How a VPN Protects You Against the NSA

If you’re an internet user living in the United States of America, you may know that the almighty NSA watches pretty much everything you do online, although they pay closer attention to some aspects over others. In fact, the NSA has its own online surveillance program called PRISM that was launched in 2007. You may recognize this from the major Edward Snowden scandal where he stated that the extent of data gathered was much bigger than what everyone was wondering.

What is PRISM and how can it hurt you?

In short, PRISM is a program that collects internet communications from at least nine major U.S. internet companies (ISPs) which means that everything you do – from Google searches to e-mails sent, Facebook information and much more – is stored in this government program’s database and can be later turned over if any data matches court-approved search terms. According to documents, this program is “the number one source of raw intelligence used for NSA analytic reports”, accounting to as much as 91% of all the internet traffic the NSA acquires.

What we mean by this is that – besides a company advertising for keeping no logs – if mandatory by the law of the territory they’re headquartered in, such company should be obliged to keep some records. Let’s take the case of PIA (Private Internet Access) as an example. This is one of the best VPNs out there and one of the top recommendations among Reddit users regarding torrenting. The company claims to be a no-log one, but they are indeed located in the U.S.