The program detailed in the bombshell Washington Post report wasn't meant to be publicly disclosed, despite the fact that it had been established in 2007.
A government whistleblower provided the information to the Post because of the chilling capabilities of U.S. government surveillance.
From the Post report:
Firsthand experience with these systems, and horror at their capabilities, is what drove a career intelligence officer to provide PowerPoint slides about PRISM and supporting materials to The Washington Post in order to expose what he believes to be a gross intrusion on privacy. “They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” the officer said.
The program, which is dubbed "PRISM," allows the National Security Agency and FBI to tap directly into the central servers of some of the U.S.'s giant tech companies. Those companies include Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.
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