the government to collect their information in the first place."
CNIL (French data protection watchdog) ordered Google to change its privacy policies within three months or risk fines up to 150,000 euros.
Spanish Agency of data protection (AEPD) planned to fine Google between 40,000 and 300,000 euros if it failed to clear stored data on the Spanish users.
William Hague, the
foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, dismissed accusations that British security agencies had been circumventing British law by using information gathered on British citizens by PRISM saying, "Any data obtained by us from the United States involving UK nationals is subject to proper UK statutory controls and safeguards."
Malcolm Rifkind, the chairman of parliament's
Intelligence and Security Committee, said that if the British intelligence agencies were seeking to know the content of emails about people living in the UK, then they actually have to get lawful authority. In a statement given to
Financial Times following the Snowden revelations, Berners-Lee stated "Unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society."
India Minister of External Affairs Salman Khurshid defended the PRISM program saying, "This is not scrutiny and access to actual messages. It is only computer analysis of patterns of calls and emails that are being sent. It is not actually snooping specifically on content of anybody's message or conversation. Some of the information they got out of their scrutiny, they were able to use it to prevent serious terrorist attacks in several countries." His comments contradicted his
Foreign Ministry's characterization of violations of privacy as "unacceptable." When the then
Minister of Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal was asked about Khurshid's comments, he refused to comment on them directly, but said, "We do not know the nature of data or information sought [as part of PRISM]. Even the
external ministry does not have any idea." The media felt that Khurshid's defence of PRISM was because the India government was rolling out the
Central Monitoring System (CMS), which is similar to the PRISM program. Khurshid's comments were criticized by the Indian media, as well as opposition party
CPI(M) who stated, "The
UPA government should have strongly protested against such surveillance and bugging. Instead, it is shocking that Khurshid has sought to justify it. This shameful remark has come at a time when even the close allies of the US like Germany and France have protested against the snooping on their countries."
Rajya Sabha MP P. Rajeev told
The Times of India that "The act of the USA is a clear violation of
Vienna convention on diplomatic relations. But Khurshid is trying to justify it. And the speed of the
government of India to reject the asylum application of Edward Snowden is shameful." ==Legal aspects==