“Big Brother is watching you” (Orwell). Many people know of this famous quote from George Orwell’s 1984. In the book, Big Brother is the leader that rules the nation of Oceania. They keep tabs on their citizens through telescreens, which are basically two way televisions (Alasdair). Although telescreens do not exist in todays world, something even more personal does, and almost everyone has one; a cell phone, and the predictions of Big Brother have come true through the United States National Security Agency’s data-collection program known as PRISM. PRISM is a covert collaboration between the NSA, FBI, and nearly every tech company you rely on daily (Barrett). PRISM went into effect in 2007 and its stated purpose was to monitor potentially …show more content…
It does so by taking advantage of the companies that it receives its data from, such as Apple, Microsoft, and Google. Legally speaking, the companies have to comply with requests for user’s communications under the US law. However, PRISM goes a step further and allows the NSA to receive direct access to the companies’ servers. Meanwhile, the companies’ stated that they had no knowledge of that fact. Google was noted to say, “Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data.” Additionally, an Apple spokesman stated that he never even heard of PRISM (Greenwald). The companies preach of privacy and security for their customers, but PRISM negates the claims as it is takes away privacy. Doing this harms the credibility of the companies in the eyes of their customers. Through the use of PRISM, the NSA is merely using the companies for the greater good of the NSA and not for the companies. Therefore, PRISM treats the companies as a means to an end instead