PRISM Revelation: Tech Giants Entangled in State Surveillance Scandal

In June 2013, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked massive volumes of classified documents to the media, revealing a vast electronic surveillance program called PRISM. The files showed that multiple US tech giants, including Google, Microsoft, and Apple, had cooperated with the NSA, allowing government agencies direct access to user data and communications stored on their US servers.

This event triggered an unprecedented global debate on privacy rights, government power, and corporate responsibility. The scandal forced these tech companies to review their data storage and encryption policies and publicly call for greater government transparency, fundamentally altering the basis of user trust in large tech firms and accelerating global legislation on data sovereignty.