US spy chief Clapper defends Prism and phone surveillance

[Peter Lemkin]

Today on "This Week," Glenn Greenwald - the reporter who broke the story about the National Security Agency's surveillance programs - claimed that those NSA programs allowed even low-level analysts to search the private emails and phone calls of Americans.
"The NSA has trillions of telephone calls and emails in their databases that they've collected over the last several years," Greenwald told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos. "And what these programs are, are very simple screens, like the ones that supermarket clerks or shipping and receiving clerks use, where all an analyst has to do is enter an email address or an IP address, and it does two things. It searches that database and lets them listen to the calls or read the emails of everything that the NSA has stored, or look at the browsing histories or Google search terms that you've entered, and it also alerts them to any further activity that people connected to that email address or that IP address do in the future."
Greenwald explained that while there are "legal constraints" on surveillance that require approval by the FISA court, these programs still allow analysts to search through data with little court approval or supervision.
"There are legal constraints for how you can spy on Americans," Greenwald said. "You can't target them without going to the FISA court. But these systems allow analysts to listen to whatever emails they want, whatever telephone calls, browsing histories, Microsoft Word documents."
"And it's all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst," he added.
But the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee told Stephanopoulos he would be shocked if such programs existed.
"It wouldn't just surprise me, it would shock me," Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Georgia, said on "This Week" Sunday.
Chambliss said he recently spent time with NSA officials and was assured that the programs Greenwald describes have been exaggerated.
"I was back out at NSA just last week, spent a couple hours out there with high and low level NSA officials," Chambliss said. "And what I have been assured of is that there is no capability at NSA for anyone without a court order to listen to any telephone conversation or to monitor any e-mail."
Chambliss said that any monitoring of emails is purely "accidental."
"In fact, we don't monitor emails. That's what kind of assures me is that what the reporting is is not correct. Because no emails are monitored now," Chambliss said. "They used to be, but that stopped two or three years ago. So I feel confident that there may have been some abuse, but if it was it was pure accidental."
But Greenwald said the existence of these analyst search programs are in line with the claims of Edward Snowden, who first leaked details of the NSA's surveillance programs last month.
Glenn Greenwald

"It's an incredibly powerful and invasive tool, exactly of the type that Mr. Snowden described," Greenwald said.
NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander and House Intelligence leaders have previously downplayed Snowden's access to NSA data. Greenwald said the revelation of this search capability deserves a response from NSA officials.
"NSA officials are going to be testifying before the Senate on Wednesday, and I defy them to deny that these programs work exactly as I just said," Greenwald said.
Greenwald also called on lawmakers to push for more information about the NSA's surveillance programs.
"The real issue here is that what the NSA does is done in complete secrecy. Nobody really monitors who they are eavesdropping on," Greenwald said. "So the question of abuse is one that the Congress ought to be investigating much more aggressively."

[Jan Klimkowski]

Bruce Fein & Associates, Inc.
722 12th Street, N.W., 4th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20005
Phone: 703-963-4968
bruce@thelichfieldgroup.com

July 26, 2013
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
Re: Civil Disobedience, Edward J. Snowden, and the Constitution
Dear Mr. President:
You are acutely aware that the history of liberty is a history of civil disobedience to unjust laws or practices. As Edmund Burke sermonized, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
Civil disobedience is not the first, but the last option. Henry David Thoreau wrote with profound restraint in Civil Disobedience: "If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine."
Thoreau's moral philosophy found expression during the Nuremburg trials in which "following orders" was rejected as a defense. Indeed, military law requires disobedience to clearly illegal orders.
A dark chapter in America's World War II history would not have been written if the then United States Attorney General had resigned rather than participate in racist concentration camps imprisoning 120,000 Japanese American citizens and resident aliens.
Civil disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act and Jim Crow laws provoked the end of slavery and the modern civil rights revolution.
We submit that Edward J. Snowden's disclosures of dragnet surveillance of Americans under § 215 of the Patriot Act, § 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments, or otherwise were sanctioned by Thoreau's time-honored moral philosophy and justifications for civil disobedience. Since 2005, Mr. Snowden had been employed by the intelligence community. He found himself complicit in secret, indiscriminate spying on millions of innocent citizens contrary to the spirit if not the letter of the First and Fourth Amendments and the transparency indispensable to self-government. Members of Congress entrusted with oversight remained silent or Delphic. Mr. Snowden confronted a choice between civic duty and passivity. He may have recalled the injunction of Martin Luther King, Jr.: "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it." Mr. Snowden chose duty. Your administration vindictively responded with a criminal complaint alleging violations of the Espionage Act.

Great letter from Snowden's father.

And it's fallen on wilfully deaf ears.

[Peter Lemkin]

Internet Fascism and the Surveillance State

July 30th, 2013

" … The NSA presents its surveillance operations as being directed toward security issues. … However, secret NSA documents reveal that their surveillance is used to gather intelligence to achieve political goals for the US government. … The true purpose of the NSA is not to keep us safe. Its goal is to own the internet, to own our communications, to own our private thoughts to own us. … "

Jul 15, 2013

Ben O'Neill writes: What is the purpose of telecommunication and internet surveillance? The NSA presents its surveillance operations as being directed toward security issues, claiming that the programs are needed to counter terrorist attacks. Bald assertions of plots foiled are intended to bolster this claim. However, secret NSA documents reveal that their surveillance is used to gather intelligence to achieve political goals for the US government.

Agency documents show extensive surveillance of communications from allied governments, including the targeting of embassies and missions. Reports from an NSA whistleblower also allege that the agency has targeted and intercepted communications from a range of high-level political and judicial officials, anti-war groups, US banking firms and other major companies and non-government organizations. This suggests that the goal of surveillance is the further political empowerment of the NSA and the US government.

Ostensibly, the goal of the NSA surveillance is to prevent terrorist acts that would harm or kill people in the United States. But in reality, the primary goal is to enable greater control of that population (and others) by the US government. When questioned about this issue, NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake was unequivocal about the goal of the NSA: "to own the internet and find out what everybody is doing."

"To own the internet" Public-private partnerships in mass surveillance

The internet is, by its very nature, a decentralized arrangement, created by the interaction of many private and government servers operating on telecommunications networks throughout the world. This has always been a major bugbear of advocates for government control, who have denigrated this decentralized arrangement as being "lawless." Since it began to expand as a tool of mass communication for ordinary people, advocates for greater government power have fought a long battle to bring the internet "under control" i.e., under their control.
The goal of government "ownership of the internet" entails accessing the facilities that route traffic through the network. This is gradually being done through government control of the network infrastructure and the gradual domination of the primary telecommunications and internet companies that provide the facilities for routing traffic through the network. Indeed, one noteworthy aspect of the mass surveillance system of the NSA is that it has allegedly involved extensive cooperation with many "private" firms operating under US law. This has allegedly included major security, telecommunications and internet companies, as well as producers of network software and hardware.
Examples of such "public-private partnerships" are set out in leaked documents of the NSA. An unnamed US telecommunications company is reported to provide the NSA with mass surveillance data on the communications of non-US people under its FAIRVIEW program. Several major computing and internet companies have also been explicitly named in top secret internal NSA material as being current providers for the agency under its PRISM program. Several of these companies have issued denials disavowing any participation in, or prior knowledge of the program, but this has been met with some scepticism. (Indeed, given that the NSA did not anticipate public release of its own internal training material, it is unlikely that the agency would have any cause to lie about the companies they work with in this material. This suggests that the material may be accurate.)
Many of these companies have supplied the NSA with data from their own customers, or created systems which allow the agency access to the information flowing through telecommunications networks. They have done so without disclosure to their own customers of the surveillance that has occurred, by using the blanket advisement that they "comply with lawful requests for information." By virtue of being subject to the jurisdiction of US statutes, all of these companies have been legally prohibited from discussing any of their dealings with the NSA and they have been well placed for retaliatory action by the many regulatory agencies of the US government if they do not cooperate. In any case, it appears from present reports that many companies have been active partners of the agency, assisting the NSA with illegal surveillance activities by supplying data under programs with no legitimate legal basis.
This has been a common historical pattern in the rise of totalitarian States, which have often sought to incorporate large business concerns into their network of power. Indeed, the very notion of "public-private partnerships" in this sector readily brings to mind the worst aspects of fascist economic systems that have historically existed. The actions of US companies that have cooperated in the NSA's mass surveillance operations calls into question the "private" status of these companies. In many ways these companies have acted as an extension of the US government, providing information illegally, in exchange for privileges and intelligence. According to media reports, "Such cooperation is an extremely delicate issue for the companies involved. Many have promised their customers data confidentiality in their terms and conditions. Furthermore, they are obliged to follow the laws of the countries in which they do business. As such, their cooperation deals with the NSA are top secret. Even in internal NSA documents, they are only referred to by the use of code names."
We began this discussion by asking the purpose of telecommunication and internet surveillance. The answer lies in the uses to which those surveillance powers are being put, and will inevitably be put, as the capacity of the NSA expands. The true purpose of the NSA is not to keep us safe. Its goal is to own the internet, to own our communications, to own our private thoughts to own us.
Ben O'Neill is a lecturer in statistics at the University of New South Wales (ADFA) in Canberra, Australia. He has formerly practiced as a lawyer and as a political adviser in Canberra. He is a Templeton Fellow at the Independent Institute, where he won first prize in the 2009 Sir John Templeton Fellowship essay contest. Send him mail.

[Jeffrey Orling]

This makes sense....but I have to ask...how is this control manifest in ownership as alleged? One can see that information can be used for blackmail or similar abuses which end in legal problems for people or even worse. I suppose if you consider killing and torture fine using illl gotten data may be just another means to identify any person who would resist or be some sort of political threat to those in control... just another tool for the palace to keep them in control and the serfs in their places.

This all might have a chilling effect on free speech and communications... imtimidating people. That's not good at all. I'm wondering however if this is really not a tenebkle idea... as it becomes almost impossible to deal with millions and millions of discontents discovered via this surveillance in any other manner than to shut down the internet of engage in mass arrests and so forth. Is this spying only going to be used by them to route out what they think are the leaders? Intimidation does work... maybe that is the approach to force people to supine positions... make a few examples of what happens when you stand up or stand out and assume that people will act in their self preservation interest and zip it up and do as they are told?

I am thinking this is going to back fire for some reason. I don't see them turning off the http://www... abut I do see some nasty examples being made of people whenever they can. I don't see too many dissenters being silenced yet... bloggers and so forth. Their behavior toward those who expose criminality is telling. They are looking desperate with Assange and Snowdon and the treatment of those they get their hands on is chilling and probably less intimidating to then they had hoped for. I hope more come out of the woodwork...

[Keith Millea]

Published on Wednesday, July 31, 2013 by Common Dreams

'Surprise' Obama Visit Bumps Critical Hearing on NSA Spying

Testimony of Greenwald, ACLU, and others canceled due to suspicious last-minute visit from Obama

- Sarah Lazare, staff writer

A widely anticipated Wednesday hearing from critics of the NSA on the floor of the House has been suddenly pulled after Obama called a surprise meeting with House Democrats.

President Obama appears beside Director of National Intelligence James Clapper

Critics of the National Security Agency's secret spying program were slated for an unofficial congressional hearing Wednesday as a counter-weight to the "constant misleading information"as Congressman Alan Grayson (D - Flor.) put itfrom the secret surveillance community.

Yet, the hearing was abruptly cancelled after President Obama's last-minute interest in meeting with House Democrats at the exact time of the scheduled hearing.

NSA critics suggest that Obama sought to derail the hearing, part of the increasingly desperate White House effort to contain growing public outrage at the spying. "Obama developed a sudden and newfound interest in House Democrats and scheduled a meeting with them for that same time," Greenwald told Politico Tuesday.

The hearing was set to feature a swath of NSA critics from the right and leftwhose voices have been excluded from congressional debates dominated by NSA and national intelligence directorsincluding Greenwald who broke the NSA spying story, NSA whistleblower Kirk Wiebe, and officials from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Cato Institute.

"Rather than asking our Democratic colleagues to choose between speaking with the President of the United States, or attend a hearing on the immensely important topic of domestic surveillance, we reluctantly opted to push the hearing back," Grayson's press secretary Lauren Doney told Common Dreams Wednesday.

"I'm not in a position to speculate on the President's motivation for meeting with the Democratic Caucus this week," Doney told Common Dreams, in response to questions about whether Obama may have intentionally created a time conflict. She claimed that the hearing will be rescheduled sometime in September after the Congressional recess but said there is currently no set date.

The hearing was to take place as a recent McClatchy-Marist poll shows people in the US are furious at NSA spying, days after a legislative attempt to curb the spying died before getting off the ground.

[Jan Klimkowski]

TIs this spying only going to be used by them to route out what they think are the leaders? Intimidation does work... maybe that is the approach to force people to supine positions... make a few examples of what happens when you stand up or stand out and assume that people will act in their self preservation interest and zip it up and do as they are told?

I am thinking this is going to back fire for some reason. I don't see them turning off the http://www... abut I do see some nasty examples being made of people whenever they can. I don't see too many dissenters being silenced yet... bloggers and so forth. Their behavior toward those who expose criminality is telling. They are looking desperate with Assange and Snowdon and the treatment of those they get their hands on is chilling and probably less intimidating to then they had hoped for. I hope more come out of the woodwork...

There are only ever a few people with real cojones.

Capitalist change management theory is built around this world view.

A few years ago, I created a thread entitled Are you a Collaborator, a Resistor, an Anarchist?

Here's my opening post:

I recently had cause to analyze change management theory, which is the "philosophy" (usually sold by consultants to management for hefty fees) of how to drive through change in an organisation.

This change will commonly result in job losses and, for the employees who survive, a regimen of more work for less pay on inferior terms and conditions.

Classic change management theory divides an organisation's employees into different categories:

- Collaborators;

- Adopters;

- The Ambivalent;

- Resistors;

- Anarchists.

See a change management analysis detailing how "change agents" (ie managers and supervisors) should deal with each category of employee here.

Here are some excerpts of guidance given by a change management consultant:

- Collaborators: "These people need to be rewarded for their actions on behalf of the change";

- Adopters: "These people can be leveraged to help implement the changes across the organization and need to be rewarded for their intelligence";

- The Ambivalent: "The Ambivalent comprise the bulk of the staff in the organization and they do not care who is in charge or what changes are being made so long as they are left alone to get their jobs done as before. They have been jaded by the "reorg of the month" and all of the management fads that have been started and have failed. They believe that if they keep their heads down and do nothing, a new management strategy will come along to replace the current one and they will be left alone. They don't see how the new strategy will improve their lives. These are the people to focus on and help them become supporters and adopters of the new changes";

- Resistors: "if the Change Agent is unwilling to listen to the Resistors, or if the Resistors are unwilling to work with the Change Agent, then the Resistors will sabotage the changes and must be identified and terminated quickly so their actions do not influence others to become Resistors";

- Anarchists: "Anarchists are those who are against changing or not changing in equal measure. They hated the previous leaders and they hate the Change Agent. They believe that only they know what is right for the organization and will not compromise on their single-minded beliefs and purposes. Anarchists cannot be turned, and will sabotage the strategy and vision at every opportunity. Anarchists must be identified and terminated quickly so their actions do not influence others to become Resistors or Anarchists".

------------------------

Classic change management theory focuses on using the Collaborators and Adopters to persuade the mass of employees - "The Ambivalent" - to accept the proposals for change.

There may be limited engagement with "Resistors", but essentially change management theory recommends not bothering to attempt to persuade the "Resistors" and "Anarchists" to accept the change proposals. Instead, they are cast into the wilderness. Or, in mundane terms, "Resistors" and "Anarchists" are selected for redundancy.

So, the moral compass of C21st global financial capitalism declares Collaborators and Adopters (aka Lackeys) as Heroes, and Resistors and Anarchists as Heretics to be cast out.

The great mass of employees are seen as sheep to be manipulated into accepting change which harms their families, friends and themselves.

This change management model is highly revealing.

The fundamental assumptions it reveals are clearly those applied by the Powerful across our nations and continents, in all spheres of life.

[Albert Rossi]

TIs this spying only going to be used by them to route out what they think are the leaders? Intimidation does work... maybe that is the approach to force people to supine positions... make a few examples of what happens when you stand up or stand out and assume that people will act in their self preservation interest and zip it up and do as they are told?

I am thinking this is going to back fire for some reason. I don't see them turning off the www... abut I do see some nasty examples being made of people whenever they can. I don't see too many dissenters being silenced yet... bloggers and so forth. Their behavior toward those who expose criminality is telling. They are looking desperate with Assange and Snowdon and the treatment of those they get their hands on is chilling and probably less intimidating to then they had hoped for. I hope more come out of the woodwork...

There are only ever a few people with real cojones.

Capitalist change management theory is built around this world view.

A few years ago, I created a thread entitled Are you a Collaborator, a Resistor, an Anarchist?

Here's my opening post:

I recently had cause to analyze change management theory, which is the "philosophy" (usually sold by consultants to management for hefty fees) of how to drive through change in an organisation.

This change will commonly result in job losses and, for the employees who survive, a regimen of more work for less pay on inferior terms and conditions.

Classic change management theory divides an organisation's employees into different categories:

- Collaborators;

- Adopters;

- The Ambivalent;

- Resistors;

- Anarchists.

See a change management analysis detailing how "change agents" (ie managers and supervisors) should deal with each category of employee here.

Here are some excerpts of guidance given by a change management consultant:

- Collaborators: "These people need to be rewarded for their actions on behalf of the change";

- Adopters: "These people can be leveraged to help implement the changes across the organization and need to be rewarded for their intelligence";

- The Ambivalent: "The Ambivalent comprise the bulk of the staff in the organization and they do not care who is in charge or what changes are being made so long as they are left alone to get their jobs done as before. They have been jaded by the "reorg of the month" and all of the management fads that have been started and have failed. They believe that if they keep their heads down and do nothing, a new management strategy will come along to replace the current one and they will be left alone. They don't see how the new strategy will improve their lives. These are the people to focus on and help them become supporters and adopters of the new changes";

- Resistors: "if the Change Agent is unwilling to listen to the Resistors, or if the Resistors are unwilling to work with the Change Agent, then the Resistors will sabotage the changes and must be identified and terminated quickly so their actions do not influence others to become Resistors";

- Anarchists: "Anarchists are those who are against changing or not changing in equal measure. They hated the previous leaders and they hate the Change Agent. They believe that only they know what is right for the organization and will not compromise on their single-minded beliefs and purposes. Anarchists cannot be turned, and will sabotage the strategy and vision at every opportunity. Anarchists must be identified and terminated quickly so their actions do not influence others to become Resistors or Anarchists".

------------------------

Classic change management theory focuses on using the Collaborators and Adopters to persuade the mass of employees - "The Ambivalent" - to accept the proposals for change.

There may be limited engagement with "Resistors", but essentially change management theory recommends not bothering to attempt to persuade the "Resistors" and "Anarchists" to accept the change proposals. Instead, they are cast into the wilderness. Or, in mundane terms, "Resistors" and "Anarchists" are selected for redundancy.

So, the moral compass of C21st global financial capitalism declares Collaborators and Adopters (aka Lackeys) as Heroes, and Resistors and Anarchists as Heretics to be cast out.

The great mass of employees are seen as sheep to be manipulated into accepting change which harms their families, friends and themselves.

This change management model is highly revealing.

The fundamental assumptions it reveals are clearly those applied by the Powerful across our nations and continents, in all spheres of life.

Jan, a powerful analogy, indeed.

[Magda Hassan]

National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander was jeered as he pleaded with professional hackers and cyber-security experts to reconsider the indiscriminate NSA surveillance during a speech at the annual Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Alexander claimed that the surveillance methods, disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, have been mischaracterized by the media and are subject to rigorous government oversight. He was approximately 30 minutes into his speech when an audience member, later revealed to be 30-year-old security consultant Jon McCoy, shouted "Freedom!"
"Exactly," Alexander replied from the stage. "We stand for freedom."
"Bullshit!" McCoy said.
"Not bad," the NSA director retorted. "But I think what you're saying is that in these cases, what's the distinction, where's the discussion and what tools do we have to stop this."
"No, I'm saying I don't trust you," McCoy said over applause.
"You lied to Congress," another voice jumped in. "Why would people believe you're not lying to us right now?"
"I haven't lied to Congress," said Alexander, who is notoriously press averse. "I do think it's important for us to have this discussion. Because in my opinion, what you believe is what's written in the press without looking at the facts. This is the greatest technical center of gravity in the world. I ask that you all look at those facts."
Hacker Karsten Nohl, who attended the conference, told RT that Alexander's speech, while applauded by supporters, offered little new information in his defense of the program.
"I think General Alexander's aim was to reach out to the community and start a dialog with security experts, or at the very least make it look as if he did," he said. "He came out saying that he wanted to share new information but really all that he did was to confirm what everybody had already known."
"He emphasized over and over again that they are just collecting it but not actually looking at it except for in very few cases and the few he mentioned were terrorism cases," Nohl continued. "Of course that now leads to all kinds of criticisms in terms of trust the NSA to have this data and not using it. To me, at least, that was not very convincing."
The general was asked to give the keynote address before Snowden revealed the existence of the PRISM and Tempora electronic programs as well as orders directing Verizon Communications to turn over the phone records for millions of Americans. Black Hat organizers told CBS Alexander could have opted out of the conference but chose not to.
He admitted the NSA's public image has been damaged, but claimed only 35 employees are authorized to review phone surveillance queries, and only 22 who can actually approve the monitoring of specific phone numbers.
"Their reputation has been tarnished," he said. "But you can help us articulate the facts properly. I will answer every question to the fullest extent possible, and I promise you the truth: What I know, what we're doing, and what I cannot tell you because we don't want to jeopardize the future of our defense."
US Congressmen admitted frustration with Alexander earlier this year when the NSA chief offered the vague assertion that the data collection has "helped thwart dozens of terrorist events."
Alexander maintained the surveillance is legal because it was approved by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approved 1,748 surveillance applications of the 1,789 it received.
"I've heard the court is a rubber stamp," he said. "I'm on the other end of that table, against the table of judges that don't take any I'm trying to think of a word here from even a four-star general. They want to make sure that what we're doing comports with the constitution and the law. I can tell you from the wire brushing I've received, they are not a rubber stamp."
Alexander claimed the agency has the capability to monitor its own employees, a somewhat odd revelation in light of a recent claim from an NSA staffer who denied they could search staff emails. Pro Public filed and Freedom of Information Act request seeking emails between employees and the National Geographic channel, which reporters suspect of airing sympathetic documentaries on the NSA.
"There's no central method to search an email at this time with the way our records are set up, unfortunately," an NSA spokesperson said last week, a claim seemingly at odds with Alexander's speech.
"The assumption is our people are just out there wheeling and dealing," he said Wednesday. "Nothing could be further from the truth. We have tremendous oversight over these programs. We audit the actions of our people 100 per cent."
http://rt.com/usa/nsa-alexander-heckled-speech-877/

[Peter Lemkin]

Just listened to an interview with the hacker who is in charge of the two main hacker conventions held every year - one of which Clapper was booed at yesterday. He also has a cyber-security company and is in intimate touch with the hacking and cyber-security world - both the defensive and offensive sides. He was saying that those working on DEFENSIVE cyber-security were currently VERY UPSET and at a loss as to how anyone or any company could currently protect themselves.....:phone::poketongue:angryfire ! [i.e. have some privacy and security] :loco:

[Magda Hassan]

XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

XKeyscore gives 'widest-reaching' collection of online data
NSA analysts require no prior authorization for searches
Sweeps up emails, social media activity and browsing history
NSA's XKeyscore program read one of the presentations

• Glenn Greenwald
  
• theguardian.com, Wednesday 31 July 2013 22.56 AEST
  

One presentation claims the XKeyscore program covers 'nearly everything a typical user does on the internet'

A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "widest-reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet.
The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian's earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.
The files shed light on one of Snowden's most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10.
"I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email".
US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."
But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.
XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One presentation claims the program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.
Analysts can also use XKeyscore and other NSA systems to obtain ongoing "real-time" interception of an individual's internet activity.
Under US law, the NSA is required to obtain an individualized Fisa warrant only if the target of their surveillance is a 'US person', though no such warrant is required for intercepting the communications of Americans with foreign targets. But XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their email or IP address, is known to the analyst.
One training slide illustrates the digital activity constantly being collected by XKeyscore and the analyst's ability to query the databases at any time.
The purpose of XKeyscore is to allow analysts to search the metadata as well as the content of emails and other internet activity, such as browser history, even when there is no known email account (a "selector" in NSA parlance) associated with the individual being targeted.
Analysts can also search by name, telephone number, IP address, keywords, the language in which the internet activity was conducted or the type of browser used.
One document notes that this is because "strong selection [search by email address] itself gives us only a very limited capability" because "a large amount of time spent on the web is performing actions that are anonymous."
The NSA documents assert that by 2008, 300 terrorists had been captured using intelligence from XKeyscore.
Analysts are warned that searching the full database for content will yield too many results to sift through. Instead they are advised to use the metadata also stored in the databases to narrow down what to review.
A slide entitled "plug-ins" in a December 2012 document describes the various fields of information that can be searched. It includes "every email address seen in a session by both username and domain", "every phone number seen in a session (eg address book entries or signature block)" and user activity "the webmail and chat activity to include username, buddylist, machine specific cookies etc".

Email monitoring

In a second Guardian interview in June, Snowden elaborated on his statement about being able to read any individual's email if he had their email address. He said the claim was based in part on the email search capabilities of XKeyscore, which Snowden says he was authorized to use while working as a Booz Allen contractor for the NSA.
One top-secret document describes how the program "searches within bodies of emails, webpages and documents", including the "To, From, CC, BCC lines" and the 'Contact Us' pages on websites".
To search for emails, an analyst using XKS enters the individual's email address into a simple online search form, along with the "justification" for the search and the time period for which the emails are sought.
The analyst then selects which of those returned emails they want to read by opening them in NSA reading software.
The system is similar to the way in which NSA analysts generally can intercept the communications of anyone they select, including, as one NSA document put it, "communications that transit the United States and communications that terminate in the United States".
One document, a top secret 2010 guide describing the training received by NSA analysts for general surveillance under the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008, explains that analysts can begin surveillance on anyone by clicking a few simple pull-down menus designed to provide both legal and targeting justifications. Once options on the pull-down menus are selected, their target is marked for electronic surveillance and the analyst is able to review the content of their communications:

Chats, browsing history and other internet activity

Beyond emails, the XKeyscore system allows analysts to monitor a virtually unlimited array of other internet activities, including those within social media.
An NSA tool called DNI Presenter, used to read the content of stored emails, also enables an analyst using XKeyscore to read the content of Facebook chats or private messages.
An analyst can monitor such Facebook chats by entering the Facebook user name and a date range into a simple search screen.
Analysts can search for internet browsing activities using a wide range of information, including search terms entered by the user or the websites viewed.
As one slide indicates, the ability to search HTTP activity by keyword permits the analyst access to what the NSA calls "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet".
The XKeyscore program also allows an analyst to learn the IP addresses of every person who visits any website the analyst specifies.
The quantity of communications accessible through programs such as XKeyscore is staggeringly large. One NSA report from 2007 estimated that there were 850bn "call events" collected and stored in the NSA databases, and close to 150bn internet records. Each day, the document says, 1-2bn records were added.
William Binney, a former NSA mathematician, said last year that the agency had "assembled on the order of 20tn transactions about US citizens with other US citizens", an estimate, he said, that "only was involving phone calls and emails". A 2010 Washington Post article reported that "every day, collection systems at the [NSA] intercept and store 1.7bn emails, phone calls and other type of communications."
The XKeyscore system is continuously collecting so much internet data that it can be stored only for short periods of time. Content remains on the system for only three to five days, while metadata is stored for 30 days. One document explains: "At some sites, the amount of data we receive per day (20+ terabytes) can only be stored for as little as 24 hours."
To solve this problem, the NSA has created a multi-tiered system that allows analysts to store "interesting" content in other databases, such as one named Pinwale which can store material for up to five years.
It is the databases of XKeyscore, one document shows, that now contain the greatest amount of communications data collected by the NSA.
In 2012, there were at least 41 billion total records collected and stored in XKeyscore for a single 30-day period.
Legal v technical restrictions
While the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008 requires an individualized warrant for the targeting of US persons, NSA analysts are permitted to intercept the communications of such individuals without a warrant if they are in contact with one of the NSA's foreign targets.
The ACLU's deputy legal director, Jameel Jaffer, told the Guardian last month that national security officials expressly said that a primary purpose of the new law was to enable them to collect large amounts of Americans' communications without individualized warrants.
"The government doesn't need to 'target' Americans in order to collect huge volumes of their communications," said Jaffer. "The government inevitably sweeps up the communications of many Americans" when targeting foreign nationals for surveillance.
An example is provided by one XKeyscore document showing an NSA target in Tehran communicating with people in Frankfurt, Amsterdam and New York.
In recent years, the NSA has attempted to segregate exclusively domestic US communications in separate databases. But even NSA documents acknowledge that such efforts are imperfect, as even purely domestic communications can travel on foreign systems, and NSA tools are sometimes unable to identify the national origins of communications.
Moreover, all communications between Americans and someone on foreign soil are included in the same databases as foreign-to-foreign communications, making them readily searchable without warrants.
Some searches conducted by NSA analysts are periodically reviewed by their supervisors within the NSA. "It's very rare to be questioned on our searches," Snowden told the Guardian in June, "and even when we are, it's usually along the lines of: 'let's bulk up the justification'."
In a letter this week to senator Ron Wyden, director of national intelligence James Clapper acknowledged that NSA analysts have exceeded even legal limits as interpreted by the NSA in domestic surveillance.
Acknowledging what he called "a number of compliance problems", Clapper attributed them to "human error" or "highly sophisticated technology issues" rather than "bad faith".
However, Wyden said on the Senate floor on Tuesday: "These violations are more serious than those stated by the intelligence community, and are troubling."
In a statement to the Guardian, the NSA said: "NSA's activities are focused and specifically deployed against and only against legitimate foreign intelligence targets in response to requirements that our leaders need for information necessary to protect our nation and its interests.
"XKeyscore is used as a part of NSA's lawful foreign signals intelligence collection system.
"Allegations of widespread, unchecked analyst access to NSA collection data are simply not true. Access to XKeyscore, as well as all of NSA's analytic tools, is limited to only those personnel who require access for their assigned tasks … In addition, there are multiple technical, manual and supervisory checks and balances within the system to prevent deliberate misuse from occurring."
"Every search by an NSA analyst is fully auditable, to ensure that they are proper and within the law.
"These types of programs allow us to collect the information that enables us to perform our missions successfully to defend the nation and to protect US and allied troops abroad."