Authors: Bruce Schneier
The NSA was formed in 1952:
US Executive Office of the President (24 Oct 1952), Memorandum to Secretary of State
and Secretary of Defense re: Communications Intelligence Agency, US National Security
Agency, http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/truman/truman_memo.pdf.
US signals intelligence and codebreaking:
Thomas L. Burns (1990), “The origins of the National Security Agency 1940–1952 (U),”
Center for Cryptologic History, US National Security Agency, http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_histories/origins_of_nsa.pdf.
Secrets of fact:
Several political scientists have written about the difference between secrets and
mysteries, or puzzles and mysteries. Joseph S. Nye Jr. (Jul/Aug 1994), “Peering into
the future,”
Foreign Affairs
, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/50102/joseph-s-nye-jr/peering-into-the-future.
Gregory F. Treverton (Sep 2001), “Reshaping national intelligence for an age of information,”
Research Brief 5, European Union Center for California, http://eucenter.scrippscollege.edu/files/2011/06/Treverton-05.pdf.
“Never again” was an impossible mandate:
Dan Geer (9 Oct 2013), “Tradeoffs in cyber security,” http://geer.tinho.net/geer.uncc.9x13.txt.
Modern government surveillance monitors:
Under the 1978 FISA law that regulated NSA surveillance, targets inside the US had
to be “agents of a foreign power.” When the law was amended in 2008 under the FAA—FISA
Amendments Act—a target could be any foreigner.
This latest mission rose in importance:
Dana Priest (21 Jul 2013), “NSA growth fueled by need to target terrorists,”
Washington Post
, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-growth-fueled-by-need-to-target-terrorists/2013/07/21/24c93cf4-f0b1-11e2-bed3-b9b6fe264871_story.html.
If the NSA tapped:
The NSA did that in 1984. William J. Broad (8 Nov 1998), “A tale of daring American
submarine espionage,”
New York Times
, http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/08/us/a-tale-of-daring-american-submarine-espionage.html.
Google doesn’t store:
Google (2014), “Data center locations,” https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/index.html.
It has a larger intelligence budget:
Barton Gellman and Greg Miller (29 Aug 2013), “U.S. spy network’s successes, failures
and objectives detailed in ‘black budget’ summary,”
Washington Post
, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black-budget-summary-details-us-spy-networks-successes-failures-and-objectives/2013/08/29/7e57bb78-10ab-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html.
Ewan MacAskill and Jonathan Watts (29 Aug 2013), “US intelligence spending has doubled
since 9/11, top secret budget reveals,”
Guardian
, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/29/us-intelligence-spending-double-9-11-secret-budget.
The Internet’s physical wiring:
Ryan Singel (10 Oct 2007), “NSA’s lucky break: How the U.S. became switchboard to
the world,”
Wired
,
https://web.archive.org/web/20071019223411/http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/10/domestic_taps.
Christopher Mims (8 Jun 2013), “Why the NSA has access to 80% of online communication
even if Google doesn’t have a ‘backdoor,’”
Quartz
, http://qz.com/92369/why-nsa-has-access-to-80-of-online-communication-even-if-google-doesnt-have-a-back-door.
The goal of the NSA’s surveillance:
Ewen MacAskill and James Ball (2 Nov 2013), “Portrait of the NSA: no detail too small
in quest for total surveillance,”
Guardian
, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/02/nsa-portrait-total-surveillance. Glenn
Greenwald (2014),
No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the US Surveillance State
, Macmillan, chap. 3, http://leaksource.info/2014/07/31/glenn-greenwalds-no-place-to-hide-nsa-documents-excerpts.
no evidence to suggest:
Of course, I don’t know for sure. Bill Binney, another NSA whistleblower, has said
otherwise, but he has provided no evidence. Antony Loewenstein (10 Jul 2014), “The
ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control,”
Guardian
, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/11/the-ultimate-goal-of-the-nsa-is-total-population-control.
we know it is doing so:
Ryan Devereaux, Glenn Greenwald, and Laura Poitras (19 May 2014), “Data pirates of
the Caribbean: The NSA is recording every cell phone call in the Bahamas,”
Intercept
, https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/05/19/data-pirates-caribbean-nsa-recording-every-cell-phone-call-bahamas.
Julian Assange (23 May 2014), “WikiLeaks statement on the mass recording of Afghan
telephone calls by the NSA,”
WikiLeaks
, https://wikileaks.org/WikiLeaks-statement-on-the-mass.html.
The agency’s 2013 budget:
Barton Gellman and Greg Miller (29 Aug 2013), “‘Black budget’ summary details U.S.
spy network’s successes, failures and objectives,”
Washington Post
, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black-budget-summary-details-us-spy-networks-successes-failures-and-objectives/2013/08/29/7e57bb78-10ab-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html.
it directly employs:
Dana Priest (21 Jul 2013), “NSA growth fueled by need to target terrorists,”
Washington Post
, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-growth-fueled-by-need-to-target-terrorists/2013/07/21/24c93cf4-f0b1-11e2-bed3-b9b6fe264871_story.html.
many more as contractors:
70% of the intelligence budget goes to private firms; 483,
000
contractors have top-secret clearance, representing 34% of the 1.4 million people
cleared at that level. Robert O’Harrow Jr., Dana Priest, and Marjorie Censer (10 Jun
2013), “NSA leaks put focus on intelligence apparatus’s reliance on outside contractors,”
Washington Post
, http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/nsa-leaks-put-focus-on-intelligence-apparatuss-reliance-on-outside-contractors/2013/06/10/e940c4ba-d20e-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html.
Jonathan Fahey and Adam Goldman (10 Jun 2013), “Leak highlights key role of private
contractors,” Associated Press, http://bigstory.ap.org/article/leak-highlights-key-role-private-contractors.
the total for 2013 was $53 billion:
Barton Gellman and Greg Miller (29 Aug 2013), “‘Black budget’ summary details U.S.
spy network’s successes, failures and objectives,”
Washington Post
, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black-budget-summary-details-us-spy-networks-successes-failures-and-objectives/2013/08/29/7e57bb78-10ab-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html.
the US spends $72 billion annually:
Steven Aftergood (Mar 2014), “Intelligence budget data,”
Federation of American Scientists Intelligence Resource Program, http://fas.org/irp/budget/index.html.
the capabilities were developed:
“We believe that the military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan have also had a large
but difficult-to-measure impact on decisions about technical collection and communications
technologies.” Richard A. Clarke et al. (12 Dec 2013), “Liberty and security in a
changing world: Report and recommendations of The President’s Review Group on Intelligence
and Communications Technologies,” US Executive Office of the President, p. 187, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2013-12-12_rg_final_report.pdf.
Executive Order 12333:
The feds call it “twelve triple-three.” US Executive Office of the President (4 Dec
1981), “Executive Order 12333—United States intelligence activities,”
Federal Register
, http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12333.html.
Alex Abdo (29 Sep 2014), “New documents shed light on one of the NSA’s most powerful
tools,”
Free Future
, https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/new-documents-shed-light-one-nsas-most-powerful-tools.
some protection for US citizens:
Mark Jaycox (5 Nov 2013), “Three leaks, three weeks, and what we’ve learned about
the US government’s other spying authority: Executive Order 12333,” Electronic Frontier
Foundation, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/three-leaks-three-weeks-and-what-weve-learned-about-governments-other-spying.
Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act:
US Congress (2001), “USA Patriot Act Section 215,” http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-107hr3162enr/pdf/BILLS-107hr3162enr.pdf.
a secret court interpreted this:
Marcy Wheeler (14 Aug 2014), “George W. Bush’s false heroes: The real story of a
secret Washington sham,”
Salon
, http://www.salon.com/2014/08/14/george_w_bushs_false_heroes_the_real_story_of_a_secret_washington_sham.
Section 702 of the FISA:
There’s also the Protect America Act (PAA) of 2007. It was overturned and replaced
by the FAA, but any existing authorizations under PAA were grandfathered. We don’t
know how many there are, so we don’t know how important this is. James Risen (6 Aug
2007), “Bush signs law to widen reach for wiretapping,”
New York Times
, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/washington/06nsa.html. Ryan Singel (6 Aug 2007),
“Analysis: New law gives government six months to turn Internet and phone systems
into permanent spying architecture,”
Wired
, http://www.wired.com/2007/08/analysis-new-la.
The NSA has minimization rules:
One Snowden document discusses the NSA minimization procedures. US National Security
Agency (8 Jan 2007), “Minimization procedures used by the National Security Agency
in connection with acquisitions of foreign intelligence information pursuant to Section
702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended,” http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhibit-b-nsa-procedures-document.
The NSA does a lot of playing around:
Jennifer Granick (25 Aug 2014), “Intercept reporting raises broader metadata minimization
question,”
Just Security
, http://justsecurity.org/14327/intercept-reporting-raises-broader-metadata-minimization-question.
Marcy Wheeler (26 Aug 2014), “SPCMA and ICREACH,”
Empty Wheel
, http://www.emptywheel.net/2014/08/26/spcma-and-icreach.
A 2014 analysis:
Barton Gellman, Julie Tate, and Ashkan Soltani (5 Jul 2014),
“In NSA-intercepted data, those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are,”
Washington Post
, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-nsa-intercepted-data-those-not-targeted-far-outnumber-the-foreigners-who-are/2014/07/05/8139adf8-045a-11e4-8572-4b1b969b6322_story.html.
tightly connected with the NSA:
Nadia Kayyali (21 May 2014), “How the NSA is transforming law enforcement,”
Gizmodo
, http://gizmodo.com/how-the-nsa-is-transforming-law-enforcement-1579438984.
We know there is considerable sharing:
Ryan Gallagher (25 Aug 2014), “The surveillance engine: How the NSA built its own
secret Google,”
Intercept
, https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/25/icreach-nsa-cia-secret-google-crisscross-proton.
initial legal basis:
The most significant expansion of the NSA’s authority occurred in 2005, under the
USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act. Some of the provisions have been
struck down as unconstitutional.
because Smith shared those phone numbers:
John Villasenor (30 Dec 2013), “What you need to know about the third-party doctrine,”
Atlantic
, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-third-party-doctrine/282721.
a tool called an IMSI-catcher:
IMSI is International Mobile Subscriber Identity, which is the unique serial number
your cell phone broadcasts so that the cellular system knows where you are.
the code name StingRay:
AmberJack is another. “Stingray” is now used as a generic term for IMSI-catchers.
collect identification and location:
Joel Hruska (17 Jun 2014), “Stingray, the fake cell phone tower cops and carriers
use to track your every move,”
Extreme Tech
, http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/184597-stingray-the-fake-cell-phone-tower-cops-and-providers-use-to-track-your-every-move.
The FBI is so scared:
Lauren Walker (23 Sep 2014), “New documents reveal information about police cellphone
tracking devices,”
Newsweek
, http://www.newsweek.com/new-documents-reveal-information-about-police-cell-phone-tracking-devices-272746.
instructs them to lie:
Kim Zetter (19 Jun 2014), “Emails show feds asking Florida cops to deceive judges,”
Wired
, http://www.wired.com/2014/06/feds-told-cops-to-deceive-courts-about-stingray.
federal marshals seized the documents:
Nathan Freed Wessler (3 Jun 2014), “U.S. Marshals seize local cops’ cell phone tracking
files in extraordinary attempt to keep information from public,”
Free Future
, https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/us-marshals-seize-local-cops-cell-phone-tracking-files.
Kim Zetter (3 Jun 2014), “U.S. Marshals seize cops’ spying records to keep them from
the ACLU,”
Wired
, http://www.wired.com/2014/06/feds-seize-stingray-documents.
The National Counterterrorism Center:
National Counterterrorism Center (2007), “Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment
(TIDE),” https://web.archive.org/web/20140712154829/http://www.nctc.gov/docs/Tide_Fact_Sheet.pdf.
Richard A. Best Jr. (19 Dec 2011), “The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC): Responsibilities
and potential congressional concerns,” Congressional Research Service, http://fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R41022.pdf.
Matt Sledge (16 Feb 2013), “National Counterterrorism Center’s ‘terrorist information’
rules outlined in document,”
Huffington Post
,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/15/national-counterterrorism-center-nctc-terrorist-information_n_2697190.html.