The NSA Spying Scandal: 5 Things You May Not Know

No. 5: How did the scandal break out?

Photo Credit: Ben Sutherland

The story was first revealed in The Guardian, a British newspaper, which posted a copy of a secret court order which compelled U.S.-based phone company Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) to hand out records of domestic phone calls to the National Security Agency (NSA).

Additionally, it was also revealed that the NSA was running a program called PRISM, which was used to collect data from several big corporations, such as Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). Apparently, the information was leaked by one of the NSA’s contractors, a guy named Edward Snowden, who is currently hiding away in Hong Kong, trying not to get extradited back to American soil.