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Reports by The Guardian, The Washington Post, and other outlets said the NSA and FBI used the PRISM program to collect emails, video, photos, documents, and connection logs from major U.S. internet companies including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple, and PalTalk. U.S. officials acknowledged the program existed and said it operated under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to gather foreign intelligence on non-U.S. persons outside the United States, while a separate disclosure about Verizon call-record collection intensified scrutiny of U.S. surveillance powers.
Subsequent reporting alleged Microsoft worked with U.S. intelligence and law enforcement to help enable interception across Outlook.com, Hotmail, SkyDrive, and Skype, including capabilities that reportedly bypassed encryption for web chats and expanded collection of Skype video calls. Microsoft and other named companies publicly denied granting the government direct or blanket server access or building backdoors, saying they only complied with lawful, specific requests such as court orders and subpoenas, even as the disclosures fueled a global privacy controversy over the scale of U.S. digital surveillance and data sharing with agencies including the FBI and CIA.
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The Guardian reported from leaked documents that Microsoft had helped U.S. intelligence and law enforcement facilitate interception across Outlook.com, Hotmail, SkyDrive and Skype, while Microsoft denied providing blanket access or backdoors.
Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, AOL, PalTalk, Dropbox and others publicly denied providing the government with direct access to their servers, saying they only complied with specific lawful requests.
Following the initial disclosures, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper acknowledged PRISM's existence and said it was lawful, congressionally authorized, and not intended to target U.S. persons or people in the United States.
On June 6, 2013, news reports revealed the NSA and FBI were collecting internet communications data under the PRISM program from major technology companies, triggering broad public scrutiny of U.S. surveillance practices.
According to top-secret documents later reported by The Guardian, Microsoft worked with the FBI in late 2012 to develop a capability allowing the NSA to circumvent encryption for Outlook.com web chats.
Leaked documents reported that a new capability introduced in July 2012 led to a significant increase in NSA collection of Skype video communications.
Reporting on leaked NSA documents said the PRISM program had been in place since 2007, enabling collection of foreign intelligence data from major U.S. internet companies under FISA authorities.
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed to lawmakers that it bought and used Paragon Solutions spyware, including **Graphite**, in investigations tied to drug trafficking, fentanyl networks, and other organizations using encrypted communications. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said the deployment complied with constitutional requirements and the 2023 executive order restricting government use of commercial spyware, but House Democrats including **Rep. Summer Lee** said ICE had not provided enough documentation, safeguards, or oversight to justify such invasive surveillance. The disclosure followed the reactivation of ICE’s Paragon contract after an earlier suspension for review, and came amid wider controversy over reports linking Paragon spyware to targeting of journalists and activists. The admission intensified concerns that U.S. policy may be softening toward the commercial spyware industry even as evidence mounts that these vendors are driving serious cyber abuse. Reporting and research cited growing alarm over the lifting of sanctions on Intellexa executives, new U.S.-linked ownership of **NSO Group** and Paragon, and the expanding role of brokers, resellers, and other intermediaries that help spyware vendors evade export controls and obscure supply chains. Analysts also noted that Google attributed more zero-day exploitation to commercial surveillance vendors than to traditional state-backed groups in 2025, while lawmakers pressed for briefings on federal spyware use and U.S. investment in firms long associated with abuses involving **Pegasus**, **Predator**, and related surveillance tools.
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The **Trump administration** is moving to loosen long-standing restrictions on sharing domestic law enforcement information with the **CIA and other intelligence agencies**, potentially opening access to databases containing hundreds of millions of records, including FBI case files, banking records, and investigative material involving law-abiding Americans. Officials said the changes are being justified as part of efforts to target drug cartels and other transnational criminal groups that the administration has designated as terrorists, but the process has reportedly unfolded with **little transparency, limited legal debate, and minimal notice to Congress**, raising significant civil-liberties concerns. The broader policy debate over U.S. surveillance powers is reflected in parallel criticism of **Section 702** reauthorization efforts, with privacy advocates arguing that existing authorities already enable excessive collection and weak safeguards for Americans' data. Proposed reforms in the **SAFE Act** are being presented as an attempt to impose stronger limits on surveillance and intelligence access, underscoring concern that the government is expanding intelligence collection and information-sharing authorities faster than oversight and privacy protections are being strengthened.
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The **Department of Homeland Security** and the **FBI** are expanding use of commercially available surveillance and data-tracking capabilities, prompting renewed scrutiny over privacy, civil liberties, and oversight. DHS is reportedly preparing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on surveillance technology in 2026, including a **$1 billion** blanket purchase agreement with *Palantir* and additional investments in AI-enabled monitoring, mobile tracking, and tools from vendors such as *Cellebrite* and *Paragon Solutions*. Advocacy groups and lawmakers have warned that these programs broaden the government’s ability to scan faces, track cell phone activity, and monitor both immigrants and U.S. citizens while governance mechanisms fail to keep pace. The **FBI** separately confirmed it has resumed buying Americans’ location and other commercially available data from brokers, reviving a practice the bureau had previously said it was not actively pursuing. Director **Kash Patel** told lawmakers the agency uses purchased data in ways it says are consistent with the Constitution and the **Electronic Communications Privacy Act**, while Sen. **Ron Wyden** characterized the practice as a warrantless workaround to Fourth Amendment protections. Reporting on DHS also indicates declining transparency, with Privacy Impact Assessment filings falling sharply and the department’s inspector general accusing the agency of obstructing audits tied to biometric data management and immigration enforcement, reinforcing concerns that federal surveillance capabilities are growing faster than meaningful oversight.
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