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Secret Documents Say NSA Had Broad Scope, Scant Oversight: Report

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Kara Dunlap in Security

WASHINGTON – The US National Security Agency has been authorized to intercept information “concerning” all but four countries worldwide, top-secret documents say, according to The Washington Post.

“The United States has long had broad no-spying arrangements with those four countries – Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand,” the Post reported Monday.

Yet “a classified 2010 legal certification and other documents indicate the NSA has been given a far more elastic authority than previously known, one that allows it to intercept through US companies not just the communications of its overseas targets but any communications about its targets as well.”

The certification – approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and included among a set of documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden — says 193 countries are “of valid interest for US intelligence.”

The certification also let the agency gather intelligence about entities such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the report said.

“These documents show both the potential scope of the government’s surveillance activities and the exceedingly modest role the court plays in overseeing them,” Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union who had the documents described to him, told the Post.

The report stresses the NSA did not necessarily target nearly all countries but had authorization to do so.

It should come as cold comfort to Germany which was outraged by revelations last year that the NSA eavesdropped on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone, as well as about wider US surveillance programs of Internet and phone communications.

Germany’s parliament is investigating the extent of spying by the US National Security Agency and its partners on German citizens and politicians, and whether German intelligence aided its activities.

The privacy issue is a particularly sensitive one in formerly divided Germany.

Ties between Washington and Europe more broadly, as well as other nations such as Brazil, have been strained since the revelations, despite assurances from US President Barack Obama that he is ending spy taps on friendly world leaders.

The Obama administration has insisted the NSA needs tools to be able to thwart terror attacks not just against the United States, but also its allies.

Snowden, a 30-year-old former NSA contractor was granted temporary asylum by Russia last August after shaking the American intelligence establishment to its core with a series of devastating leaks on mass surveillance in the US and around the world.

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NSA Scoops Up Images for Facial Recognition Programs: Report

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Kara Dunlap in Security

WASHINGTON – The US National Security Agency is scooping up large quantities of images of people for use in facial recognition programs, the New York Times reported Sunday, citing top secret documents.

The Times said documents, which were obtained from fugitive former US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, show a significant increase in reliance on facial recognition technology at the agency over the past four years.

The report said the NSA was using new software to exploit a flood of images included in intercepted emails, text messages, social media posts, video conferences and other communications.

It cited leaked 2011 documents as saying the NSA intercepts “millions of images per day,” including 55,000 “facial recognition quality images.”

The images represented “tremendous untapped potential,” according to the report, which said NSA officials believe advances in technology could revolutionize the way the agency finds intelligence targets.

“It’s not just the traditional communications we’re after: It’s taking a full-arsenal approach that digitally exploits the clues a target leaves behind in their regular activities on the net to compile biographic and biometric information” that can help “implement precision targeting,” a 2010 document quoted by the newspaper said.

The Times said it wasn’t clear how many people, including how many Americans, had been caught up in the effort, but noted that neither US privacy laws nor US surveillance laws provide specific protections for facial images.

A NSA spokeswoman said, however, that the agency would be required to get court approval for imagery of Americans it collects through its surveillance programs.

The agency has been at the center of controversy over the scope of its global electronic surveillance program since they were first revealed by Snowden in June 2013.

The former intelligence contractor is in Russia, where he was granted temporary political asylum last year.

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NSA Spies on China Telecoms Giant Huawei: Report

Posted on March 23, 2014 by Kara Dunlap in Security

WASHINGTON – The US National Security Agency has secretly tapped into the networks of Chinese telecom and internet giant Huawei, the New York Times and Der Spiegel reported on their websites Saturday.

The NSA accessed Huawei’s email archive, communication between top company officials internal documents, and even the secret source code of individual Huawei products, read the reports, based on documents provided by fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

“We currently have good access and so much data that we don’t know what to do with it,” states one internal document cited by Der Spiegel.

Huawei — founded in 1987 by former People’s Liberation Army engineer Ren Zhengfei — has long been seen by Washington as a potential security Trojan Horse due to perceived close links to the Chinese government, which it denies.

The United States and Australia have barred Huawei from involvement in broadband projects over espionage fears.

Shenzhen-based Huawei is one of the world’s leading network equipment providers and is the world’s third-largest smartphone vendor.

The original goal of Operation “Shotgiant” was to find links between Huawei and the Chinese military, according to a 2010 document cited by The Times.

But it then expanded with the goal of learning how to penetrate Huawei computer and telephone networks sold to third countries.

“Many of our targets communicate over Huawei-produced products,” the NSA document read, according to The Times.

“We want to make sure that we know how to exploit these products,” it added, to “gain access to networks of interest” around the world.

Huawei is a major competitor to US-based Cisco Systems Inc. – but US officials insist that the spy agencies are not waging an industrial espionage campaign on behalf of US companies, as Snowden has alleged.

“The fact that we target foreign companies for intelligence is not part of any economic espionage,” a senior intelligence official told reporters Thursday.

The goal of economic intelligence efforts is “to support national security interests,” and “not to try to help Boeing,” the official said.