Google’s Eric Schmidt shared some of his thoughts on the latest disclosure from the NSA. Of particular interest were his comments surrounding the reports that the US government supposedly spied on global Google and Yahoo data centers. Schmidt called the suggestion “outrageous” and stated that if true, they would be potentially illegal acts. More controversy it seems from the Snowden documents.   And as reported in the Washington Post, the documents reveal that the National Security Agency had secretly broken into the main communications links that connect data center to data center of companies like Yahoo and Google. This pipeline of infiltrated information transports millions of records every single day from internal Yahoo and Google networks to the NSA data center at Fort Meade, MD. Consisting largely of metadata, the information is rich in context of email recipients, email senders, times documents were sent, address information and a variety of other content.

Basically the NSA hacked Google and Yahoo

The infiltration is especially striking because the NSA, under a separate program known as PRISM, has front-door access to Google and Yahoo user accounts through a court-approved process.  Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond states that the company has long been concerned about the possibility of this kind of snooping:

“We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform,”

Yahoo also similarly has stated that their security is of utmost importance and that they have not shared information with or given access to the NSA or any other government agencies.

All legal

Legally, where the NSA surveillance operates here should seem familiar as it appears that they are operating under Executive Order 12333, an area of surveillance and intelligence gathering that gives the agency much fewer restrictions, further room to operate and little oversight than they have found under the secret FISA court.  John Schindler, a former NSA chief analyst and frequent defender who teaches at the Naval War College, said it is obvious why the agency would prefer to avoid restrictions where it can.

“Look, NSA has platoons of lawyers, and their entire job is figuring out how to stay within the law and maximize collection by exploiting every loophole,” he said. “It’s fair to say the rules are less restrictive under Executive Order 12333 than they are under FISA,” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Schmidt has registered complaints with the NSA, with President Barack Obama, and members of Congress. He states:

“The National Security Agency allegedly collected the phone records of every phone call of 320 million people in order to identify roughly 300 people who might be a risk. That’s just bad public policy…and perhaps illegal,”

It’s not clear what legal statutes Schmidt was referring to, as the agency has been operating under secret powers as well as public ones throughout this operation.  Perhaps the laws he referred to are constitutional, an argument that many have openly been questioning since these revelations began.

National Intelligence officials have denied any legal circumvention however:

In a statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence denied that it was using executive authority to “get around the limitations” imposed by FISA.

Corporate effects?

Here’s the deal – up until now – Almost every indication throughout all these Snowden revelations was that NSA was interested in a broad sweep of general population. These operations have characterized, for better or worse, as civilian surveillance. Technology vendors, especially in security have found some solace in that perception and despite having cheated a large percentage of encryption standards, the surveillance has pretty much left corporations alone. This goes beyond social data however, or even chat or email data. What is being discussed here is another level. PRISM already collected plenty of information, and if you follow the trail of disclosures, companies are pushed to cooperate with the program. The NSA has hacked into the networks of these tech giants – a logical and perhaps physical security breach which if true, indicates an absolute disregard for the sovereign rights of a company. This latest disclosure may be a turning point for these surveillance operations on the whole.