Assange on PRISM: US justice system in ‘calamitous’ collapse
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (AFP Photo / Geoff Caddick)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has slammed a recently exposed NSA mass-surveillance scheme as a "calamitous collapse in the rule of law." Google, Facebook and other tech giants apparently involved have denied giving the NSA access to their servers.
Assange accused the US government of trying to "launder" its activities concerning the large-scale spying program PRISM. The system was made public after a leaked classified National Security Agency (NSA) document was revealed earlier this week.
"The US administration has the phone records of everyone in the United States and is receiving them daily from carriers to the National Security Agency under secret agreements. That's what's come out," he said.
President Barack Obama earlier defended PRISM, saying it was a key part of the country’s counterterrorism efforts and that privacy was a necessary sacrifice for the sake of security. He also lashed out at the media, and those who leaked information on the massive spying program.
U.S. President Barack Obama (AFP Photo / Stephen Lam)
“If every step that we are taking to try to prevent a terrorist act is on the front page of the newspapers or any television, then presumably the people that are trying to do us harm are going to be able to get around our preventative measures,” Obama said.
Critics of the Obama Administration have accused it of an unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers – more government officials are being prosecuted for leaks under Obama than all previous administrations combined. News of PRISM comes just after reports that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of AP reporters' telephone records and tapped Fox News reporter James Rosen’s private email.
"Over the last 10 years, the US justice system has suffered from a collapse, a calamitous collapse, in the rule of law,” Assange said.
The US tech giants apparently involved in PRISM have rushed to deny they participated in the program; their logos were visible on each the 41 PowerPoint slides of the leaked NSA document.