Surveillance

About the Project

In August, ProPublica published a story, based on documents provided to The Guardian by Edward Snowden, that showed that intelligence agencies have worked to break and undermine internet security: www.propublica.org/article/the-nsas-secret-campaign-to-crack-undermine-internet-encryption

Other stories followed:

• One story detailed how the NSA and its British counterparts were spying on users of online games such as World of Warcaft: www.propublica.org/article/world-of-spycraft-intelligence-agencies-spied-in-online-games
  – We also detailed how the spy agencies have been using phone apps such as Angry Birds to gather data about users: www.propublica.org/article/spy-agencies-probe-angry-birds-and-other-apps-for-personal-data

The stories were accompanied by a mix of explainers, timelines and interactives to help orient readers on what is an enormously complex topic:

• An interactive video, done popup-video-style, detailed administration officials’ contradictory statements: projects.propublica.org/graphics/nsa-claims
• An interactive and story tracked how President Obama and others had credited the NSA with thwarting dozens of terrorist attacks despite a lack of evidence: projects.propublica.org/graphics/nsa-54-cases; and www.propublica.org/article/claim-on-attacks-thwarted-by-nsa-spreads-despite-lack-of-evidence

Our coverage has had impact. A government standards agency recommended against its own encryption standard that, as we had disclosed, had been undermined by the NSA. Our story also prompted pending legislation in Congress.