美國過去一週的頭版頭條，幾乎被政府暗中偵搜人民情資的新聞給占據，
電子監控權的限度，以及政府偵監人民的界線，引發了跨國性爭論。
雖然政府以安全為名，保證取得的資料量有限，且資料種類較不敏感；
但民眾仍擔心隱私與自由不保，害怕老大哥的眼睛會盯視著所有國民。
理想幻滅的前中央情報局電腦技術人員史諾登，曾以承包商身分在美國國家安全局工作，他9日自曝身分，承認自己是爆出多項政府監控行為的消息來源。這些消息上週刊登於《衛報》及《華盛頓郵報》。
公諸於世的消息，包括秘密法庭發布命令，指示威瑞森通訊公司交出3個月內的所有通話紀錄，以及美國國家安全局一項命名為「三稜鏡」（PRISM）的計畫，該計畫蒐羅電子信件、網路聊天紀錄及其他各種取自網路公司的資料，這些網路公司包括谷歌、臉書、微軟、雅虎、美國線上及蘋果等公司。
爆料的史諾登敲響警鐘，指出美國情報單位越界行為，這些情報單位在911後被賦予更多權力。
總統歐巴馬與國會的領導者，極力捍衛國家安全局的行動，認為合法且必要。美國國家情報總監克萊佩難得向外界回應有關「三稜鏡」的細節內容。美國司法部長霍德針對媒體洩密一事展開新一輪調查。
▲總統歐巴馬在華盛頓的艾森豪行政辦公大樓召開記者會，圖攝於2011年2月4日。（圖文／路透）
情報官員及科技公司表示，比起《衛報》及《華盛頓郵報》一開始揭露的消息，三稜鏡的侵犯程度較低。幾名了解矽谷大公司與情報官員談判的人士表示，美國國家安全局不能從公司的伺服器任意搜刮資料；而獲取資料的要求，必須跟據信是國外的特定帳戶有關。
議員擔憂 法律遭過度解讀
不過，消息披露以後，不只是引發民權倡議者的關切，過去支持過《愛國者法案》及另一項法律的議員們同感憂心。911後的《愛國者法案》，賦予情報機構新權限；另一項法案，則是讓電信業者在配合政府的監聽要求時可免於刑責。
「這是法律，但真正讓我憂心不已的是詮釋法律的方式。」民主黨參議員尤德爾9日在《美國廣播公司》上表示：「對我來說，就是侵犯我們的隱私，尤其是假如這是以我們不曉得的方式在進行時。」
對尤德爾與其他人而言，他們基本上關注的問題是，政府用電腦程式來掃視數百萬名美國人的通話習性及其他紀錄，以及被分析專家用來找尋跟恐怖分子或外國政府間的關聯性。儘管美國國家安全局基本上不准對美國公民進行秘密偵察。
一名前美國國家安全局高層告訴《路透》，像這樣大規模蒐集資料，對調查行動相當重要。「葉門一名已知的恐怖分子，打電話給美國的某個人，為什麼要打給他們、而美國的這個人若在其他地方打電話，又會發生甚麼事？」他問道：「乍看之下，這可能是恐怖主義巢穴的現形。」
▲位於馬里蘭州米德堡（Fort Meade）的美國國家安全局總部。（圖文／路透）
被指派到中央情報局反恐單位的前聯邦調查局官員羅西尼表示，美國國家安全局「基本上永久保留這些電子信件，我不認為這有甚麼問題。」他說。
羅西尼表示：「他們不是在細閱我們的資料，他們是把存成可供搜尋的電子檔。」同樣的，就像2006年一名美國電話電報公司（AT&T）爆料人士說的，從AT&T蒐羅到的龐大通話資料，也是一樣被存放在美國國家安全局掌控的設備裡。
《衛報》5日開始披露消息的報導，指出有秘密法庭要求威瑞森通訊公司交出3個月內的所有通話紀錄。要求範圍之廣，似乎戳破政府監控對象經過嚴格的篩選、沒有涉及多數美國公民的說法。
出賣用戶隱私 網路公司反駁
《衛報》與《華盛頓郵報》6日刊出美國國家安全局內部報告用的幻燈片，指稱三稜鏡計畫蒐集電子信件、文件及其他從9家美國網路公司「直接取自伺服器」的資訊。
這些公司立即反駁他們讓政府「直接取得大筆」資料的說法，而是堅稱他們是在遵守法律的情況下，僅按政府提出的要求給予特定的資訊。
不過，三稜鏡計畫的範圍之廣、圍繞其中的秘辛，以及這項計畫作為諜報行動的關鍵，在國會山莊及矽谷引發喧囂。美國國家安全局的幻燈片顯示，去年歐巴馬下達的情報指示中，有超過1,400筆的項目來自三稜鏡計畫。
目前仍不曉得網路公司如何將資訊提供給政府，一部分原因是實際上所有跟三稜鏡計畫有關的事物，被視為是國家安全機密。也不清楚的是，為何有些公司（特別是推特）表示，他們有辦法拒絕政府，而且不在三稜鏡計畫投影片所揭示的名單中。
確實，對美國國家安全局來說，三稜鏡計畫顯然是有效的工具，這恰恰是因為美國企業主導了網路，外國人士的全球通訊甚至也要經常通過美國。歐洲國家對此感到頭疼，因為他們宣稱要培育本地科技公司，用以對抗美國對經濟及政治的主宰。（路透）
A disillusioned former CIA computer technician named Edward Snowden, who had worked as a contactor at the NSA, identified himself on Sunday as the source of multiple disclosures on the government's surveillance（1） that were published by the Guardian and the Washington Post last week.
The information included a secret court order directing Verizon Communications Inc to turn over all its calling records for a three-month period, and details about an NSA program code-named PRISM, which collected emails, chat logs and other types of data from Internet companies. These included Google Inc, Facebook Inc, Microsoft Corp , Yahoo Inc, AOL Inc and Apple Inc .
Snowden cast himself as a whistleblower（2） alarmed about overreaching by the U.S. intelligence establishment, which was given broad powers after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
President Barack Obama and congressional leaders have vigorously defended the NSA's efforts as both legal and necessary. U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper took the rare step of responding in detail to stories about PRISM. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department has launched a new round of investigations into media leaks.
Intelligence officials and the technology companies say PRISM is much less invasive than initially suggested by stories in the Guardian and the Post. Several people familiar with negotiations between the Silicon Valley giants and intelligence officials said the NSA could not rummage at will through company servers and that requests for data had to be about specific accounts believed to be overseas.
Still, the revelations alarmed civil liberties advocates and some lawmakers who had supported the Patriot Act, which gave intelligence agencies new powers after 9/11, and another law granting telecommunication carriers immunity（3） for evesdropping（4） at the request of the government.
"This is the law, but the way the law is being interpreted has really concerned me," Democratic Senator Mark Udall said on ABC on Sunday. "It's just to me a violation of our privacy, particularly if it's done in ways that we don't know about."
Of primary concern for Udall and others was that millions of Americans have had their phone habits and other records perused by computer programs and analysts hunting for connections to terrorists or foreign governments - even though the NSA is generally barred from spying on U.S. citizens.
One former high-ranking NSA official told Reuters that such broad assembly of records was essential to investigations. If "a known terrorist in Yemen calls someone in the U.S., why did he call them and what happened when the person in U.S. starts making calls elsewhere in the U.S.?" he asked. "On the surface it looks like the emergence of a terrorism cell."
The NSA "keeps the emails essentially forever. I don't think there is any question about it," said Mark Rossini, a former FBI official who was assigned to a CIA counter-terrorism unit and who said he was briefed on PRISM.
"They are not reading our data, they are storing it in bits and bytes that can be searched," Rossini said. The same is likely true of the mass of phone calls copied from AT&T Inc offices to facilities controlled by the NSA, as disclosed by an AT&T whistleblower in 2006, he added.
The revelations began on Wednesday with a Guardian report on a secret court order demanding all Verizon phone records over a three-month period. The scope of the request appeared to undermine the government's contention that its surveillance efforts are highly targeted and do not involve large numbers of U.S. citizens.
On Thursday, the Guardian and the Washington Post published slides from an internal NSA presentation asserting that PRISM gathered emails, documents and other information "directly from the servers" of nine U.S. Internet companies.
The companies quickly disputed the claim that they offered "direct access" to "bulk" data and insisted that they responded only to requests for specific information as required by law.
Still, the scope of the program, the secrecy surrounding it, and its emergence as a lynchpin of U.S. espionage（5） operations created an uproar on Capitol Hill and in Silicon Valley. The NSA slides stated that more than 1,400 items in Obama's intelligence briefings last year came from PRISM.
It remains unclear exactly how the Internet companies provide information to the government, in part because virtually everything about PRISM is considered a national security secret. It was also not clear why some companies, notably Twitter, said they were able to resist and were absent from the PRISM slides.
Indeed, PRISM appears to be an effective tool for the NSA precisely because U.S. companies dominate the Internet, and global communications even among people overseas often pass through the United States. That is galling to those in Europe who have argued that local technology companies need to be nurtured to combat U.S. economic and political domination.（Reuters）
關鍵字詞
1.surveillance （n.）監視
2.whistleblower（n.）爆料者
3.immunity（n.）豁免
4.evesdropping（n.）竊聽
5.espionage（n.）間諜活動