REPORT: NSA’s XKeyscore Enables Analysts To Access Facebook Chats, Private Messages

Private messages on Facebook may not be as private as users think, and the audience for chats may also be a little larger, according to the latest report on the National Security Agency’s Prism initiative from The Guardian, in which whistleblower Edward Snowden detailed a software program called XKeyscore.

Private messages on Facebook may not be as private as users think, and the audience for chats may also be a little larger, according to the latest report on the National Security Agency’s Prism initiative from The Guardian, in which whistleblower Edward Snowden detailed a software program called XKeyscore.

Snowden said in a video interview with The Guardian last month:

I, sitting at my desk, could wiretap anyone — from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, or even the president — if I had a personal email.

Prism goes beyond email, however, as The Guardian reported that the NSA’s XKeyscore system allows analysts to monitor other internet activities, including those within social media, adding that an NSA tool called DNI Presenter, which is used to read the content of stored emails, also enables analysts using XKeyscore to read the content of Facebook chats or private messages, simply by entering Facebook users’...

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