NSA infiltrates Yahoo, Google networks

Newly leaked documents show the US National Security Agency infiltrates the main communication links that connect Yahoo and Google’s data centers outside the US.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post broke the story based on documents obtained from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials.
According to the Post’s report, the US spy agency, along with its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), secretly breaks into the internal networks of Yahoo and Google and intercepts information flowing between data centers that these two largest Internet companies by overall data traffic maintain across the globe.
By tapping into those networks, the NSA collects hundreds of millions of user accounts belonging to all people around the world.
According to a top secret document, the NSA sends millions of records every day from the two Internet companies to data warehouses at its headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland.
The records collected by the NSA range from “metadata,” information like who sent or received emails and when, to content including text, audio, and video.
The NSA already collects large amounts of online communications under a program, codenamed PRISM, which requires US Internet companies, including Yahoo and Google, to hand over their users’ data after they receive orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.