I think that some of those people have knowledge of a secret program that enables access to the data (maybe without direct access to the servers that house it). That would make it easier to manage without having to bring all the SREs and such into the conspiracy.
I think that most of those people would not allow their lives to be destroyed with federal charges (or maybe even extralegal harassment, who knows - they do run secret prisons) in the process of reporting such a thing.
Tens of thousands of others have chosen to keep quiet about NSA's extralegal collection practices (from the contractors at the IXes installing beam splitters, to the mechanics who welded the fiber grabber arm onto the nuclear sub). Why is it such a stretch to think that 3 or 5 or 10 at Google wouldn't?
It's not even a stretch to think that NSA would have done their homework to know _which_ people inside of Google would be both able to participate and could be coerced into keeping quiet.
I don't have to build a straw man. I'd just say people should read your comment, work out its narrative in their heads, and ask which is more likely: that PRISM is an elaborate scheme by which NSA gained illicit access to Google's servers, or that it is what other reporters have now reported that it is: a unified collection system for documents manually provided by Internet companies in response to FISA directives.
People that think the "manual" part in that last sentence doesn't matter should read the court order in the Yahoo case the NYT reported, where Yahoo went several rounds with NSA and the FISC to try to fight a specific FISA directive.
Note that Google, Facebook, and Yahoo have all taken pains to point out that they've pushed back on FISA directives. Which is something you can't do if the system isn't manual.
I never claimed it was illicit. I just said it was secret, and that disclosure of such secrets carries an incredibly harsh penalty. You're doing the strawman thing again, despite claiming otherwise. :/
Just because they've pushed back doesn't mean the system isn't automated. It could have been a matter of "implement the automated system now, per the FISA order, and then we can have a go-round in front of the FISA court with your objections after".
Where by illicit I mean "is occurring without the knowledge of Google's CEO or General Counsel, despite their publicly voiced opposition to any such program."
I'm not sure. It could be that they know about it and are gag-ordered (can't fight city hall!), or that they were intentionally left out of the loop for purposes of plausible deniability.
This is military intelligence we're talking about here, they take their mission very, very seriously. I wouldn't be surprised if there were multiple, independent, redundant programs for monitoring this data.
As 'DannyBee, himself a lawyer, pointed out a few days ago: no provision of any Federal law requires anyone to issue false statements. There are times you're prevented from saying things†, but there aren't times when NSA gets to put words in your mouth.
† ... we think; the ultimate Constitutionality of this is up in the air.
I'm sure the lying part comes automatically when you want to keep your job and you can't tell your boss that you just broke every rule the company has.
If you're saying some lower-level employee of Google was "turned" by NSA and then lied about it to their manager, we're back into "illicit access" territory.
I think that some of those people have knowledge of a secret program that enables access to the data (maybe without direct access to the servers that house it). That would make it easier to manage without having to bring all the SREs and such into the conspiracy.
I think that most of those people would not allow their lives to be destroyed with federal charges (or maybe even extralegal harassment, who knows - they do run secret prisons) in the process of reporting such a thing.
Tens of thousands of others have chosen to keep quiet about NSA's extralegal collection practices (from the contractors at the IXes installing beam splitters, to the mechanics who welded the fiber grabber arm onto the nuclear sub). Why is it such a stretch to think that 3 or 5 or 10 at Google wouldn't?
It's not even a stretch to think that NSA would have done their homework to know _which_ people inside of Google would be both able to participate and could be coerced into keeping quiet.