PRISM is only the one of the latest bell and whistle added to the NSA's tools dedicated to learning whatever it wants to find out. The Echelon program goes way back and probably is rooted to the very start of the NSA. Echelon is a program where the spy agencies of the USA, UK and Australia get around each others laws about not spying on their own people and spy on the other nations in the program and then pass the desired portions, so no direct link exists between the spying and learning of private information. This legalistic trick of avoiding directly spying on one's own people still does that very thing. Exactly who benefits from such spying is really the question. While the security of the country could be enhanced by such spying, it also opens up the likelihood that such information could be used for corrupt reasons as well.
When 60 Minutes ran a story on the program many years ago it was revealed that the USA was spying on the divorced Princess Diana Spencer and then passing along the information to the UK for whatever reason they were looking for this information. So even when the NSA is not spying on US citizens, it has the UK and Australians doing it for them.
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ECHELON: NSA'S SPYING NETWORK—Part 1/2
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ECHELON: NSA'S SPYING NETWORK—Part 1/2
By Patrick S. Poole.
With the ultra-high-tech ECHELON global electronic surveillance system in place, no phone, fax or e-mail communication is safe from the US National Security Agency, prime mover in the secret 1948 UKUSA agreement.
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ECHELON: NSA'S SPYING NETWORK—Part 2/2 By Patrick S. Poole. The US National Security Agency
ECHELON: NSA'S SPYING NETWORK—Part 2/2
By Patrick S. Poole.
The US National Security Agency uses the ECHELON global surveillance system to keep tabs on civilians and politicians as well as on foreign competitors of US corporations.