Remember the NSA's PRISM? In a ruling issued last month, federal judge John Gleeson became the first official to admit the existence of the NSA's notorious PRISM program. As you will recall, it was a program that gained the limelight after a document was leaked by the Edward Snowden the 2013. 
The program allows the "collection of data directly from the server" of American technology companies, such as Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Google, AOL and many others.
These companies immediately after the rage of the 2013 news claim that they did not know the program and that none of them gave access to the NSA.
So while the public knew of her existence since 2013, none of the secret services nor did President Obama openly admit the existence of the program.
But all of them knew the success of the NSA spying on programs like PRISM and proclaimed that secret service efforts halted dozens of terrorist attacks. The PRISM program was based on the rather vague 702 section of the FISA.
Section 702 also authorized upstream collection, a method that gives the NSA access to raw data on thenetwork και κάνει τη διάκριση μεταξύ των δύο προγραμμάτων (Upstream – PRISM) μια επαχθή πρόταση για κατηγορούμενους και τους δικηγconditions their.
Today, the federal court's decision marked the first time a distinction was made between the two government programs.
This case concerned Agron Hasbajrami, an Albanian citizen accused of conspiracy when he tried to travel to Pakistan to join a militant jihad group.
His arrest was possible when the NSA began to track through the PRISM program and managed to gain control over the communication of people who came into contact with Hasbajrami.
"To our knowledge, this is the first case where the targeted use of PRISM has been formally reported," said Andrew Crocker, an attorney for Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and counsel to Hasbajrami and other NSA defendants.
The distinction between programs is important, as up to now, the NSA has not verified the existence of the PRISM program.
Now, undoubtedly it could lead to greater transparency in the talks on government monitoring programs, but that is probably a wishful thinking.
