Earlier this month an ex-CIA employee and whistleblower, Edward Snowden, exposed the federal government’s 6-year old, clandestine initiative, referred to internally as PRISM, a covert data-gathering program that began in 2007 as a corollary to the Patriot Act of 2001.

This White House-directed, domestic-espionage project has been collecting phone logs of millions of U.S. citizens from major telecommunication giants (e.g., Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint) and emails from nine prominent Internet companies (e.g., Google, Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft) in a concerted effort to thwart future terrorist attacks.

History shows that PRISM has prevented numerous incidences, including a foiled backpack bombing plot in New York in 2009. Despite its undisputed success record, PRISM has ignited a national debate on whether the administration has gone too far seeking tighter security at the expense of civil liberties. In a statement to the American people, President Barack Obama argues that his actions are justified.

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