Noah Shachtman · @NoahShachtman
8th Jun 2013 from TwitLonger
Exclusive: Top US general denies NYT PRISM story.
Today's New York Times reports that the nation's top military officer recently engaged in "negotiations" with Facebook, Google, and other tech giants to "build separate, secure portals, like a digital version of the secure physical rooms that have long existed for classified information, in some instances on company servers."
Without mentioning the program by name, the Times implies that this was part of the PRISM data-gathering project revealed this week by the Washington Post and the Guardian.
But Col. Dave Lapan, the spokesman for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, flatly denies the account.
"It's not accurate," Lapan tells me in an email. "Gen Dempsey's [July 2012] discussion with tech company leaders was not a negotiation, nor were there discussions of any domestic surveillance programs or intelligence-gathering."
"The purpose of the visit and meetings was to learn about innovation and the future of technology. Gen Dempsey learned about online education, how venture capital sponsors innovation, rode in Google's self driving car, met the Google X team, and delivered remarks to Facebook employees," Lapan adds.
"During the same trip, he also spent time at Stanford - Hoover - discussing Asia-Pacific rebalance and gave an address at the Commonwealth Club at their invitation."