PRISM: More transparency would harm "national security seriously"

In a 33-page court document, the U.S. Department of Justice stated that give more information on the programs of United Americans monitoring would be a very big risk for the security of this nation.

The U.S. Department of Justice does not want more transparency.

After Edward Snowden revelations, American giants in the Internet economy called for more transparency.A vital necessity for many of them since it is the credibility of their service and often the sustainability of their business model.

"Serious harm"

However, it appears that the requests made by players like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, or Microsoft to make public the information required by the intelligence services are not seen a good eye for the Obama administration. The U.S. government has in fact indicated yesterday, Wednesday, October 2, in a court document that these claims could "do serious harm to national security."

Opposition closes

The Ministry of Justice is thus opposed to the use of U.S. Internet giants court to oversee intelligence operations (FISA). Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, among other companies, had asked the special court's permission to publish the requests they have received information concerning national security, hoping to reassure their customers.
Their request "allow harmful publications that would reveal sources and methods of monitoring at the national level," it said in the government's response.
In this 33-page document, the Department of Justice argued that the government has already taken steps to increase transparency by making public a number of documents, but some information must remain confidential. "Reveal FISA company data company would seriously harm the national security, "he says, and this is why they have remained classified. We must not "give our opponents a roadmap on the existence or extent of government surveillance of a particular communications platform," explains the department denying the constitutional right of these companies to publish the information .

Formal denials

The director of the powerful U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) Wednesday denied spying on Americans on social networks. "It is completely wrong to say that we quadrillion social networks looking for Americans," said General Keith Alexander, at a hearing before the Senate."What we are looking for are people who are under investigation for terrorism or something else of that nature." General Alexander acknowledged that his agency - the heart of a huge controversy about the legality of the spying program revealed by Edward Snowden - was using social media to "enrich" their knowledge of a suspect. The New York Times also recently revealed that the NSA using social networks but also dozens of sources of personal information to portray "social" people watched.