Parliamentary committee says British spies did not break law by accessing NSA's PRISM data

LONDON – British lawmakers say their spies broke no law by accessing data gathered by the National Security Agency's recently exposed PRISM program.

Lawmakers on Britain's Intelligence and Security Committee say the PRISM program, first revealed by the Guardian and The Washington Post, is "specific and targeted" and that British spies who had access to it worked within the law.

The mechanics of PRISM are still little-understood, but initial reports described it as being able to draw data directly from the servers of Silicon Valley's biggest firms.

The revelation that the U.K. eavesdropping agency GCHQ also drew on the data sparked concerns that British spies were using PRISM to bypass U.K. rules on domestic espionage.

But a statement issued by the committee Wednesday said it had seen no evidence of wrongdoing.