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New
Snowden leak: NSA is monitoring the Internet histories of millions of
Americans
RT,
30
September, 2013
The
National Security Agency is collecting information on the Internet
habits of millions of innocent Americans never suspected of criminal
involvement, new NSA documents leaked by former intelligence
contractor Edward Snowden suggest.
Britain’s
Guardian newspaper reported Monday that top-secret
documents
included in the trove of files supplied by the NSA
contractor-turned-leaker Edward Snowden reveal that the US
intelligence community obtains and keeps information on American
citizens accumulated off the Internet without ever issuing a search
warrant or opening an investigation into that person.
The
information is obtained using a program codenamed Marina, the
documents suggest, and is kept by the government for up to a full
year without investigators ever having to explain why the subject is
being surveilled.
“Marina
has the ability to look back on the last 365 days' worth of DNI
metadata seen by the Sigint collection system, regardless whether
or not it was tasked for collection,”
the Guardian’s James Ball quotes from the documents.
According
to a guide for intelligence analysts supplied by Mr. Snowden, “The
Marina metadata application tracks a user's browser experience,
gathers contact information/content and develops summaries of
target.”
"This
tool offers the ability to export the data in a variety of formats,
as well as create various charts to assist in pattern-of-life
development,”
it continues.
Ball
writes that the program collects “almost
anything”
a Web user does online, “from
browsing history – such as map searches and websites visited – to
account details, email activity, and even some account passwords.”
Only
days earlier, separate
disclosures
attributed to Snowden revealed that the NSA was using a massive
collection of metadata to create complex graphs of social connections
for foreign intelligence purposes, although that program had pulled
in intelligence about Americans as well.
After
the New York Times broke news of that program, a NSA spokesperson
said that “All data queries
must include a foreign intelligence justification, period.”
As Snowden documents continue to surface, however, it’s becoming
clear that personal information pertaining to millions of US citizens
is routinely raked in by the NSA and other agencies as the
intelligence community collects as much data as possible.
In
June, a top-secret document also attributed to Mr. Snowden revealed
that the NSA was collecting the telephony metadata for millions of
Americans from their telecom providers. The government has defended
this practice by saying that the metadata — rough information that
does not include the content of communications — is not protected
by the US Constitution’s prohibition against unlawful search and
seizure.
“Metadata
can be very revealing,”
George Washington University law professor Orin S. Kerr told the
Times this week. “Knowing
things like the number someone just dialed or the location of the
person’s cellphone is going to allow them to assemble a picture of
what someone is up to. It’s the digital equivalent of tailing a
suspect.”
According
to the Guardian’s Ball, Internet metadata picked up by the NSA is
routed to the Marina database, which is kept separate from the
servers where telephony metadata is stored.
Only
moments after the Guardian wrote of its latest leak on Monday,
Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project read a
statement before the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil
Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs penned by none other than Snowden
himself.
“When
I began my work, it was with the sole intention of making possible
the debate we see occurring here in this body,”
Snowden said.
Snowden,
who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia after being charged
with espionage in the US, said through Raddack that “The
cost for one in my position of returning public knowledge to public
hands has been persecution and exile.”
Snowden: When I began my work, it was w/ the sole intention of making possible the debate we see occurring here in this body. #EPinquiry
64 РЕТВИТА 15 ИЗБРАННЫХ
Snowden: The cost for one in my position of returning public knowledge to public hands has been persecution & exile. #EPinquiry
14 РЕТВИТОВ 2 ИЗБРАННЫХ
Meanwhile,
at the White House Monday afternoon, NBC News correspondent Chuck
Todd asked Obama press secretary Jay Carney to comment on the latest
disclosures, but to no avail.
“The
NSA’s activities are directed against foreign intelligence targets
in order to protect the nation and its interests,”
said Carney, adding, “We
do what other nations do, and that is collect foreign intelligence.”
When
Todd responded, “This
is about Americans; this is about Americans, that are not foreign,”
Carney replied by refusing to acknowledge any specific intelligence
tool and instead said that the agency’s foreign intelligence
activities “are
directed pursuant to procedures approved by the United States
attorney general and secretary of defense.”
“I
understand that that’s what you have to say. And that’s a
statement you have to say. But are you at all concerned?”
asked Todd.
Also see the Guardian's article NSA stores metadata of millions of web users for up to a year, secret files show
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