National Security Agency

1 Warrantless eavesdropping
2 Call records database
3 Cellphone Location Tracking
4 Internet traffic monitoring
5 The NSA collects a huge volume of data
6 Current lawsuits
7 Further reading

The National Security Agency (NSA) is the part of United States government that is responsible for the surveillance and analysis of foreign communication, although increasingly they monitor domestic communication as well.

Warrantless eavesdropping¶

Call records database¶

online.wsj.com/article_print/SB12051197...
“NSA’s Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data” by Siobhan Gorman.
The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2008.

www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/05/29/06...
“Listening In” by Seymour Hersh. The New Yorker, May 29, 2006.

www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-0...
“NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls” by Leslie Cauley. USA Today, May 10, 2006.

Cellphone Location Tracking¶

If you carry a mobile phone, this can be used to track your location with a high degree of accuracy.

When an NSA lawyer recently testified before Congress on other matters, he received a surprise question from Sen. Ron Wyden about location tracking via cellphones. Wyden asked if the NSA believes it has the authority to “use cell site data to track the location of Americans inside the country.”

The NSA general counsel, Matthew Olsen, replied:

“There are certain circumstances where that authority may exist,” he said… Although Olsen acknowledged the possibility, he also said “it is a very complicated question” and that the intelligence community is working on a memo that will provide a better answer for the committee. (source)

Translation: the NSA believes it has authority in some cases to track the locations of US citizens without a court authorization, and most likely already does so.

Internet traffic monitoring¶

Gorman, Siobhan. 2008. “NSA’s Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data: Terror Fight Blurs Line Over Domain; Tracking Email.” Wall Street Journal.

According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records.

Current and former intelligence officials say telecom companies’ concern comes chiefly because they are giving the government unlimited access to a copy of the flow of communications, through a network of switches at U.S. Telecommunications hubs that duplicate all the data running through it.

The NSA uses its own high-powered version of social-network analysis to search for possible new patterns and links to terrorism. (emphasis added)

Seymour Hersh, Listening In, 2006. www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/05/29/06...

A security consultant working with a major telecommunications carrier told me that his client set up a top-secret high-speed circuit between its main computer complex and Quantico, Virginia, the site of a government-intelligence computer center. This link provided direct access to the carrier’s network core—the critical area of its system, where all its data are stored. “What the companies are doing is worse than turning over records,” the consultant said. “They’re providing total access to all the data."

“This is not about getting a cardboard box of monthly phone bills in alphabetical order,” a former senior intelligence official said… “The N.S.A. is getting real-time actionable intelligence,” the former official said. (emphasis added)

The NSA collects a huge volume of data¶

“[John] Parachini of RAND said the rule of thumb has been that every six hours, NSA collects an amount of information equivalent to the store of knowledge housed at the Library of Congress.” (from Md.-based intelligence agencies helped track bin Laden)

Current lawsuits¶

“What the government is arguing is that the president decides what is legal or not,” EFF legal director Cindy Cohn