If the most powerful country in the world is getting trolled with one pdf and five powerpoint slides, this is a masterwork. It would appear that the phone tapping is real, or functionally real, based on the reaction of the Senate and the telecoms. The internet companies replies, especially Google's, are quite different. Simply causing FUD is sufficient to disrupt a lot of US companies' dominance in the internet market.
A lot of countries stand to benefit from a crippled United States position in internet architecture. One of them is holding an internet security summit with the President today. All of them have powerpoint, and many of them have active intelligence programs of their own.
Skepticism is warranted... The long term effects of this hubbub should act to strengthen privacy and security worldwide.
Start ~2:00. http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/thefold/nsa-leak-source-...
The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson, compels Verizon to produce to the NSA electronic copies of "all call detail records or 'telephony metadata' created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad" or "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls".
The order directs Verizon to "continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order". It specifies that the records to be produced include "session identifying information", such as "originating and terminating number", the duration of each call, telephone calling card numbers, trunk identifiers, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number, and "comprehensive communication routing information".
This court order and the extremely wide net makes me believe the worst for the rest.
In which case, they could claim to be lawfully complying with information requests that are "not as broad", even if the system as designed makes it as easy for the NSA as hitting a "monitor this person" button.
It also wouldn't take vast systemic corporate knowledge. All centralized systems have centralized administrative control that allow for in-depth view and analysis of user accounts and data, and most large-scale systems have relatively powerful and easy-to-use tooling (especially to support customer service, sales, etc).
Complete access to those systems is generally restricted due to the likelihood for abuse, but there remain valid internal management reasons for such access.
Adding to those systems to allow the NSA unfettered (or barely fettered) access could be done without having to alert the entire organization that their internal management systems, which they built knowingly, and have no reason to distrust, have been subverted to allow for on-demand government spying.
It puts any conspiracies I've heard involving the US government to shame. You may not like the Chinese governments, but you need to look at the facts here: the slides were released by the Western media, the US has not denied their legitimacy or the existence of PRISM, and there is zero evidence for Chinese involvement.