In May of 2013 it was revealed to the American public that the National Security Agency, or NSA, had been collecting metadata through a secret program called PRISM, which stands for “Planning Tool for Resource Integration, Synchronization, and Management.” PRISM is a tool created to collect, process, and sort intelligence that passes through American servers. Information regarding PRISM was first revealed to The Guardian publication by 29-year-old infrastructure analyst and CIA/NSA employee Edward Snowden.
The first question I asked is, “What exactly is metadata?” The answer is essentially the information about data. The NSA is collecting all information regarding the data. That seems like a lot of data, right?
Well, it’s so much data that the NSA had to build a new facility just to contain and process all of the data coming in. The new facility, located in Bluffdale, Utah, is over one million square feet and cost approximately 1.5 billion dollars. To put that in perspective, the new facility is about the size of 18 football fields.
So now that they have a brand new building, opening soon, they can start collecting all of that data, but what exactly are they collecting at any given time? Well, according to The Washington Post, the NSA takes in the incoming and outgoing phone numbers of every phone call, the duration of the call, any patternistic movement between cell towers, any calls made using a prepaid phone card, and any call from another country that is “suspect.”
At the end of the day, the NSA says that due to the PRISM program they have thwarted countless terrorist attacks on the United States. “These programs have protected our country and allies … over 50 times since 9/11,” General Keith Alexander said about the NSA’s surveillance efforts before the House Permanent Select Committee on June 15, 2013. “These programs have been approved by the administration, Congress, and the courts.”
That being said, there is no documented evidence that supports the claim that the NSA is stopping terrorist acts by spying on innocent Americans just trying to live their lives. I believe that PRISM should be used like a vacuum. It stays in the closet until the floor gets a little bit too dirty. Then, when you’re done cleaning up the mess, you put it away.
Wednesday, June 25, 2025