US National Security Agency ‘spied on French diplomats’

The US National Security Agency has spied on French diplomats in Washington and at the UN, according to the latest claims in Le Monde newspaper.

NSA internal memos obtained by Le Monde detailed the use of a sophisticated surveillance programme, known as Genie.

US spies allegedly hacked foreign networks, introducing the spyware into the software, routers and firewalls of millions of machines.

It comes a day after claims the NSA tapped millions of phones in France.

The details in the latest Le Monde article are based on leaks from ex-intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, through Glen Greenwald, the outgoing Guardian journalist, who is feeding the material from Brazil, says the BBC’s Christian Fraser in Paris.

It comes on the day the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, is in London meeting foreign counterparts to discuss Syria.
‘Spy implants’

The Le Monde report sets out details of Genie, an NSA surveillance programme in which spyware implants were introduced remotely to overseas computers, including foreign embassies.

It claims bugs were introduced to the French Embassy in Washington (under a code name “Wabash”) and to the computers of the French delegation at the UN, codenamed “Blackfoot”.

The article suggests that in 2011, the US allocated $652m (£402m) in funding for the programme, which was spent on “spy implants”. Tens of millions of computers were reported to have been hacked that year.

A document dated August 2010 suggests intelligence stolen from foreign embassy computers ensured the US knew ahead of time the positions of other Security Council members, before a UN vote for a resolution imposing new sanctions on Iran.

The US was worried the French were drifting to the Brazilian side – who were opposed to implementing sanctions – when in truth they were always aligned to the US position, says our correspondent.

The intelligence agency quotes Susan Rice, then-US ambassador to the UN, who praises the work done by the NSA: “It helped me know… the truth, and reveal other [countries’] positions on sanctions, allowing us to keep one step ahead in the negotiations.”

On Monday, Le Monde alleged that the NSA spied on 70.3 million phone calls in France between 10 December 2012 and 8 January 2013.

At a breakfast meeting with the US secretary of state on Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius demanded a full explanation.

Referring to a telephone call between the French and US presidents, Mr Fabius told reporters: “I said again to John Kerry what Francois Hollande told Barack Obama, that this kind of spying conducted on a large scale by the Americans on its allies is something that is unacceptable.”

Asked if France was considering reprisals against the US, government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem replied: “It is up to Foreign Minister Fabius to decide what line we take but I don’t think there is any need for an escalation.

“We have to have a respectful relationship between partners, between allies. Our confidence in that has been hit but it is after all a very close, individual relationship that we have.”

Both French officials made their comments before the latest revelations appeared in Le Monde.

Mr Snowden, a former NSA worker, went public with revelations about US spying operations in June.

The information he leaked led to claims of systematic spying by the NSA and CIA on a global scale.

Targets included rivals like China and Russia, as well as allies like the EU and Brazil.

The NSA was also forced to admit it had captured email and phone data from millions of Americans.

Mr Snowden is currently in Russia, where he was granted a year-long visa after making an asylum application.

The US wants him extradited to face trial on criminal charges.

22 October 2013 Last updated at 13:36 ET

Find this story at 22 October 2013

© 2013 The BBC

NSA leaks: France summons US ambassador over phone surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden

Latest leaks from Edward Snowden say American agents recorded more than 70 million French phone calls in just 30 days – including those of politicians and businessmen

The French government has summoned the US ambassador in Paris to provide an explanation for fresh Edward Snowden revelations about the NSA.

According to reports this morning in Le Monde, the American National Security Agency recorded more than 70 million phone calls made France over the course of just 30 days.

If accurate, the reports are the latest indicator of the extraordinary reaching of US electronic spying, and come alongside the news that agents also hacked the email account of former Mexican president Felipe Calderon.

The French interior minister, Manuel Valls, told reporters at an EU meet in Luxembourg: “I have immediately summoned the US ambassador and he will be received this morning at the Quai d’Orsay [French Foreign Ministry].”

“Rules are obviously needed when it comes to new communication technologies, and that’s something that concerns every country,” he the Europe-1 radio station. “If a friendly country – an ally – spies on France or other European countries, that is completely unacceptable.”

Le Monde’s story, which included the byline of the outgoing Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, said that the communications of prominent businessmen and politicians were spied on alongside those of suspected security threats.

It said the NSA had targeted Orange and Alcatel-Lucent – two of the biggest network operators in France – and that it used keyword technology and lists of certain types of numbers to automatically pick up millions of records a day.

The 70.3 million pieces of data came from 10 December 2012 and 8 January 2013, and it was not made clear whether they included the full content of conversations or just the metadata – the information of who, when and where the call was made.

The programme of surveillance, codenamed US-985D, also reportedly stored millions of intercepted text messages.

The article followed reports in the German weekly Der Spiegel that the NSA accessed the email account of Felipe Calderon, the former Mexican president. Mexico said it would be seeking an explanation from US officials “as soon as possible”.

Mr Snowden, a former contractor with the NSA who first went public about US surveillance techniques in June, warned then that he had gigabytes of data full of other revelations, to be released over time.

He is currently a refugee at an unknown location in Russia, after he was granted one year’s asylum on the condition, president Vladimir Putin said, that he stop leaking US secrets.

It is not known whether today’s revelations come straight from Mr Snowden himself, or if they are part of a large stock of data given in bulk to journalists at an earlier date.

The US has, as with other Snowden stories, refused to comment on what it calls confidential information.

Officials nonetheless referred Le Monde to a statement made in June, in which US director of national intelligence James Clapper defended the NSA’s programmes.

“They are lawful and conducted under authorities widely known and discussed, and fully debated and authorised by Congress,” he said. “Their purpose is to obtain foreign intelligence information, including information necessary to thwart terrorist and cyber-attacks against the United States and its allies.”

Adam Withnall
Monday, 21 October 2013

Find this story at 21 October 2013

© independent.co.uk

France in the NSA’s crosshair : phone networks under surveillance

The future will perhaps tell us one day why France has remained so discreet in comparison with Germany or Brazil, for example, after the first revelations about the extent of the American electronic espionage programmes in the world as revealed by Edward Snowden, the ex-employee of an NSA (National Security Agency) sub-contractor. France was also concerned and today has at its disposition tangible proof that its interests are targeted on a daily basis.
According to the documents retrieved from the NSA database by its ex-analyst, telephone communications of French citizens are intercepted on a massive scale. Le Monde has been able to obtain access to documents which describe the techniques used to violate the secrets or simply the private life of French people. Some elements of information about this espionage have been referred to by Der Speigel and The Guardian, but others are, to date, unpublished.

Amongst the thousands of documents extracted from the NSA by its ex-employee there is a graph which describes the extent of telephone monitoring and tapping (DNR – Dial Number Recognition) carried out in France. It can be seen that over a period of thirty days – from 10 December 2012 to 8 January 2013, 70,3 million recordings of French citizens’ telephone data were made by the NSA. This agency has several methods of data collection. According to the elements obtained by Le Monde, when a telephone number is used in France, it activates a signal which automatically triggers the recording of the call. Apparently this surveillance system also picks up SMS messages and their content using key words. Finally, the NSA apparently stores the history of the connections of each target – or the meta-data.

This espionage is listed under the programme US-985D. The precise explanation of this acronym has not been provided, to date, by the Snowden documents nor by the former members of the NSA. By way of comparison, the acronyms used by the NSA for the same type of interception targeting Germany are US-987LA and US-987LB. According to some sources, this series of numbers corresponds to the circle referred to by the United States as the ’third party’, to which belong France, Germany but also Austria, Poland or again Belgium. ‘The second party’ concerns the English-speaking countries historically close to Washington: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – this group is known by the name the ‘five eyes’. ‘The first party’ concerns the sixteen American secret services of which today the NSA has become the most important, according to a senior official from the French Intelligence community.

The techniques used for these interceptions appear under the codenames ‘DRTBOX’ and ‘WHITEBOX’. Their characteristics are not known either. But we do know that, thanks to DRTBOX, 62.5 million data were collected in France and that WHITEBOX enables the recording of 7.8 million elements. The documents which Le Monde has been able to see have not enabled the provision of further details on these methods. But they give sufficient explanation to lead us to think that the NSA targets concerned both people suspected of association with terrorist activities as well as people targeted simply because they belong to the worlds of business, politics or French state administration.

The NSA graph shows an average of 3 million data intercepts per day with peaks at almost 7 million on 24 December 2012 and 7 January 2013. But between 28 and 31 December no interception seems to have taken place. This apparent stoppage of activity could be explained, in particular, by the time required at the end of December 2012, for the American Congress to renew section 702 of the law dealing with electronic espionage abroad. Similarly nothing appears on the 3, 5 and 6 January 2013; this time we cannot suggest any plausible reason. Many questions are still posed by this diagram – to start with the precise identity of the targets and the justifications for such a large-scale collection of data in a foreign country which is both sovereign and an ally.

When questioned, the American authorities did not wish to comment on these documents which they considered to be ‘classified’. Nevertheless, they do refer to the statement made on 8 June 2013 by the Director of National Intelligence according to which, ’the government cannot target anyone under the court-approved procedures for Section 702 collection unless there is an appropriate, and document foreign intelligence purpose for the acquisition (such as for the prevention of terrorism, hostile cyber activities, or nuclear proliferation) and the foreign target is reasonably believed to be outside the United States. We cannot target even foreign persons overseas without a valid foreign intelligence purpose.

France is not the country in which the NSA intercepts the most digital or telephone connections. The ‘Boundless Informant’ system, revealed in June by Edward Snowden to the British daily The Guardian, enabled an overall vision and in real time of the information gathered throughout the world, by means of the various NSA wire-tapping systems. This system gathers not only telephone data (DNR) but also digital data (DNI Digital Network Intelligence). One of the documents which Le Monde was able to consult notes that between 8 February and 8 March 2013, the NSA collected, throughout the world, 124,8 billion telephone data items and 97,1 billion computer data items. In Europe, only Germany and the United Kingdom exceed France in terms of numbers of interceptions.

Le Monde.fr
21.10.2013 à 06h08
Par Jacques Follorou et Glenn Greenwald (Journaliste)

Find this story at 21 October 2013

© Le Monde.fr

Was ISRAEL behind the hacking of millions of French phones and NOT the U.S.? Extraordinary twist in spying saga revealed

Agents said to have intercepted 70 million calls and text messages a month
France had previously blamed the United States of America
U.S. was first suspected of hacking into Nicolas Sarkozy’s phone in 2012
Americans insisted they have never been behind hacking in France
Comes after it emerged German officials are planning trip to U.S. to discuss allegations Angela Merkel’s phone was hack by the NSA
The German Chancellor said President Obama’s reputation has been shattered on an international scale because of espionage scandal

Israel and not America was behind the hacking of millions of French phones, it was claimed today.

In the latest extraordinary twist in the global eavesdropping scandal, Israeli agents are said to have intercepted more than 70 million calls and text messages a month.

Up until now the French have been blaming the U.S., even summoning the country’s Paris ambassador to provide an explanation.

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France first suspected the U.S. of hacking into former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s communications network when he was unsuccessfully trying for re-election in 2012

But today’s Le Monde newspaper provides evidence that it was in fact Israeli agents who were listening in.

France first suspected the U.S. of hacking into former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s communications network when he was unsuccessfully trying for re-election in 2012.

Intelligence officials Bernard Barbier and Patrick Pailloux travelled from Paris to Washington to demand an explanation, but the Americans hinted that the Israelis were to blame.

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Cameron attacks ‘lah-di-dah, airy-fairy’ ideas about spy agencies, as he reveals his own mobile was NOT targeted by the US

The Americans insisted they have never been behind any hacking in France, and were always keen to get on with the French, whom they viewed as some of their closest allies.

They were so determined to be friends with the French, that U.S. briefing notes included details of how to pronounce the names of the Gallic officials.

A note published in Le Monde shows that the Americans refused to rule out Mossad, Israel’s notoriously uncompromising intelligence agency, or the ISNU, Israel’s cyber-intelligence unit.

Today’s newspaper report was co-written by Glenn Greenwald, whose main contact is NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden (pictured)

Tailored Access Operations (TAO), the branch of the US National Security Agency (NSA) which deals with cyber-attacks, is referred to throughout the note.

It reads: ‘TAO intentionally did not ask either Mossad or ISNU whether they were involved as France is not an approved target for joint discussions.’

Le Monde’s article, co-authored by U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald, whose main contact is NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, however, hints that the Israelis were doing the spying.

Both US and French intelligence work closely with Mossad, but there is known to be a great deal of suspicion between all the agencies.

A 2008 NSA note says that the Israelis are ‘excellent partners in terms of sharing information’, but it also says that Mossad is ‘the third most aggressive intelligence service in the world against the United States’.

A spokesman for the Israeli government told Le Monde: ‘Israel is a country which is a friend, ally and partner of France and does not carry out any hostile activity which could pose a threat to its security.’

France has complained in the past about Mossad’s use of its soil to plan so called black operations including the 2010 assassination in Dubai of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh of the Palestinian movement Hamas.

The revelation comes after senior German officials said they would be travelling to the U.S. ‘shortly’ to talk about allegations the NSA bugged Angela Merkel’s phone.
Obama orders review of surveillance activities

Anger: German Chancellor Angela Merkel (left) and Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff (right) have both voiced concerns over the NSA’s infiltration of the online communications of foreigners

The heads of Germany’s foreign and domestic intelligence agencies will participate in high-level discussions with the White House and National Security Agency, government spokesman Georg Streiter said.

News of the talks signals an escalation in the diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and its allies after it was claimed the NSA had monitored the calls of 35 world leaders.

Brazil and Germany have joined forces in an attempt to pile pressure on the United Nations to rein in the snooping activities. They want a UN General Resolution that promotes the right to online privacy.

This step, the first major international response to the NSA’s infiltration of the online communications of foreigners, comes after German Chancellor Merkel said the recent U.S. espionage scandal has shattered international trust in Barack Obama.

Angela Merkel said the recent espionage scandal has shattered international trust in President Obama

Not hacked: The White House has denied that David Cameron’s communications were ever monitored

A month earlier Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff branded the NSA’s clandestine activities ‘a breach of international law’ in a speech to the UN General Assembly and demanded steps be made to stop ‘cyberspace from being used as a weapon of war’.

Brazilian and German diplomats met in New York yesterday to thrash out a draft resolution demanding the strengthening of privacy rights in the International Covenant Civil and Political Rights.

While the UN has no real power to reign in the NSA, there are fears among security experts that the effort alone could signal a growing consensus to freeze the US out of future international security dialogues.

By Nabila Ramdani

PUBLISHED: 16:32 GMT, 25 October 2013 | UPDATED: 20:46 GMT, 25 October 2013

Find this story at 25 October 2013

© Associated Newspapers Ltd

France feared US hacked president, was Israel involved?

AFP – France believed the United States attempted to hack into its president’s communications network, a leaked US intelligence document published on Friday suggests.

US agents denied having anything to do with a May 2012 cyber attack on the Elysee Palace, the official residence of French presidents, and appeared to hint at the possible involvement of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, a classified internal note from the US National Security Agency suggests.

Extracts from the document, the latest to emerge from the NSA via former contractor Edward Snowden, were published by Le Monde newspaper alongside an article jointly authored by Glenn Greenwald, the US journalist who has been principally responsible for a still-unravelling scandal over large-scale US snooping on individuals and political leaders all over the world.

The document is a briefing note prepared in April this year for NSA officials who were due to meet two senior figures from France’s external intelligence agency, the DGSE. The French agents had travelled to Washington to demand explanations over their discovery in May 2012 of attempts to compromise the Elysee’s communications systems.

The note says that the branch of the NSA which handles cyber attacks, Tailored Access Operations (TAO), had confirmed that it had not carried out the attack and says that most of its closest allies (Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand) had also denied involvement.

It goes on to note: “TAO intentionally did not ask either Mossad or (Israel’s cyber intelligence unit) ISNU whether they were involved as France is not an approved target for joint discussions.”

Le Monde interpreted this sentence as being an ironic reference to a strong likelihood that Mossad had been behind the attack.

The cyber attacks on the Elysee took place in the final weeks of Nicolas Sarkozy’s term, between the two rounds of the presidential election which he ended up losing to Francois Hollande.

The attacks had been previously reported by French media, who have described them as an attempt to insert monitoring devices into the system but it remains unclear whether the presidential networks were compromised for any time.

There was no immediate response from the Elysee on Friday when asked for comment by AFP.

Sarkozy enjoyed warmer relations with the United States than any French president of recent times, to the extent that the media sometimes referred to him as “Sarko the American.”

The revelations about the Elysee attacks followed damaging revelations that the US had tapped the mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and spied on other allies.

“Spying between friends, that’s just not done,” Merkel said Thursday at the start of a summit of European Union leaders which has been overshadowed by the issue.

On a lighter note, the leaked document published by Le Monde on Friday underlines that NSA officials were anxious not to cause any further offence to their angry French counterparts.

Along with the technical details, the briefing note contains a phonetic guide to the pronunciation of the names of the French visitors.

They included DGSE technical director Bernard Barbier, who was to be addressed as bear-NAR bur-BYAY, and Patrick Pailloux, or pah-TREEK pie-YOO.

25 OCTOBER 2013 – 12H58

Find this story at 25 October 2013

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NSA Targeted French Foreign Ministry

Espionage by the US on France has already strained relations between the two countries, threatening a trans-Atlantic trade agreement. Now a document seen by SPIEGEL reveals that the NSA also spied on the French Foreign Ministry.

America’s National Security Agency (NSA) targeted France’s Foreign Ministry for surveillance, according to an internal document seen by SPIEGEL.

Dated June 2010, the “top secret” NSA document reveals that the intelligence agency was particularly interested in the diplomats’ computer network. All of the country’s embassies and consulates are connected with the Paris headquarters via a virtual private network (VPN), technology that is generally considered to be secure.

Accessing the Foreign Ministry’s network was considered a “success story,” and there were a number of incidents of “sensitive access,” the document states.

An overview lists different web addresses tapped into by the NSA, among them “diplomatie.gouv.fr,” which was run from the Foreign Ministry’s server. A list from September 2010 says that French diplomatic offices in Washington and at the United Nations in New York were also targeted, and given the codenames “Wabash” and “Blackfoot,” respectively. NSA technicians installed bugs in both locations and conducted a “collection of computer screens” at the one at the UN.

A priority list also names France as an official target for the intelligence agency. In particular, the NSA was interested in the country’s foreign policy objectives, especially the weapons trade, and economic stability.

US-French relations are being strained by such espionage activities. In early July, French President François Hollande threatened to suspend negotiations for a trans-Atlantic free trade agreement, demanding a guarantee from the US that it would cease spying after it was revealed that the French embassy in Washington had been targeted by the NSA.

“There can be no negotiations or transactions in all areas until we have obtained these guarantees, for France but also for all of the European Union, for all partners of the United States,” he said at the time.

The NSA declined to comment to SPIEGEL on the matter. As details about the scope of the agency’s international spying operations continue to emerge, Washington has come under increasing pressure from its trans-Atlantic partners. Officials in Europe have expressed concern that negotiations for the trade agreement would be poisoned by a lack of trust.

09/01/2013 09:32 AM

Find this story at 1 September 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

US also eavesdrops on Israel, says former Mossad head

Americans want to know what Netanyahu is thinking about Iran, Palestinian issues, says Danny Yatom; follows reports NSA listened in to 35 world leaders
A day after it was revealed that the US National Security Agency monitored the private conversations of some 35 world leaders, former head of the Mossad Danny Yatom said Friday that the US listens in on its ally Israel as well.

“I can tell you with certain knowledge that [America] has been listening in on its allies, including Israel,” Yatom said, and “not necessarily in [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s tenure” as prime minister.

“The US doesn’t really care about anyone [but itself] and the Americans are vehemently denying the incidents,” Yatom told the Israeli daily Maariv on Friday. ”It could very well be that these things [monitoring calls] are happening here [in Israel] too. When the Americans think they need to listen in on someone, they’ll do just that.”

Yatom explained that there are two issues around which the Americans are likely spying on Israel — negotiations with Palestinians and the Iranian nuclear program.

“It is important for them to know what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu really thinks… They have interests here because they want to be able to contend with Israeli claims that arise when talking about these issues,” the ex-Mossad chief said.

Yatom also stressed that the US seeks to obtain information on Israel’s “real” position vis-a-vis-negotiations and what obstacles stand in the way of advancing peace talks.

He also criticized the US for misusing its power as a world leader.

“The Americans rightly see themselves as a superpower, but wrongly feel that they can do whatever they want, including the eavesdropping,” he said.

Yatom served from 1996-1998 as head of the Mossad. The Israeli intelligence agency is smarting from recent reports that Turkey deliberately exposed a ring of Israeli agents in Iran, and further reports that US did not sanction or protest to Turkey over this alleged betrayal. Yatom has been particularly outspoken over the matter.

Yatom’s statements came a day after the the British newspaper The Guardian said it had obtained a confidential memo suggesting the NSA was able to monitor 35 world leaders’ communications in 2006.

The memo said the NSA encouraged senior officials at the White House, Pentagon and other agencies to share their contacts so the spy agency could add foreign leaders’ phone numbers to its surveillance systems, the report said.

The report drew furious reactions in Germany, Spain — both of whom summoned the US ambassador in their countries for talks over the report — and France.

European Union leaders, meeting Friday at a summit in Brussels, vowed to maintain a strong trans-Atlantic partnership despite their anger over allegations of widespread US spying on allies. Still, France and Germany are insisting the United States agree upon new surveillance rules with them this year to stop US eavesdropping on their leaders, innocent civilians and companies.

“We are seeking a basis for cooperation between our (intelligence) services, which we all need and from which we have all received a great deal of information … that is transparent, that is clear and is in keeping with the character of being partners,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters.

“The United States and Europe are partners, but this partnership must be built on trust and respect,” Merkel said early Friday. “That of course also includes the work of the respective intelligence services.”

Several European leaders noted Friday that the continent’s close political and commercial ties to the US must be protected as EU nations demand more assurances from the Obama administration.

“What is at stake is preserving our relations with the United States,” said French President Francois Hollande. “Trust has to be restored and reinforced.”

“The main thing is that we look to the future. The trans-Atlantic partnership was and is important,” said Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, whose nation holds the rotating presidency of the 28-country bloc.

Merkel complained to President Barack Obama on Wednesday after her government received information that her cellphone may have been monitored. Merkel and Hollande insisted that, beyond being fully briefed on what happened in the past, the European allies and Washington need to set up common rules for US surveillance that does not impede the fundamental rights of its allies.

Lazar Berman and AP contributed to this report.

By Times of Israel staff October 25, 2013, 7:50 pm 13

Find this story at 25 October 2013

© 2013 The Times of Israel, All rights reserved

No Morsel Too Minuscule for All-Consuming N.S.A.

When Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, sat down with President Obama at the White House in April to discuss Syrian chemical weapons, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and climate change, it was a cordial, routine exchange.

The National Security Agency nonetheless went to work in advance and intercepted Mr. Ban’s talking points for the meeting, a feat the agency later reported as an “operational highlight” in a weekly internal brag sheet. It is hard to imagine what edge this could have given Mr. Obama in a friendly chat, if he even saw the N.S.A.’s modest scoop. (The White House won’t say.)

But it was emblematic of an agency that for decades has operated on the principle that any eavesdropping that can be done on a foreign target of any conceivable interest — now or in the future — should be done. After all, American intelligence officials reasoned, who’s going to find out?

From thousands of classified documents, the National Security Agency emerges as an electronic omnivore of staggering capabilities, eavesdropping and hacking its way around the world to strip governments and other targets of their secrets, all the while enforcing the utmost secrecy about its own operations. It spies routinely on friends as well as foes, as has become obvious in recent weeks; the agency’s official mission list includes using its surveillance powers to achieve “diplomatic advantage” over such allies as France and Germany and “economic advantage” over Japan and Brazil, among other countries.

Mr. Obama found himself in September standing uncomfortably beside the president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, who was furious at being named as a target of N.S.A. eavesdropping. Since then, there has been a parade of such protests, from the European Union, Mexico, France, Germany and Spain. Chagrined American officials joke that soon there will be complaints from foreign leaders feeling slighted because the agency had not targeted them.

James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has repeatedly dismissed such objections as brazen hypocrisy from countries that do their own share of spying. But in a recent interview, he acknowledged that the scale of eavesdropping by the N.S.A., with 35,000 workers and $10.8 billion a year, sets it apart. “There’s no question that from a capability standpoint we probably dwarf everybody on the planet, just about, with perhaps the exception of Russia and China,” he said.

Since Edward J. Snowden began releasing the agency’s documents in June, the unrelenting stream of disclosures has opened the most extended debate on the agency’s mission since its creation in 1952. The scrutiny has ignited a crisis of purpose and legitimacy for the N.S.A., the nation’s largest intelligence agency, and the White House has ordered a review of both its domestic and its foreign intelligence collection. While much of the focus has been on whether the agency violates Americans’ privacy, an issue under examination by Congress and two review panels, the anger expressed around the world about American surveillance has prompted far broader questions.

If secrecy can no longer be taken for granted, when does the political risk of eavesdropping overseas outweigh its intelligence benefits? Should foreign citizens, many of whom now rely on American companies for email and Internet services, have any privacy protections from the N.S.A.? Will the American Internet giants’ collaboration with the agency, voluntary or otherwise, damage them in international markets? And are the agency’s clandestine efforts to weaken encryption making the Internet less secure for everyone?

Matthew M. Aid, an intelligence historian and author of a 2009 book on the N.S.A., said there is no precedent for the hostile questions coming at the agency from all directions.

“From N.S.A.’s point of view, it’s a disaster,” Mr. Aid said. “Every new disclosure reinforces the notion that the agency needs to be reined in. There are political consequences, and there will be operational consequences.”

A review of classified agency documents obtained by Mr. Snowden and shared with The New York Times by The Guardian, offers a rich sampling of the agency’s global operations and culture. (At the agency’s request, The Times is withholding some details that officials said could compromise intelligence operations.) The N.S.A. seems to be listening everywhere in the world, gathering every stray electron that might add, however minutely, to the United States government’s knowledge of the world. To some Americans, that may be a comfort. To others, and to people overseas, that may suggest an agency out of control.

The C.I.A. dispatches undercover officers overseas to gather intelligence today roughly the same way spies operated in biblical times. But the N.S.A., born when the long-distance call was a bit exotic, has seen its potential targets explode in number with the advent of personal computers, the Internet and cellphones. Today’s N.S.A. is the Amazon of intelligence agencies, as different from the 1950s agency as that online behemoth is from a mom-and-pop bookstore. It sucks the contents from fiber-optic cables, sits on telephone switches and Internet hubs, digitally burglarizes laptops and plants bugs on smartphones around the globe.

Mr. Obama and top intelligence officials have defended the agency’s role in preventing terrorist attacks. But as the documents make clear, the focus on counterterrorism is a misleadingly narrow sales pitch for an agency with an almost unlimited agenda. Its scale and aggressiveness are breathtaking.

The agency’s Dishfire database — nothing happens without a code word at the N.S.A. — stores years of text messages from around the world, just in case. Its Tracfin collection accumulates gigabytes of credit card purchases. The fellow pretending to send a text message at an Internet cafe in Jordan may be using an N.S.A. technique code-named Polarbreeze to tap into nearby computers. The Russian businessman who is socially active on the web might just become food for Snacks, the acronym-mad agency’s Social Network Analysis Collaboration Knowledge Services, which figures out the personnel hierarchies of organizations from texts.

The spy agency’s station in Texas intercepted 478 emails while helping to foil a jihadist plot to kill a Swedish artist who had drawn pictures of the Prophet Muhammad. N.S.A. analysts delivered to authorities at Kennedy International Airport the names and flight numbers of workers dispatched by a Chinese human smuggling ring.

The agency’s eavesdropping gear, aboard a Defense Department plane flying 60,000 feet over Colombia, fed the location and plans of FARC rebels to the Colombian Army. In the Orlandocard operation, N.S.A. technicians set up what they called a “honeypot” computer on the web that attracted visits from 77,413 foreign computers and planted spyware on more than 1,000 that the agency deemed of potential future interest.

The Global Phone Book

No investment seems too great if it adds to the agency’s global phone book. After mounting a major eavesdropping effort focused on a climate change conference in Bali in 2007, agency analysts stationed in Australia’s outback were especially thrilled by one catch: the cellphone number of Bali’s police chief.

“Our mission,” says the agency’s current five-year plan, which has not been officially scheduled for declassification until 2032, “is to answer questions about threatening activities that others mean to keep hidden.”

The aspirations are grandiose: to “utterly master” foreign intelligence carried on communications networks. The language is corporate: “Our business processes need to promote data-driven decision-making.” But the tone is also strikingly moralistic for a government bureaucracy. Perhaps to counter any notion that eavesdropping is a shady enterprise, signals intelligence, or Sigint, the term of art for electronic intercepts, is presented as the noblest of callings.

“Sigint professionals must hold the moral high ground, even as terrorists or dictators seek to exploit our freedoms,” the plan declares. “Some of our adversaries will say or do anything to advance their cause; we will not.”

The N.S.A. documents taken by Mr. Snowden and shared with The Times, numbering in the thousands and mostly dating from 2007 to 2012, are part of a collection of about 50,000 items that focus mainly on its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters or G.C.H.Q.

While far from comprehensive, the documents give a sense of the agency’s reach and abilities, from the Navy ships snapping up radio transmissions as they cruise off the coast of China, to the satellite dishes at Fort Meade in Maryland ingesting worldwide banking transactions, to the rooftops of 80 American embassies and consulates around the world from which the agency’s Special Collection Service aims its antennas.

The agency and its many defenders among senior government officials who have relied on its top secret reports say it is crucial to American security and status in the world, pointing to terrorist plots disrupted, nuclear proliferation tracked and diplomats kept informed.

But the documents released by Mr. Snowden sometimes also seem to underscore the limits of what even the most intensive intelligence collection can achieve by itself. Blanket N.S.A. eavesdropping in Afghanistan, described in the documents as covering government offices and the hide-outs of second-tier Taliban militants alike, has failed to produce a clear victory against a low-tech enemy. The agency kept track as Syria amassed its arsenal of chemical weapons — but that knowledge did nothing to prevent the gruesome slaughter outside Damascus in August.

The documents are skewed toward celebration of the agency’s self-described successes, as underlings brag in PowerPoints to their bosses about their triumphs and the managers lay out grand plans. But they do not entirely omit the agency’s flubs and foibles: flood tides of intelligence gathered at huge cost that goes unexamined; intercepts that cannot be read for lack of language skills; and computers that — even at the N.S.A. — go haywire in all the usual ways.

Mapping Message Trails

In May 2009, analysts at the agency learned that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was to make a rare trip to Kurdistan Province in the country’s mountainous northwest. The agency immediately organized a high-tech espionage mission, part of a continuing project focused on Ayatollah Khamenei called Operation Dreadnought.

Working closely with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which handles satellite photography, as well as G.C.H.Q., the N.S.A. team studied the Iranian leader’s entourage, its vehicles and its weaponry from satellites, and intercepted air traffic messages as planes and helicopters took off and landed.

They heard Ayatollah Khamenei’s aides fretting about finding a crane to load an ambulance and fire truck onto trucks for the journey. They listened as he addressed a crowd, segregated by gender, in a soccer field.

They studied Iranian air defense radar stations and recorded the travelers’ rich communications trail, including Iranian satellite coordinates collected by an N.S.A. program called Ghosthunter. The point was not so much to catch the Iranian leader’s words, but to gather the data for blanket eavesdropping on Iran in the event of a crisis.

This “communications fingerprinting,” as a document called it, is the key to what the N.S.A. does. It allows the agency’s computers to scan the stream of international communications and pluck out messages tied to the supreme leader. In a crisis — say, a showdown over Iran’s nuclear program — the ability to tap into the communications of leaders, generals and scientists might give a crucial advantage.

On a more modest scale, the same kind of effort, what N.S.A. calls “Sigint development,” was captured in a document the agency obtained in 2009 from Somalia — whether from a human source or an electronic break-in was not noted. It contained email addresses and other contact details for 117 selected customers of a Mogadishu Internet service, Globalsom.

While most on the list were Somali officials or citizens, presumably including some suspected of militancy, the document also included emails for a United Nations political officer in Mogadishu and a local representative for the charity World Vision, among other international institutions. All, it appeared, were considered fair game for monitoring.

This huge investment in collection is driven by pressure from the agency’s “customers,” in government jargon, not only at the White House, Pentagon, F.B.I. and C.I.A., but also spread across the Departments of State and Energy, Homeland Security and Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative.

By many accounts, the agency provides more than half of the intelligence nuggets delivered to the White House early each morning in the President’s Daily Brief — a measure of success for American spies. (One document boasts that listening in on Nigerian State Security had provided items for the briefing “nearly two dozen” times.) In every international crisis, American policy makers look to the N.S.A. for inside information.

Pressure to Get Everything

That creates intense pressure not to miss anything. When that is combined with an ample budget and near-invisibility to the public, the result is aggressive surveillance of the kind that has sometimes gotten the agency in trouble with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a United States federal court that polices its programs for breaches of Americans’ privacy.

In the funding boom that followed the Sept. 11 attacks, the agency expanded and decentralized far beyond its Fort Meade headquarters in Maryland, building or expanding major facilities in Georgia, Texas, Colorado, Hawaii, Alaska, Washington State and Utah. Its officers also operate out of major overseas stations in England, Australia, South Korea and Japan, at overseas military bases, and from locked rooms housing the Special Collection Service inside American missions abroad.

The agency, using a combination of jawboning, stealth and legal force, has turned the nation’s Internet and telecommunications companies into collection partners, installing filters in their facilities, serving them with court orders, building back doors into their software and acquiring keys to break their encryption.

But even that vast American-run web is only part of the story. For decades, the N.S.A. has shared eavesdropping duties with the rest of the so-called Five Eyes, the Sigint agencies of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. More limited cooperation occurs with many more countries, including formal arrangements called Nine Eyes and 14 Eyes and Nacsi, an alliance of the agencies of 26 NATO countries.

The extent of Sigint sharing can be surprising: “N.S.A. may pursue a relationship with Vietnam,” one 2009 G.C.H.Q. document reported. But a recent G.C.H.Q. training document suggests that not everything is shared, even between the United States and Britain. “Economic well-being reporting,” it says, referring to intelligence gathered to aid the British economy, “cannot be shared with any foreign partner.”

As at the school lunch table, decisions on who gets left out can cause hurt feelings: “Germans were a little grumpy at not being invited to join the 9-Eyes group,” one 2009 document remarks. And in a delicate spy-versus-spy dance, sharing takes place even with governments that are themselves important N.S.A. targets, notably Israel.

The documents describe collaboration with the Israel Sigint National Unit, which gets raw N.S.A. eavesdropping material and provides it in return, but they also mention the agency’s tracking of “high priority Israeli military targets,” including drone aircraft and the Black Sparrow missile system.

The alliances, and the need for stealth, can get complicated. At one highly valued overseas listening post, the very presence of American N.S.A. personnel violates a treaty agreed to by the agency’s foreign host. Even though much of the eavesdropping is run remotely from N.S.A.’s base at Fort Gordon, Ga., Americans who visit the site must pose as contractors, carry fake business cards and are warned: “Don’t dress as typical Americans.”

“Know your cover legend,” a PowerPoint security briefing admonishes the N.S.A. staff members headed to the overseas station, directing them to “sanitize personal effects,” send no postcards home and buy no identifiably local souvenirs. (“An option might be jewelry. Most jewelry does not have any markings” showing its place of origin.)

Bypassing Security

In the agency’s early years, its brainy staff members — it remains the largest employer of mathematicians in the country — played an important role in the development of the first computers, then largely a tool for code breaking.

Today, with personal computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones in most homes and government offices in the developed world, hacking has become the agency’s growth area.

Some of Mr. Snowden’s documents describe the exploits of Tailored Access Operations, the prim name for the N.S.A. division that breaks into computers around the world to steal the data inside, and sometimes to leave spy software behind. T.A.O. is increasingly important in part because it allows the agency to bypass encryption by capturing messages as they are written or read, when they are not encoded.

In Baghdad, T.A.O. collected messages left in draft form in email accounts maintained by leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq, a militant group. Under a program called Spinaltap, the division’s hackers identified 24 unique Internet Protocol addresses identifying computers used by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, making it possible to snatch Hezbollah messages from the flood of global communications sifted by the agency.

The N.S.A.’s elite Transgression Branch, created in 2009 to “discover, understand, evaluate and exploit” foreign hackers’ work, quietly piggybacks on others’ incursions into computers of interest, like thieves who follow other housebreakers around and go through the windows they have left ajar.

In one 2010 hacking operation code-named Ironavenger, for instance, the N.S.A. spied simultaneously on an ally and an adversary. Analysts spotted suspicious emails being sent to a government office of great intelligence interest in a hostile country and realized that an American ally was “spear-phishing” — sending official-looking emails that, when opened, planted malware that let hackers inside.

The Americans silently followed the foreign hackers, collecting documents and passwords from computers in the hostile country, an elusive target. They got a look inside that government and simultaneously got a close-up look at the ally’s cyberskills, the kind of intelligence twofer that is the unit’s specialty.

In many other ways, advances in computer and communications technology have been a boon for the agency. N.S.A. analysts tracked the electronic trail left by a top leader of Al Qaeda in Africa each time he stopped to use a computer on his travels. They correctly predicted his next stop, and the police were there to arrest him.

And at the big N.S.A. station at Fort Gordon, technicians developed an automated service called “Where’s My Node?” that sent an email to an analyst every time a target overseas moved from one cell tower to another. Without lifting a finger, an analyst could follow his quarry’s every move.

The Limits of Spying

The techniques described in the Snowden documents can make the N.S.A. seem omniscient, and nowhere in the world is that impression stronger than in Afghanistan. But the agency’s capabilities at the tactical level have not been nearly enough to produce clear-cut strategic success there, in the United States’ longest war.

A single daily report from June 2011 from the N.S.A.’s station in Kandahar, Afghanistan, the heart of Taliban country, illustrates the intensity of eavesdropping coverage, requiring 15 pages to describe a day’s work.

The agency listened while insurgents from the Haqqani network mounted an attack on the Hotel Intercontinental in Kabul, overhearing the attackers talking to their bosses in Pakistan’s tribal area and recording events minute by minute. “Ruhullah claimed he was on the third floor and had already inflicted one casualty,” the report said in a typical entry. “He also indicated that Hafiz was located on a different floor.”

N.S.A. officers listened as two Afghan Foreign Ministry officials prepared for a meeting between President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Iranian officials, assuring them that relations with the United States “would in no way threaten the interests of Iran,” which they decided Mr. Karzai should describe as a “brotherly country.”

The N.S.A. eavesdropped as the top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, consulted his European Union counterpart, Vygaudas Usackas, about how to respond to an Afghan court’s decision to overturn the election of 62 members of Parliament.

And the agency was a fly on the wall for a long-running land dispute between the mayor of Kandahar and a prominent local man known as the Keeper of the Cloak of the Prophet Muhammad, with President Karzai’s late brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, as a mediator.

The agency discovered a Taliban claim to have killed five police officers at a checkpoint by giving them poisoned yogurt, and heard a provincial governor tell an aide that a district police chief was verbally abusing women and clergymen.

A Taliban figure, Mullah Rahimullah Akhund, known on the United States military’s kill-or-capture list by the code name Objective Squiz Incinerator, was overheard instructing an associate to buy suicide vests and a Japanese motorbike, according to the documents.

And N.S.A. listened in as a Saudi extremist, Abu Mughira, called his mother to report that he and his fellow fighters had entered Afghanistan and “done victorious operations.”

Such reports flowed from the agency’s Kandahar station day after day, year after year, and surely strengthened the American campaign against the Taliban. But they also suggest the limits of intelligence against a complex political and military challenge. The N.S.A. recorded the hotel attack, but it had not prevented it. It tracked Mr. Karzai’s government, but he remained a difficult and volatile partner. Its surveillance was crucial in the capture or killing of many enemy fighters, but not nearly enough to remove the Taliban’s ominous shadow from Afghanistan’s future.

Mining All the Tidbits

In the Afghan reports and many others, a striking paradox is the odd intimacy of a sprawling, technology-driven agency with its targets. It is the one-way intimacy of the eavesdropper, as N.S.A. employees virtually enter the office cubicles of obscure government officials and the Spartan hide-outs of drug traffickers and militants around the world.

Venezuela, for instance, was one of six “enduring targets” in N.S.A.’s official mission list from 2007, along with China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran and Russia. The United States viewed itself in a contest for influence in Latin America with Venezuela’s leader then, the leftist firebrand Hugo Chávez, who allied himself with Cuba, and one agency goal was “preventing Venezuela from achieving its regional leadership objectives and pursuing policies that negatively impact U.S. global interests.”

A glimpse of what this meant in practice comes in a brief PowerPoint presentation from August 2010 on “Development of the Venezuelan Economic Mission.” The N.S.A. was tracking billions of dollars flowing to Caracas in loans from China (radar systems and oil drilling), Russia (MIG fighter planes and shoulder-fired missiles) and Iran (a factory to manufacture drone aircraft).

But it was also getting up-close and personal with Venezuela’s Ministry of Planning and Finance, monitoring the government and personal emails of the top 10 Venezuelan economic officials. An N.S.A. officer in Texas, in other words, was paid each day to peruse the private messages of obscure Venezuelan bureaucrats, hunting for tidbits that might offer some tiny policy edge.

In a counterdrug operation in late 2011, the agency’s officers seemed to know more about relations within a sprawling narcotics network than the drug dealers themselves. They listened to “Ricketts,” a Jamaican drug supplier based in Ecuador, struggling to keep his cocaine and marijuana smuggling business going after an associate, “Gordo,” claimed he had paid $250,000 and received nothing in return.

The N.S.A., a report said, was on top of not just their cellphones, but also those of the whole network of “buyers, transporters, suppliers, and middlemen” stretching from the Netherlands and Nova Scotia to Panama City and Bogotá, Colombia. The documents do not say whether arrests resulted from all that eavesdropping.

Even with terrorists, N.S.A. units can form a strangely personal relationship. The N.S.A.-G.C.H.Q. wiki, a top secret group blog that Mr. Snowden downloaded, lists 14 specialists scattered in various stations assigned to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani terrorist group that carried out the bloody attack on Mumbai in 2008, with titles including “Pakistan Access Pursuit Team” and “Techniques Discovery Branch.” Under the code name Treaclebeta, N.S.A.’s hackers at Tailored Access Operations also played a role.

In the wiki’s casual atmosphere, American and British eavesdroppers exchange the peculiar shoptalk of the secret world. “I don’t normally use Heretic to scan the fax traffic, I use Nucleon,” one user writes, describing technical tools for searching intercepted documents.

But most striking are the one-on-one pairings of spies and militants; Bryan is assigned to listen in on a man named Haroon, and Paul keeps an ear on Fazl.

A Flood of Details

One N.S.A. officer on the Lashkar-e-Taiba beat let slip that some of his eavesdropping turned out to be largely pointless, perhaps because of the agency’s chronic shortage of skilled linguists. He “ran some queries” to read intercepted communications of certain Lashkar-e-Taiba members, he wrote in the wiki, but added: “Most of it is in Arabic or Farsi, so I can’t make much of it.”

It is a glimpse of the unsurprising fact that sometimes the agency’s expensive and expansive efforts accomplish little. Despite the agency’s embrace of corporate jargon on goal-setting and evaluation, it operates without public oversight in an arena in which achievements are hard to measure.

In a world of ballooning communications, the agency is sometimes simply overwhelmed. In 2008, the N.S.A.’s Middle East and North Africa group set about updating its Sigint collection capabilities. The “ambitious scrub” of selectors — essentially search terms — cut the number of terms automatically searched from 21,177 to 7,795 and the number of messages added to the agency’s Pinwale database from 850,000 a day to 450,000 a day.

The reduction in volume was treated as a major achievement, opening the way for new collection on Iranian leadership and Saudi and Syrian diplomats, the report said.

And in a note that may comfort computer novices, the N.S.A. Middle East analysts discovered major glitches in their search software: The computer was searching for the names of targets but not their email addresses, a rather fundamental flaw. “Over 500 messages in one week did not come in,” the report said about one target.

Those are daily course corrections. Whether the Snowden disclosures will result in deeper change is uncertain. Joel F. Brenner, the agency’s former inspector general, says much of the criticism is unfair, reflecting a naïveté about the realpolitik of spying. “The agency is being browbeaten for doing too well the things it’s supposed to do,” he said.

But Mr. Brenner added that he believes “technology has outrun policy” at the N.S.A., and that in an era in which spying may well be exposed, “routine targeting of close allies is bad politics and is foolish.”

Another former insider worries less about foreign leaders’ sensitivities than the potential danger the sprawling agency poses at home. William E. Binney, a former senior N.S.A. official who has become an outspoken critic, says he has no problem with spying on foreign targets like Brazil’s president or the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. “That’s pretty much what every government does,” he said. “It’s the foundation of diplomacy.” But Mr. Binney said that without new leadership, new laws and top-to-bottom reform, the agency will represent a threat of “turnkey totalitarianism” — the capability to turn its awesome power, now directed mainly against other countries, on the American public.

“I think it’s already starting to happen,” he said. “That’s what we have to stop.”

Whatever reforms may come, Bobby R. Inman, who weathered his own turbulent period as N.S.A. director from 1977 to 1981, offers his hyper-secret former agency a radical suggestion for right now. “My advice would be to take everything you think Snowden has and get it out yourself,” he said. “It would certainly be a shock to the agency. But bad news doesn’t get better with age. The sooner they get it out and put it behind them, the faster they can begin to rebuild.”

November 2, 2013
By SCOTT SHANE

Find this story at 2 November 2013

© 2013 The New York Times Company

NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans’ data with Israel

• Secret deal places no legal limits on use of data by Israelis
• Only official US government communications protected
• Agency insists it complies with rules governing privacy
• Read the NSA and Israel’s ‘memorandum of understanding’

The agreement for the US to provide raw intelligence data to Israel was reached in principle in March 2009, the document shows. Photograph: James Emery

The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.

Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart that shows the US government handed over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.

The disclosure that the NSA agreed to provide raw intelligence data to a foreign country contrasts with assurances from the Obama administration that there are rigorous safeguards to protect the privacy of US citizens caught in the dragnet. The intelligence community calls this process “minimization”, but the memorandum makes clear that the information shared with the Israelis would be in its pre-minimized state.

The deal was reached in principle in March 2009, according to the undated memorandum, which lays out the ground rules for the intelligence sharing.

The five-page memorandum, termed an agreement between the US and Israeli intelligence agencies “pertaining to the protection of US persons”, repeatedly stresses the constitutional rights of Americans to privacy and the need for Israeli intelligence staff to respect these rights.

But this is undermined by the disclosure that Israel is allowed to receive “raw Sigint” – signal intelligence. The memorandum says: “Raw Sigint includes, but is not limited to, unevaluated and unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence metadata and content.”

According to the agreement, the intelligence being shared would not be filtered in advance by NSA analysts to remove US communications. “NSA routinely sends ISNU [the Israeli Sigint National Unit] minimized and unminimized raw collection”, it says.

Although the memorandum is explicit in saying the material had to be handled in accordance with US law, and that the Israelis agreed not to deliberately target Americans identified in the data, these rules are not backed up by legal obligations.

“This agreement is not intended to create any legally enforceable rights and shall not be construed to be either an international agreement or a legally binding instrument according to international law,” the document says.

In a statement to the Guardian, an NSA spokesperson did not deny that personal data about Americans was included in raw intelligence data shared with the Israelis. But the agency insisted that the shared intelligence complied with all rules governing privacy.

“Any US person information that is acquired as a result of NSA’s surveillance activities is handled under procedures that are designed to protect privacy rights,” the spokesperson said.

The NSA declined to answer specific questions about the agreement, including whether permission had been sought from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (Fisa) court for handing over such material.

The memorandum of understanding, which the Guardian is publishing in full, allows Israel to retain “any files containing the identities of US persons” for up to a year. The agreement requests only that the Israelis should consult the NSA’s special liaison adviser when such data is found.

Notably, a much stricter rule was set for US government communications found in the raw intelligence. The Israelis were required to “destroy upon recognition” any communication “that is either to or from an official of the US government”. Such communications included those of “officials of the executive branch (including the White House, cabinet departments, and independent agencies), the US House of Representatives and Senate (member and staff) and the US federal court system (including, but not limited to, the supreme court)”.

It is not clear whether any communications involving members of US Congress or the federal courts have been included in the raw data provided by the NSA, nor is it clear how or why the NSA would be in possession of such communications. In 2009, however, the New York Times reported on “the agency’s attempt to wiretap a member of Congress, without court approval, on an overseas trip”.

The NSA is required by law to target only non-US persons without an individual warrant, but it can collect the content and metadata of Americans’ emails and calls without a warrant when such communication is with a foreign target. US persons are defined in surveillance legislation as US citizens, permanent residents and anyone located on US soil at the time of the interception, unless it has been positively established that they are not a citizen or permanent resident.

Moreover, with much of the world’s internet traffic passing through US networks, large numbers of purely domestic communications also get scooped up incidentally by the agency’s surveillance programs.

The document mentions only one check carried out by the NSA on the raw intelligence, saying the agency will “regularly review a sample of files transferred to ISNU to validate the absence of US persons’ identities”. It also requests that the Israelis limit access only to personnel with a “strict need to know”.

Israeli intelligence is allowed “to disseminate foreign intelligence information concerning US persons derived from raw Sigint by NSA” on condition that it does so “in a manner that does not identify the US person”. The agreement also allows Israel to release US person identities to “outside parties, including all INSU customers” with the NSA’s written permission.

Although Israel is one of America’s closest allies, it is not one of the inner core of countries involved in surveillance sharing with the US – Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. This group is collectively known as Five Eyes.

The relationship between the US and Israel has been strained at times, both diplomatically and in terms of intelligence. In the top-secret 2013 intelligence community budget request, details of which were disclosed by the Washington Post, Israel is identified alongside Iran and China as a target for US cyberattacks.

While NSA documents tout the mutually beneficial relationship of Sigint sharing, another report, marked top secret and dated September 2007, states that the relationship, while central to US strategy, has become overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of Israel.

“Balancing the Sigint exchange equally between US and Israeli needs has been a constant challenge,” states the report, titled ‘History of the US – Israel Sigint Relationship, Post-1992′. “In the last decade, it arguably tilted heavily in favor of Israeli security concerns. 9/11 came, and went, with NSA’s only true Third Party [counter-terrorism] relationship being driven almost totally by the needs of the partner.”

In another top-secret document seen by the Guardian, dated 2008, a senior NSA official points out that Israel aggressively spies on the US. “On the one hand, the Israelis are extraordinarily good Sigint partners for us, but on the other, they target us to learn our positions on Middle East problems,” the official says. “A NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] ranked them as the third most aggressive intelligence service against the US.”

Later in the document, the official is quoted as saying: “One of NSA’s biggest threats is actually from friendly intelligence services, like Israel. There are parameters on what NSA shares with them, but the exchange is so robust, we sometimes share more than we intended.”

The memorandum of understanding also contains hints that there had been tensions in the intelligence-sharing relationship with Israel. At a meeting in March 2009 between the two agencies, according to the document, it was agreed that the sharing of raw data required a new framework and further training for Israeli personnel to protect US person information.

It is not clear whether or not this was because there had been problems up to that point in the handling of intelligence that was found to contain Americans’ data.

However, an earlier US document obtained by Snowden, which discusses co-operating on a military intelligence program, bluntly lists under the cons: “Trust issues which revolve around previous ISR [Israel] operations.”

The Guardian asked the Obama administration how many times US data had been found in the raw intelligence, either by the Israelis or when the NSA reviewed a sample of the files, but officials declined to provide this information. Nor would they disclose how many other countries the NSA shared raw data with, or whether the Fisa court, which is meant to oversee NSA surveillance programs and the procedures to handle US information, had signed off the agreement with Israel.

In its statement, the NSA said: “We are not going to comment on any specific information sharing arrangements, or the authority under which any such information is collected. The fact that intelligence services work together under specific and regulated conditions mutually strengthens the security of both nations.

“NSA cannot, however, use these relationships to circumvent US legal restrictions. Whenever we share intelligence information, we comply with all applicable rules, including the rules to protect US person information.”

Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill
The Guardian, Wednesday 11 September 2013 15.40 BST

Find this story at 11 September 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Snowden Documents Reveal NSA Gave Israeli Spies Raw Emails, Texts, Calls of Innocent Americans

Despite assurances from President Obama, the scandal around the National Security Agency continues to grow. The Guardian reports the NSA has routinely passed raw intelligence to Israel about U.S. citizens. “The NSA was sharing what they call raw signals intelligence, which includes things like who you are calling and when you are calling, the content of your phone call, the text of your emails, your text messages, your chat messages,” says Alex Abdo of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It sounds like all of that was handed over.” Abdo also discusses the ACLU’s successful fight to force the government to declassify documents that show the NSA wrongly put 16,000 American phone numbers on an “alert list.”
Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday the National Security Agency routinely has passed raw intelligence to Israel without first removing details about U.S. citizens. Documents leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed details of a secret intelligence-sharing agreement between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart, that shows the U.S. government handed over intercepted communications containing phone calls and emails of U.S. citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.

Meanwhile, newly declassified documents show the NSA wrongly put 16,000 phone numbers on an “alert list” so their incoming calls could be monitored in violation of court-ordered privacy protections.

AMY GOODMAN: When the NSA notified the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court about the error, Judge Reggie Walton of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court wrote, quote, “The court is exceptionally concerned about what appears to be a flagrant violation of its order in this matter.” The documents were declassified after a long fight with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union that filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit two years ago.

In other NSA news, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is facing pressure at home to cancel an upcoming state visit to the White House after documents leaked by Snowden revealed the NSA had hacked into the computer networks of Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras. On Wednesday, President Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, met with Brazilian Foreign Minister Luiz Alberto in an attempt to smooth relations between the countries.

To talk more about all of these latest developments, we’re joined by Alex Abdo. He is staff attorney at the National Security Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Alex, let’s take these in order. The information about the NSA, the U.S. intelligence agency, handing over raw data that it’s collected—legally or illegally, I think remains to be determined—to Israel, can you explain what’s taken place?

ALEX ABDO: It’s difficult to explain. And it’s, you know, of course, not surprising that the NSA is sharing foreign intelligence with our intelligence partners, but what’s troubling is that along with the foreign intelligence is information about innocent Americans that hasn’t been taken out of the data that’s being shared with our intelligence partners. And it’s troubling for a couple of reasons, the first of which, we haven’t known about this, and this may have been going on for years, and the second of which, there’s no avenue for Americans, innocent Americans who are swept up into these dragnets and have their information handed over to our intelligence partners, to stop that flow of information, to assert their rights and prevent it. So this has been going on for some time, it seems, and it raises new questions about the NSA’s—the extent to which we should trust the NSA with information, very sensitive, about innocent Americans.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what limitations were placed on the information that was—that was handed over to the Israelis, in terms of what they could do with it or how long they could hold it?

ALEX ABDO: Well, based on the documents that were released, it seems as though we basically had a “trust us” regime in place for the sharing of data with Israel. And that’s cold comfort, I think, to the potentially thousands or millions of Americans who find their way into these international surveillance dragnets of the NSA. But there’s simply no way of knowing right now how many Americans were affected, how the information was used, or what other measures the NSA may have taken or may not have taken to protect our privacy.

AMY GOODMAN: And what the information was that was handed over, is it the actual—is it the metadata of phone calls, who you called, when you called them? Is it the actual phone call?

ALEX ABDO: It sounds as though it was all of that. The NSA was sharing what they call raw signals intelligence, which includes things like who you’re calling and when you’re calling, but also the content of your phone calls, the text of your emails, your text messages, your chat messages. It sounds as though all of that was handed over in what they call this raw intelligence.

AMY GOODMAN: And who was targeted?

ALEX ABDO: It’s hard to say. It sounds as though the information sharing was indiscriminate, that they handed over large amounts of information without actually targeting at the outset, and allowing the Israeli analog to the NSA to then scour this information for what was useful. And like I said, they, you know, apparently had in place a clause asking Israel not to abuse this information, but there really didn’t seem to be any legally enforceable way to prevent Americans’ privacy from being violated in the course of this intelligence sharing.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, the documents you have referred to appear between 2006 and 2009, which would be the tail end of the Bush administration, but your battle to get access to the documents occurred during the Obama administration. Can you talk about that battle to be able to get these documents released?

ALEX ABDO: Sure. In 2011, two senators, Senators Wyden and Udall, started raising red flags, warnings to America about a secret interpretation that the government was relying on to collect an extraordinary amount of information about innocent Americans. And on the heels of that discussion, the ACLU and other organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, filed requests with the government for these secret interpretations of law. And the Obama administration, which had come into power on a promise of a new era of transparency, fought bitterly to keep these documents secret for years. And they were—it’s actually a bit ironic. In the midst of the disclosures, Obama was in the course of defending very vigorously in court extreme secrecy about these very same documents that were released two days ago. So, it’s—the secrecy was troubling. The fact that they’re now public is a good first step toward greater transparency, but this is information that did not come easily out of the Obama administration.

AMY GOODMAN: One of the documents released was a March 2nd, 2009, court order written by Judge Reggie Walton, now the presiding judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Walton writes of the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records, quote, “To approve such a program, the Court must have every confidence that the government is doing its utmost to ensure that those responsible for implementation fully comply with the Court’s orders. The Court no longer has such confidence.” This is the judge.

ALEX ABDO: This is extremely troubling, and it should be very disturbing. We have trusted for years a secret and one-sided judicial process to safeguard Americans’ right to privacy when it comes to NSA surveillance. And the disclosures over the past few months have confirmed that we shouldn’t trust that system to safeguard our right to privacy. And at the end of the day, the battle is between a system in which the NSA is required to go to court to engage in lawful surveillance versus the system that it has now, where it rarely has to go to court to spy even on innocent Americans. And we shouldn’t have confidence in that system, and now we know that there are even more reasons than we suspected not to have confidence in the system. But at the end of the day, that’s the debate, whether the NSA, when it wants to spy on Americans, should be forced to go to a court to justify that spying. The NSA hasn’t been doing that for years, and we need to change that, to force the NSA to justify its surveillance in court.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Of course, President Obama has been justifying that surveillance. I want to turn to a clip from him speaking last month about the leaks by Edward Snowden.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If you look at the reports, even the disclosures that Mr. Snowden’s put forward, all the stories that have been written, what you’re not reading about is the government actually abusing these programs and, you know, listening in on people’s phone calls or inappropriately reading people’s emails. What you’re hearing about is the prospect that these could be abused. Now, part of the reason they’re not abused is because these checks are in place, and those abuses would be against the law and would be against the orders of the FISC.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: What about President Obama’s claim that the checks are in place?

ALEX ABDO: Well, I think it’s quite obvious now that the checks are not in place, that the very authorities that the government says are carefully overseen by the secret court in D.C. and by regulators within the intelligence communities are failing, that there are violations of even these very permissive rules. But at the end—you know, a core problem is not just that there are violations, but that the law authorizes an extraordinary amount of surveillance in the first place. And that underlying authorization is far too broad. It allows the NSA to engage in a form of dragnet surveillance of even Americans’ communications, that’s not tied to a particular investigation. It’s not tied to a particular terrorist plot that the NSA is trying to stop. That, I think, is the most troubling aspect of these revelations, is that these powers are simply too broad, to begin with.

AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, the Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer, responded to critics who have accused Internet companies of working with the NSA. During an interview at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, she was asked why tech companies had not simply decided to tell the public more about what the NSA was doing.

MARISSA MAYER: We can’t talk about those things.

MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Why?

MARISSA MAYER: Because they’re classified.

MICHAEL ARRINGTON: What is—I mean, why?

MARISSA MAYER: And so—so, I mean—just to—

MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Let’s just say, look, right now you were just to tell us the truth about what’s going on, the stuff that’s classified, like what do you think would happen to you?

MARISSA MAYER: I mean, releasing classified information is treason.

MICHAEL ARRINGTON: And then what happens?

MARISSA MAYER: Just generally, and you—you know, incarcerated.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Marissa Mayer. She is the head of Yahoo. Alex Abdo?

ALEX ABDO: You know, Ms. Mayer is correct that there are extraordinary limits on what these companies can say, but it’s not correct to say that they can’t be doing more to protect the privacy of their users. There are a number of steps that these companies can take and should take, and Yahoo recently took one of those steps in joining Google and Microsoft in pushing the secret court in D.C. to allow them to say more about the government surveillance. Those companies want to be able to tell the public how many Americans are affected by the government’s surveillance, the numbers of court orders they get to turn over this information, and, very generally, the type of information they’re being asked to turn over. That’s all information that the government should allow these companies to disclose. It would allow Americans to better understand the surveillance that’s taking place in our name, and it would allow us to make a decision for ourselves whether the surveillance is lawful and whether it’s necessary.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Not only that, but I think there is a—as I’ve said before on this show, there is a conflict between the economic needs of these companies, because they’re all global companies, and no matter what happens in the United States, this is going to affect their businesses in other parts of the world as more and more countries decide you can’t trust American technology companies to use their search engines or use their products if they are allowing the government to serveil not only American citizens, but people around the world, so that it seems to me there’s a need to meet the needs of their own shareholders, the business interests of the company, to oppose these kind of government policies.

ALEX ABDO: I think that’s right. We’re putting our American companies at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to their business. They’re being forced to compete with companies outside the U.S. that aren’t receiving these NSA surveillance orders. But it’s important to note, too, that these companies can do more to protect the privacy of their consumers, even when they are not allowed to talk about the surveillance of the NSA. They can put in place technological fixes that allow users to trust their services more. And we’re starting to see that type of a response by the tech industry. They’re starting to compete over privacy. One of Microsoft’s—for example, its new campaigns is “Don’t get Scroogled.” It’s their way of competing against Google’s skimming of our emails for ad tracking. And as Americans, I think, come to appreciate the value of our privacy and the vastness of the information we trust with these companies, they’ll come to demand greater assurances from the Googles and the Microsofts and the Yahoos.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you very much for being with us, and just end with what surprised you most by all of these revelations that have come out from Ed Snowden. I mean, the president says this debate has—would have happened anyway. You’re a longtime—and certainly the ACLU has been deeply concerned about civil liberties issues. Would it have happened anyway? And what have you found most shocking in the last few months?

ALEX ABDO: I don’t think this transparency would have happened. This is an involuntary debate that the administration is now welcoming after the fact, and it’s a long overdue one. And one of the things that has shocked me the most, I think, is, in reading these documents, to see how much information is kept secret that should never have been kept secret in the first place. Americans deserve to be a part of this conversation, but they’re being kept out of it by unnecessary overclassification of this information.

AMY GOODMAN: Thanks so much, Alex Abdo, staff attorney at the National Security Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Back in a minute.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Find this story at 12 September 2013

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NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans’ data with Israel

The agreement for the US to provide raw intelligence data to Israel was reached in principle in March 2009, the document shows. Photograph: James Emery

The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.

Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart that shows the US government handed over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.

The disclosure that the NSA agreed to provide raw intelligence data to a foreign country contrasts with assurances from the Obama administration that there are rigorous safeguards to protect the privacy of US citizens caught in the dragnet. The intelligence community calls this process “minimization”, but the memorandum makes clear that the information shared with the Israelis would be in its pre-minimized state.

The deal was reached in principle in March 2009, according to the undated memorandum, which lays out the ground rules for the intelligence sharing.

The five-page memorandum, termed an agreement between the US and Israeli intelligence agencies “pertaining to the protection of US persons”, repeatedly stresses the constitutional rights of Americans to privacy and the need for Israeli intelligence staff to respect these rights.

But this is undermined by the disclosure that Israel is allowed to receive “raw Sigint” – signal intelligence. The memorandum says: “Raw Sigint includes, but is not limited to, unevaluated and unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence metadata and content.”

According to the agreement, the intelligence being shared would not be filtered in advance by NSA analysts to remove US communications. “NSA routinely sends ISNU [the Israeli Sigint National Unit] minimized and unminimized raw collection”, it says.

Although the memorandum is explicit in saying the material had to be handled in accordance with US law, and that the Israelis agreed not to deliberately target Americans identified in the data, these rules are not backed up by legal obligations.

“This agreement is not intended to create any legally enforceable rights and shall not be construed to be either an international agreement or a legally binding instrument according to international law,” the document says.

In a statement to the Guardian, an NSA spokesperson did not deny that personal data about Americans was included in raw intelligence data shared with the Israelis. But the agency insisted that the shared intelligence complied with all rules governing privacy.

“Any US person information that is acquired as a result of NSA’s surveillance activities is handled under procedures that are designed to protect privacy rights,” the spokesperson said.

The NSA declined to answer specific questions about the agreement, including whether permission had been sought from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (Fisa) court for handing over such material.

The memorandum of understanding, which the Guardian is publishing in full, allows Israel to retain “any files containing the identities of US persons” for up to a year. The agreement requests only that the Israelis should consult the NSA’s special liaison adviser when such data is found.

Notably, a much stricter rule was set for US government communications found in the raw intelligence. The Israelis were required to “destroy upon recognition” any communication “that is either to or from an official of the US government”. Such communications included those of “officials of the executive branch (including the White House, cabinet departments, and independent agencies), the US House of Representatives and Senate (member and staff) and the US federal court system (including, but not limited to, the supreme court)”.

It is not clear whether any communications involving members of US Congress or the federal courts have been included in the raw data provided by the NSA, nor is it clear how or why the NSA would be in possession of such communications. In 2009, however, the New York Times reported on “the agency’s attempt to wiretap a member of Congress, without court approval, on an overseas trip”.

The NSA is required by law to target only non-US persons without an individual warrant, but it can collect the content and metadata of Americans’ emails and calls without a warrant when such communication is with a foreign target. US persons are defined in surveillance legislation as US citizens, permanent residents and anyone located on US soil at the time of the interception, unless it has been positively established that they are not a citizen or permanent resident.

Moreover, with much of the world’s internet traffic passing through US networks, large numbers of purely domestic communications also get scooped up incidentally by the agency’s surveillance programs.

The document mentions only one check carried out by the NSA on the raw intelligence, saying the agency will “regularly review a sample of files transferred to ISNU to validate the absence of US persons’ identities”. It also requests that the Israelis limit access only to personnel with a “strict need to know”.

Israeli intelligence is allowed “to disseminate foreign intelligence information concerning US persons derived from raw Sigint by NSA” on condition that it does so “in a manner that does not identify the US person”. The agreement also allows Israel to release US person identities to “outside parties, including all INSU customers” with the NSA’s written permission.

Although Israel is one of America’s closest allies, it is not one of the inner core of countries involved in surveillance sharing with the US – Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. This group is collectively known as Five Eyes.

The relationship between the US and Israel has been strained at times, both diplomatically and in terms of intelligence. In the top-secret 2013 intelligence community budget request, details of which were disclosed by the Washington Post, Israel is identified alongside Iran and China as a target for US cyberattacks.

While NSA documents tout the mutually beneficial relationship of Sigint sharing, another report, marked top secret and dated September 2007, states that the relationship, while central to US strategy, has become overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of Israel.

“Balancing the Sigint exchange equally between US and Israeli needs has been a constant challenge,” states the report, titled ‘History of the US – Israel Sigint Relationship, Post-1992′. “In the last decade, it arguably tilted heavily in favor of Israeli security concerns. 9/11 came, and went, with NSA’s only true Third Party [counter-terrorism] relationship being driven almost totally by the needs of the partner.”

In another top-secret document seen by the Guardian, dated 2008, a senior NSA official points out that Israel aggressively spies on the US. “On the one hand, the Israelis are extraordinarily good Sigint partners for us, but on the other, they target us to learn our positions on Middle East problems,” the official says. “A NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] ranked them as the third most aggressive intelligence service against the US.”

Later in the document, the official is quoted as saying: “One of NSA’s biggest threats is actually from friendly intelligence services, like Israel. There are parameters on what NSA shares with them, but the exchange is so robust, we sometimes share more than we intended.”

The memorandum of understanding also contains hints that there had been tensions in the intelligence-sharing relationship with Israel. At a meeting in March 2009 between the two agencies, according to the document, it was agreed that the sharing of raw data required a new framework and further training for Israeli personnel to protect US person information.

It is not clear whether or not this was because there had been problems up to that point in the handling of intelligence that was found to contain Americans’ data.

However, an earlier US document obtained by Snowden, which discusses co-operating on a military intelligence program, bluntly lists under the cons: “Trust issues which revolve around previous ISR [Israel] operations.”

The Guardian asked the Obama administration how many times US data had been found in the raw intelligence, either by the Israelis or when the NSA reviewed a sample of the files, but officials declined to provide this information. Nor would they disclose how many other countries the NSA shared raw data with, or whether the Fisa court, which is meant to oversee NSA surveillance programs and the procedures to handle US information, had signed off the agreement with Israel.

In its statement, the NSA said: “We are not going to comment on any specific information sharing arrangements, or the authority under which any such information is collected. The fact that intelligence services work together under specific and regulated conditions mutually strengthens the security of both nations.

“NSA cannot, however, use these relationships to circumvent US legal restrictions. Whenever we share intelligence information, we comply with all applicable rules, including the rules to protect US person information.”

Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill
The Guardian, Wednesday 11 September 2013 15.40 BST

Find this story at 11 September 2013
Read the NSA and Israel’s ‘memorandum of understanding’

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

In Secret AT&T Deal, U.S. Drug Agents Given Access to 26 Years of Americans’ Phone Records

The New York Times has revealed the Drug Enforcement Administration has an even more extensive collection of U.S. phone records than the National Security Agency. Under a secretive DEA program called the Hemisphere Project, the agency has access to records of every phone call transmitted via AT&T’s infrastructure dating back to 1987. That period covers an even longer stretch of time than the NSA’s collection of phone records, which started under President George W. Bush. Each day, some four billion call records are swept into the database, which is stored by AT&T. The U.S. government then pays for AT&T employees to station themselves inside DEA units, where they can quickly hand over records after agents obtain an administrative subpoena. The DEA says the collection allows it to catch drug dealers who frequently switch phones, but civil liberties advocates say it raises major privacy concerns. We speak with Scott Shane, national security reporter for The New York Times and co-author of the report, “Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing NSA’s.”
Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: In a moment we’ll be talking about the death of David Frost with the director Ron Howard, but first we turn to news that one government agency has an even more extensive collection of U.S. phone records than the National Security Administration, the NSA. That agency is the Drug Enforcement Administration. In a front-page article, The New York Times has revealed a secretive operation inside the DEA called the Hemisphere Project. Under this program, the DEA has access to records of every phone call over AT&T’s network dating back to 1987. That period covers a longer stretch of time than the NSA’s collection of phone records, which began under President George W. Bush. Some four billion call records are gathered to the DEA’s database every day. It’s unclear if other major phone companies are involved.

Unlike with the NSA, the DEA’s phone records are actually stored by AT&T. The U.S. government then pays for AT&T employees to station themselves inside DEA units, where they can quickly hand over data after agents obtain an administrative subpoena. The U.S. government says the program allows DEA agents to keep up with those in the drug trade who often switch phones. In a statement, Justice Department spokesperson Brian Fallon said that “subpoenaing drug dealers’ phone records is a bread-and-butter tactic in the course of criminal investigations” and that Hemisphere “simply streamlines the process.”

The disclosure of the DEA’s Hemisphere program follows another major revelation involving the DEA and government surveillance. It was revealed last month a secretive DEA unit has used information taken from NSA wiretaps for cases unrelated to terrorism. The DEA has also provided classified intelligence obtained by the NSA and other sources to the Internal Revenue Service to help in their investigations of Americans.

Well, for more, we’re joined by Scott Shane, national security reporter for The New York Times. His front-page article, co-written with Colin Moynihan, appeared in Monday’s New York Times, “Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.S.A.’s.”

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Scott Shane. Explain exactly how it’s done and how you found out about this.

SCOTT SHANE: Well, as you mentioned, I wrote this article with Colin Moynihan, a colleague at The New York Times, and he received from an activist in Washington state, named Drew Hendricks, a 27-slide PowerPoint, which was prepared by AT&T and government agents, apparently DEA or possibly other government agencies, and essentially they’re training slides to introduce folks who are going to be working on the Hemisphere Project, how it works and what it can do. And Drew Hendricks, the activist in Washington, got these slides as part of a series of public information requests. He’s sort of a peace activist out there, and he had been helping some folks with a lawsuit and just, you know, fired off a bunch of public information requests to police agencies in Washington state and other places on the West Coast. This set of slides came back with one of those requests.

Drew Hendricks believes it may have been sent actually by accident, included by accident. And so—but, in fact, it’s unclassified. It’s marked “Law enforcement sensitive,” but it’s unclassified, and it actually states that the Hemisphere Project is unclassified. What’s kind of remarkable to us is that this has been going on for at least six years under the name Hemisphere Project, and it’s unclassified, but no one has ever learned about it. I couldn’t find a single reference to it in the Nexis database or on the web. And so, they’ve kept it very well hidden, and indeed some of the slides say, if you get information from Hemisphere, never reveal the source of the information. So, the government has kept this very, very well hidden, along with AT&T.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain what exactly it is, what AT&T is keeping records of and how the government uses this information.

SCOTT SHANE: AT&T operates what are called switches, through which telephone calls travel all around the country. And what AT&T does in this program is it collects all the—what are called the CDRs, the call data records, the so-called metadata from the calls that we’ve heard about in the NSA context. This is the phone number—phone numbers involved in a call, its time, its duration, and in this case it’s also the location. Some are cellphone calls; some are land line calls. Anything that travels through an AT&T switch, even if it’s not made by an AT&T customer—for example, if you’re using your T-Mobile cellphone but your call travels through an AT&T switch somewhere in the country, it will be picked up by this project and dumped into this database. So AT&T collects the information on all these calls, basically who called who when all over the country. And as you mentioned, there is a slide that says four billion—with a B—call data records are added to the database every day. I’m told by some technical experts that it’s possible one call can create more than one call data record. Apparently, if a cellphone, for example, in a moving car switches from one tower to another, that could be another record, so—because those numbers sound pretty high, 12—you know, maybe 12 or so calls per American per day.

But anyway, all that call data goes into this giant database, and then when a drug agent at one of three centers around the country—in Los Angeles, Houston and Atlanta—finds a number of interest, they can ask the AT&T person sitting next to them, “Check this out.” The AT&T person accesses the database, the Hemisphere database, and they can come back with a record of, you know, “Here’s the other numbers called by this number, the number you’re interested in,” and when and where, in many cases, and then they can follow up.

I should say that in order to access the database, the government says that the agent asking AT&T to make the search has to produce at least what’s called an administrative subpoena, which is essentially a form, a DEA form, not approved by a court or by a judge, but simply a DEA form saying, you know, here’s why we’re interested in this number. So there’s no judicial oversight, but it is—these administrative subpoenas are used routinely in a criminal investigation. So the government’s side of the story is that this is no different from kind of routine criminal investigation that happens every day.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Shane, very quickly, my final question is about the issue of privacy. What does this raise for Americans?

SCOTT SHANE: Well, I think what it shows is that, apart from the program we’ve learned about with the NSA in recent months, there are many other programs that the government has, many of them related to law enforcement as well as to intelligence gathering, and also that the government works extremely closely with some telecommunications and Internet companies, sometimes using court orders but often using voluntary arrangements like this one, and often paying the companies to participate, so that the universe of data that’s gathered and has implications for American privacy goes way beyond any one agency or even beyond the government itself into the corporate sector.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Shane, I want to thank you for being with us, national security reporter for The New York Times. We’ll link to your front-page article yesterday, “Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.S.A.’s.”

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Find this story at 3 September 2013

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

DEA has more extensive domestic phone surveillance op than NSA

For at least six years, US anti-drug agents have used subpoenas to routinely gain access to an enormous AT&T database. It’s an intrusion greater in scale and longevity than the NSA’s collection of phone calls, revealed by Edward Snowden’s leaks.

As part of the secret Hemisphere Project the government has been paying AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country, the New York Times reports.

The US’s largest telecoms operator has been supplying phone data to the Drug Enforcement Administration since 1987.

The project covers every call that passes through an AT&T switch, including those made by clients of other operators, with some four billion call records added to the database on a daily basis.

And, unlike the much debated NSA data, the Hemisphere data includes information on the location of those, making the calls.

The New York Times found out about the surveillance program after it received slides, describing the Hemisphere Project, from peace activist, Drew Hendricks.

The activist said he was sent the PowerPoint presentation – which is unclassified, but marked “Law enforcement sensitive” – in response to a series of public information requests to West Coast police agencies.

The slides revealed that the program was launched back in 2007 and has been carried out in great secrecy since then.

“All requestors are instructed to never refer to Hemisphere in any official document,” one of the slides said.

The paper performed a search of the Nexis database, but found no reference to the program in news reports or Congressional hearings.

The US administration has acknowledged that Hemisphere is operational in three states, adding that the project employed routine investigative procedures used in criminal cases for decades and posed no novel privacy issues.

Justice Department spokesman, Brian Fallon, stressed that it’s crucial that the phone data is stored by AT&T, and not by the government like in the NSA case. It has requested phone numbers of interest mainly using what are called “administrative subpoenas,” those issued not by a grand jury or a judge, but by a federal agency, the DEA.

According to the spokesman, Hemisphere proved especially effective in finding criminals, who frequently discard their cellphones in order to avoid being tracked by polices.

“Subpoenaing drug dealers’ phone records is a bread-and-butter tactic in the course of criminal investigations,” he said in a statement.

The 27-slide PowerPoint presentation highlights several cases, in which Hemisphere solved big crimes, with not all of them being drug-related.

For example, this March it found the new phone number and location of a man, who impersonated a general at a San Diego Navy base and then ran over a Navy intelligence agent.

In 2011, Hemisphere tracked Seattle drug dealers, who were rotating prepaid phones, leading to the seizure of 136 kilos of cocaine and $2.2 million.

AT&T spokesman, Mark A. Siegel, declined to answer detailed questions on Hemisphere, only saying that AT&T “like all other companies, must respond to valid subpoenas issued by law enforcement.”

Representatives from Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile all declined to comment when asked by the New York Times whether their companies participated in Hemisphere or any other similar programs.

An undisclosed federal law enforcement official told the paper the Hemisphere Project was “singular” and that he knew of no comparable program involving other phone companies.

It’s not the first time AT&T has been involved in federal surveillance programs, the company operated a telecommunication interception facility for the NSA between 2003 and 2006.

Published time: September 02, 2013 23:41
Edited time: September 04, 2013 09:04

Find this story at 4 September 2013

© Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “TV-Novosti”, 2005–2013.

Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.S.A.’s

For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans’ phone calls — parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency’s hotly disputed collection of phone call logs.

The Hemisphere Project, a partnership between federal and local drug officials and AT&T that has not previously been reported, involves an extremely close association between the government and the telecommunications giant.

The government pays AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987.

The project comes to light at a time of vigorous public debate over the proper limits on government surveillance and on the relationship between government agencies and communications companies. It offers the most significant look to date at the use of such large-scale data for law enforcement, rather than for national security.

The scale and longevity of the data storage appears to be unmatched by other government programs, including the N.S.A.’s gathering of phone call logs under the Patriot Act. The N.S.A. stores the data for nearly all calls in the United States, including phone numbers and time and duration of calls, for five years.

Hemisphere covers every call that passes through an AT&T switch — not just those made by AT&T customers — and includes calls dating back 26 years, according to Hemisphere training slides bearing the logo of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Some four billion call records are added to the database every day, the slides say; technical specialists say a single call may generate more than one record. Unlike the N.S.A. data, the Hemisphere data includes information on the locations of callers.

The slides were given to The New York Times by Drew Hendricks, a peace activist in Port Hadlock, Wash. He said he had received the PowerPoint presentation, which is unclassified but marked “Law enforcement sensitive,” in response to a series of public information requests to West Coast police agencies.

The program was started in 2007, according to the slides, and has been carried out in great secrecy.

“All requestors are instructed to never refer to Hemisphere in any official document,” one slide says. A search of the Nexis database found no reference to the program in news reports or Congressional hearings.

The Obama administration acknowledged the extraordinary scale of the Hemisphere database and the unusual embedding of AT&T employees in government drug units in three states.

But they said the project, which has proved especially useful in finding criminals who discard cellphones frequently to thwart government tracking, employed routine investigative procedures used in criminal cases for decades and posed no novel privacy issues.

Crucially, they said, the phone data is stored by AT&T, and not by the government as in the N.S.A. program. It is queried for phone numbers of interest mainly using what are called “administrative subpoenas,” those issued not by a grand jury or a judge but by a federal agency, in this case the D.E.A.

Brian Fallon, a Justice Department spokesman, said in a statement that “subpoenaing drug dealers’ phone records is a bread-and-butter tactic in the course of criminal investigations.”

Mr. Fallon said that “the records are maintained at all times by the phone company, not the government,” and that Hemisphere “simply streamlines the process of serving the subpoena to the phone company so law enforcement can quickly keep up with drug dealers when they switch phone numbers to try to avoid detection.”

He said that the program was paid for by the D.E.A. and the White House drug policy office but that the cost was not immediately available.

Officials said four AT&T employees are now working in what is called the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, which brings together D.E.A. and local investigators — two in the program’s Atlanta office and one each in Houston and Los Angeles.

Daniel C. Richman, a law professor at Columbia, said he sympathized with the government’s argument that it needs such voluminous data to catch criminals in the era of disposable cellphones.

“Is this a massive change in the way the government operates? No,” said Mr. Richman, who worked as a federal drug prosecutor in Manhattan in the early 1990s. “Actually you could say that it’s a desperate effort by the government to catch up.”

But Mr. Richman said the program at least touched on an unresolved Fourth Amendment question: whether mere government possession of huge amounts of private data, rather than its actual use, may trespass on the amendment’s requirement that searches be “reasonable.” Even though the data resides with AT&T, the deep interest and involvement of the government in its storage may raise constitutional issues, he said.

Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the 27-slide PowerPoint presentation, evidently updated this year to train AT&T employees for the program, “certainly raises profound privacy concerns.”

“I’d speculate that one reason for the secrecy of the program is that it would be very hard to justify it to the public or the courts,” he said.

Mr. Jaffer said that while the database remained in AT&T’s possession, “the integration of government agents into the process means there are serious Fourth Amendment concerns.”

Mr. Hendricks filed the public records requests while assisting other activists who have filed a federal lawsuit saying that a civilian intelligence analyst at an Army base near Tacoma infiltrated and spied on antiwar groups. (Federal officials confirmed that the slides are authentic.)

Mark A. Siegel, a spokesman for AT&T, declined to answer more than a dozen detailed questions, including ones about what percentage of phone calls made in the United States were covered by Hemisphere, the size of the Hemisphere database, whether the AT&T employees working on Hemisphere had security clearances and whether the company has conducted any legal review of the program

“While we cannot comment on any particular matter, we, like all other companies, must respond to valid subpoenas issued by law enforcement,” Mr. Siegel wrote in an e-mail.

Representatives from Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile all declined to comment on Sunday in response to questions about whether their companies were aware of Hemisphere or participated in that program or similar ones. A federal law enforcement official said that the Hemisphere Project was “singular” and that he knew of no comparable program involving other phone companies.

The PowerPoint slides outline several “success stories” highlighting the program’s achievements and showing that it is used in investigating a range of crimes, not just drug violations. The slides emphasize the program’s value in tracing suspects who use replacement phones, sometimes called “burner” phones, who switch phone numbers or who are otherwise difficult to locate or identify.

In March 2013, for instance, Hemisphere found the new phone number and location of a man who impersonated a general at a San Diego Navy base and then ran over a Navy intelligence agent. A month earlier the program helped catch a South Carolina woman who had made a series of bomb threats.

And in Seattle in 2011, the document says, Hemisphere tracked drug dealers who were rotating prepaid phones, leading to the seizure of 136 kilos of cocaine and $2.2 million.

September 1, 2013
By SCOTT SHANE and COLIN MOYNIHAN

Find this story at 1 September 2013

© 2013 The New York Times Company

The NSA-DEA police state tango; This week’s DEA bombshell shows us how the drug war and the terror war have poisoned our justice system

So the paranoid hippie pot dealer you knew in college was right all along: The feds really were after him. In the latest post-Snowden bombshell about the extent and consequences of government spying, we learned from Reuters reporters this week that a secret branch of the DEA called the Special Operations Division – so secret that nearly everything about it is classified, including the size of its budget and the location of its office — has been using the immense pools of data collected by the NSA, CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies to go after American citizens for ordinary drug crimes. Law enforcement agencies, meanwhile, have been coached to conceal the existence of the program and the source of the information by creating what’s called a “parallel construction,” a fake or misleading trail of evidence. So no one in the court system – not the defendant or the defense attorney, not even the prosecutor or the judge – can ever trace the case back to its true origins.

On one hand, we all knew more revelations were coming, and the idea that the government would go after drug suspects with the same dubious extrajudicial methods used to pursue terrorism suspects is a classic and not terribly surprising example of mission creep. Both groups have been held up as bogeymen for years, in order to scare the public into accepting ever nastier and more repressive laws. This gives government officials another chance to talk to us in their stern grown-up voices about how this isn’t civics class, and sometimes they have to bend the rules to catch Really Bad People.

On the other hand, this is a genuinely sinister turn of events with a whiff of science-fiction nightmare, one that has sounded loud alarm bells for many people in the mainstream legal world. Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law professor who spent 18 years as a federal judge and cannot be accused of being a radical, told Reuters she finds the DEA story more troubling than anything in Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks. It’s the first clear evidence that the “special rules” and disregard for constitutional law that have characterized the hunt for so-called terrorists have crept into the domestic criminal justice system on a significant scale. “It sounds like they are phonying up investigations,” she said. Maybe this is how a police state comes to America: Not with a bang, but with a parallel construction.

By Andrew O’Hehir
Saturday, Aug 10, 2013 06:30 PM +0200

Find this story at 10 August 2013

Copyright © 2013 Salon Media Group, Inc.

Exclusive: IRS manual detailed DEA’s use of hidden intel evidence

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Details of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration program that feeds tips to federal agents and then instructs them to alter the investigative trail were published in a manual used by agents of the Internal Revenue Service for two years.

The practice of recreating the investigative trail, highly criticized by former prosecutors and defense lawyers after Reuters reported it this week, is now under review by the Justice Department. Two high-profile Republicans have also raised questions about the procedure.

A 350-word entry in the Internal Revenue Manual instructed agents of the U.S. tax agency to omit any reference to tips supplied by the DEA’s Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits, court proceedings or investigative files. The entry was published and posted online in 2005 and 2006, and was removed in early 2007. The IRS is among two dozen arms of the government working with the Special Operations Division, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency.

An IRS spokesman had no comment on the entry or on why it was removed from the manual. Reuters recovered the previous editions from the archives of the Westlaw legal database, which is owned by Thomson Reuters Corp, the parent of this news agency.

As Reuters reported Monday, the Special Operations Division of the DEA funnels information from overseas NSA intercepts, domestic wiretaps, informants and a large DEA database of telephone records to authorities nationwide to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. The DEA phone database is distinct from a NSA database disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Monday’s Reuters report cited internal government documents that show that law enforcement agents have been trained to conceal how such investigations truly begin – to “recreate” the investigative trail to effectively cover up the original source of the information.

DEA officials said the practice is legal and has been in near-daily use since the 1990s. They have said that its purpose is to protect sources and methods, not to withhold evidence.

NEW DETAIL

Defense attorneys and some former judges and prosecutors say that systematically hiding potential evidence from defendants violates the U.S. Constitution. According to documents and interviews, agents use a procedure they call “parallel construction” to recreate the investigative trail, stating in affidavits or in court, for example, that an investigation began with a traffic infraction rather than an SOD tip.

The IRS document offers further detail on the parallel construction program.

“Special Operations Division has the ability to collect, collate, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate information and intelligence derived from worldwide multi-agency sources, including classified projects,” the IRS document says. “SOD converts extremely sensitive information into usable leads and tips which are then passed to the field offices for real-time enforcement activity against major international drug trafficking organizations.”

The 2005 IRS document focuses on SOD tips that are classified and notes that the Justice Department “closely guards the information provided by SOD with strict oversight.” While the IRS document says that SOD information may only be used for drug investigations, DEA officials said the SOD role has recently expanded to organized crime and money laundering.

According to the document, IRS agents are directed to use the tips to find new, “independent” evidence: “Usable information regarding these leads must be developed from such independent sources as investigative files, subscriber and toll requests, physical surveillance, wire intercepts, and confidential source information. Information obtained from SOD in response to a search or query request cannot be used directly in any investigation (i.e. cannot be used in affidavits, court proceedings or maintained in investigative files).”

The IRS document makes no reference to SOD’s sources of information, which include a large DEA telephone and Internet database.

CONCERN IN CONGRESS

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, expressed concern with the concept of parallel construction as a method to hide the origin of an investigation. His comments came on the Mike Huckabee Show radio program.

“If they’re recreating a trail, that’s wrong and we’re going to have to do something about it,” said Rogers, a former FBI agent. “We’re working with the DEA and intelligence organizations to try to find out exactly what that story is.”

Spokespeople for the DEA and the Department of Justice declined to comment.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, a member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, said he was troubled that DEA agents have been “trying to cover up a program that investigates Americans.”

“National security is one of government’s most important functions. So is protecting individual liberty,” Paul said. “If the Constitution still has any sway, a government that is constantly overreaching on security while completely neglecting liberty is in grave violation of our founding doctrine.”

Officials have stressed that the NSA and DEA telephone databases are distinct. The NSA database, disclosed by Snowden, includes data about every telephone call placed inside the United States. An NSA official said that database is not used for domestic criminal law enforcement.

The DEA database, called DICE, consists largely of phone log and Internet data gathered legally by the DEA through subpoenas, arrests and search warrants nationwide. DICE includes about 1 billion records, and they are kept for about a year and then purged, DEA officials said.

(Research by Hilary Shroyer of West, a Thomson Reuters business. Additional reporting by David Lawder. Edited by Michael Williams)

© Thomson Reuters 2011. All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial use only. Republication or redistribution of Thomson Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters and its logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Thomson Reuters group of companies around the world.

Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.

Wed, Aug 7 2013
By John Shiffman and David Ingram

Find this story at 7 August 2013

© Thomson Reuters

DEA and NSA Team Up to Share Intelligence, Leading to Secret Use of Surveillance in Ordinary Investigations

UPDATE: Add the IRS to the list of federal agencies obtaining information from NSA surveillance. Reuters reports that the IRS got intelligence tips from DEA’s secret unit (SOD) and were also told to cover up the source of that information by coming up with their own independent leads to recreate the information obtained from SOD. So that makes two levels of deception: SOD hiding the fact it got intelligence from the NSA and the IRS hiding the fact it got information from SOD. Even worse, there’s a suggestion that the Justice Department (DOJ) “closely guards the information provided by SOD with strict oversight,” shedding doubt into the effectiveness of DOJ earlier announced efforts to investigate the program.

A startling new Reuters story shows one of the biggest dangers of the surveillance state: the unquenchable thirst for access to the NSA’s trove of information by other law enforcement agencies.

As the NSA scoops up phone records and other forms of electronic evidence while investigating national security and terrorism leads, they turn over “tips” to a division of the Drug Enforcement Agency (“DEA”) known as the Special Operations Division (“SOD”). FISA surveillance was originally supposed to be used only in certain specific, authorized national security investigations, but information sharing rules implemented after 9/11 allows the NSA to hand over information to traditional domestic law-enforcement agencies, without any connection to terrorism or national security investigations.

But instead of being truthful with criminal defendants, judges, and even prosecutors about where the information came from, DEA agents are reportedly obscuring the source of these tips. For example, a law enforcement agent could receive a tip from SOD—which SOD, in turn, got from the NSA—to look for a specific car at a certain place. But instead of relying solely on that tip, the agent would be instructed to find his or her own reason to stop and search the car. Agents are directed to keep SOD under wraps and not mention it in “investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony,” according to Reuters.

“Parallel construction” is really intelligence laundering

The government calls the practice “parallel construction,” but deciphering their double speak, the practice should really be known as “intelligence laundering.” This deception and dishonesty raises a host of serious legal problems.

First, the SOD’s insulation from even judges and prosecutors stops federal courts from assessing the constitutionality of the government’s surveillance practices. Last year, Solicitor General Donald Verilli told the Supreme Court that a group of lawyers, journalists and human rights advocates who regularly communicate with targets of NSA wiretapping under the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) had no standing to challenge the constitutionality of that surveillance. But Verrilli said that if the government wanted to use FAA evidence in a criminal prosecution, the source of the information would have to be disclosed. When the Supreme Court eventually ruled in the government’s favor, finding the plaintiffs had no standing, it justified its holding by noting the government’s concession that it would inform litigants when FAA evidence was being used against them.

Although the government has been initially slow to follow up on Verrilli’s promises, it has begrudgingly acknowledged its obligation to disclose when it uses the FAA to obtain evidence against criminal defendants. Just last week DOJ informed a federal court in Miami that it was required to disclose when FAA evidence was used to build a terrorism case against a criminal defendant.

Terrorism cases make up a very small portion of the total number of criminal cases brought by the federal government, counting for just 0.4 percent of all criminal cases brought by all U.S. Attorney offices across the country in 2012. Drug cases, on the other hand, made up 20 percent of all federal criminal cases filed in 2012, the second most prosecuted type of crime after immigration cases. If the government acknowledges it has to disclose when FAA evidence has been used to make a drug case—even if it’s a tip leading to a pretextual traffic stop—the number of challenges to FAA evidence will increase dramatically.

SOD bypasses the Constitution

Even beyond the larger systemic problem of insulating NSA surveillance from judicial review, criminal defendants whose arrest or case is built upon FISA evidence are now deprived of their right to examine and challenge the evidence used against them.

Taken together, the Fifth and Sixth Amendments guarantee a criminal defendant a meaningful opportunity to present a defense and challenge the government’s case. But this intelligence laundering deprives defendants of these important constitutional protections. It makes it harder for prosecutors to comply with their ethical obligation under Brady v. Maryland to disclose any exculpatory or favorable evidence to the defense—an obligation that extends to disclosing evidence bearing on the reliability of a government witness. Hiding the source of information used by the government to initiate an investigation or make an arrest means defendants are deprived of the opportunity to challenge the accuracy or veracity of the government’s investigation, let alone seek out favorable evidence in the government’s possession.

Courts must have all the facts

The third major legal problem is that the practice suggests DEA agents are misleading the courts. Wiretaps, search warrants, and other forms of surveillance authorizations require law enforcement to go to a judge and lay out the facts that support the request. The court’s function is to scrutinize the facts to determine the appropriate legal standard has been met based on truthful, reliable evidence. So, for example, if the government is using evidence gathered from an informant to support its request for a search warrant, it has to establish to the court that the informant is reliable and trustworthy so that the court can be convinced there is probable cause to support the search. But when law enforcement omits integral facts—like the source of a tip used to make an arrest—the court is deprived of the opportunity to fulfill its traditional role and searches are signed off without the full knowledge of the court.

Ultimately, if you build it, they will come. There’s no doubt that once word got out about the breadth of data the NSA was collecting and storing, other law enforcement agencies would want to get their hands in the digital cookie jar. In fact, the New York Times reported on Sunday that other agencies have tried to get information from the NSA to “curb drug trafficking, cyberattacks, money laundering, counterfeiting and even copyright infringement.”

Teaming up to play fast and loose with criminal defendants and the court, the DEA and NSA have made a mockery of the rule of law and the legal frameworks intended to curb abuses.

August 6, 2013 | By Hanni Fakhoury

Find this story at 6 August 2013

© www.eff.org

A Domestic Surveillance Scandal at the DEA? Agents Urged to Cover Up Use of NSA Intel in Drug Probes

The U.S. Department of Justice has begun reviewing a controversial unit inside the Drug Enforcement Administration that uses secret domestic surveillance tactics — including intelligence gathered by the National Security Agency — to target Americans for drug offenses. According to a series of articles published by Reuters, agents are instructed to recreate the investigative trail in order to conceal the origins of the evidence, not only from defense lawyers, but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges. “We are talking about ordinary crime: drug dealing, organized crime, money laundering. We are not talking about national security crimes,” says Reuters reporter John Shiffman. Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, says this is just the latest scandal at the DEA. “I hope it is a sort of wake-up call for people in Congress to say now is the time, finally, after 40 years, to say this agency really needs a close examination.”
Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: The Justice Department has begun reviewing a controversial unit inside the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that uses secret domestic surveillance tactics, including intelligence gathered by the National Security Agency, to target Americans for drug offenses. According to a series of articles published by the Reuters news agency, agents are instructed to recreate the investigative trail in order to conceal the origins of the evidence—not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges. DEA training documents instruct agents to even make up alternative versions of how such investigations truly begin, a process known as “parallel construction.”

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was asked about the Reuters investigation.

PRESS SECRETARY JAY CARNEY: It’s my understanding, our understanding, that the Department of Justice is looking at some of the issues raised in the story. But for more, I would refer you to the Department of Justice.

AMY GOODMAN: The unit of the DEA that distributes the secret intelligence to agents is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. The unit was first created two decades ago, but it’s coming under increased scrutiny following the recent revelations about the NSA maintaining a database of all phone calls made in the United States. One former federal judge, Nancy Gertner, said the DEA program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the NSA has been collecting domestic phone records. She said, quote, “It is one thing to create special rules for national security. Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up investigations.”

For more, we’re joined by the reporter who broke this story, John Shiffman, correspondent for Reuters, which published his exclusive story Monday, “U.S. Tells Agents to Cover Up Use of Wiretap Program.”

Welcome to Democracy Now!, John. Why don’t you start off by just laying it out and what exactly this cover-up is.

JOHN SHIFFMAN: Thanks very much for having me.

Well, my colleague Kristina Cooke and I spoke with about a dozen or two dozen agents and obtained some internal documents that showed that what federal agents, not just DEA agents but other agents who work with the DEA and do drug investigations—what they’re doing is, is they are starting—they are claiming that their investigations start, say, at step two. They are withholding step one from the investigations. And, I should say, it’s not just NSA intercepts. It’s informant information, information obtained from court-ordered wiretaps in one case, and using those for information in a second case. They also have a large database of phone records. Whenever the DEA subpoenas or does a search warrant and gets phone records for someone suspected of involvement in drugs or gang involvement, they put all those numbers into one giant database they call DICE, and they use that information to compare different cases. All of the collection is—seems perfectly legitimate, in terms of being court-ordered. What troubles some critics is the fact that they are hiding that information from drug defendants who face trial. The problem with that is that—is that these defendants won’t know about some potentially exculpatory information that may affect their case and their right to a fair trial.

AMY GOODMAN: So explain exactly how this information is being hidden from judges, prosecutors and sometimes defense attorneys, as well.

JOHN SHIFFMAN: Sure. Well, just to give an example, through any of these four different ways, including the NSA intercepts, the DEA’s Special Operations Division will send the information to a DEA agent in the field or a FBI agent or an ICE agent or state policeman, and they’ll give him the information. Then they’ll say, “Look, you know, we understand that there will be a truck going to a certain park in Texas at a certain time. It’s a red truck. It’ll be two people involved.” And the state trooper or the DEA will find you reason to pull the truck over, say for a broken tail light or for speeding, that sort of thing. And, lo and behold, inside the trunk they’ll find, you know, a kilo of cocaine. The people who have been arrested will never know that—why the police or the DEA pulled them over. They’ll think it’s just luck. And that’s important because if those people try to go to trial, there are pieces of information about how that evidence was obtained and what it shows and what other pieces of it show—might affect their trial.

AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, I spoke with Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald just after your story broke about how the DEA is using material gathered in part by the NSA in its surveillance of Americans. Glenn Greenwald has, of course, broken several major stories about the NSA’s domestic activity. This was his response.

GLENN GREENWALD: So this should be a huge scandal for the following reason. The essence of the Constitution is that the government cannot obtain evidence or information about you unless it has probable cause to believe that you’ve engaged in a crime and then goes to a court and gets a warrant. And only then is that evidence usable in a prosecution against you. What this secret agency is doing, according to Reuters, it is circumventing that process by gathering all kinds of information without any court supervision, without any oversight at all, using surveillance technologies and other forms of domestic spying. And then, when it gets this information that it believes it can be used in a criminal prosecution, it knows that that information can’t be used in a criminal prosecution because it’s been acquired outside of the legal and constitutional process, so they cover up how they really got it, and they pretend—they make it seem as though they really got it through legal and normal means, by then going back and retracing the investigation, once they already have it, and re-acquiring it so that it looks to defense counsel and even to judges and prosecutors like it really was done in the constitutionally permissible way. So they’re prosecuting people and putting people in prison for using evidence that they’ve acquired illegally, which they’re then covering up and lying about and deceiving courts into believing was actually acquired constitutionally. It’s a full-frontal assault on the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments and on the integrity of the judicial process, because they’re deceiving everyone involved in criminal prosecutions about how this information has been obtained.

AMY GOODMAN: John Shiffman, if you could elaborate on that and also talk about the differences between what the DEA is doing and what Glenn Greenwald exposed around the NSA?

JOHN SHIFFMAN: Sure. These are two very—I think they’re different topics, for one main reason, which is that the NSA revelations by Mr. Greenwald and Mr. Snowden are related to terrorism—or at least that’s what we’re told by the government. And the DEA, what the DEA is doing is only—very rarely do they get involved in terrorism. I mean, they do some narcoterrorism, but inside the United States we’re talking about ordinary crime. We’re talking about drug dealing, organized crime, money laundering. We’re not talking about national security crimes.

The one thing I would say is that the defense analysts I’ve spoken with, meaning defense attorney analysts, they emphasize less the probable cause aspect of it than they find—they don’t find that as troubling. What they find really troubling is the pretrial discovery aspects of this and a prosecutor’s, you know, obligation to turn over any exculpatory evidence. What they really have a problem with is that this program systematically excludes or appears to systematically exclude all evidence obtained, you know, that’s hidden from view, so the defense doesn’t know to request it. They find that a lot more troubling than the probable cause aspects of it. The Supreme Court has given a pretty wide pro-police interpretation of when probable cause can be obtained, and there are a variety of exceptions. But it’s really the pretrial discovery part of it that seems to trouble a lot of the former judges and defense attorneys and prosecutors.

AMY GOODMAN: One of the two slides Reuters obtained that were used to train agents with the Drug Enforcement Agency instructs them in the use of parallel construction. According to the slide, this is, quote, “the use of normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by the [Special Operations Division],” such as subpoenaed domestic telephone calls. A second slide instructs agents that such evidence, quote, “cannot be revealed or discussed.” The slide is titled “Special Operations Division Rules.” Describe what you uncovered about those rules and this concept of parallel construction, which until now had not been publicly discussed in writing.

JOHN SHIFFMAN: Well, what really surprised me was talking to agents, current and former agents, who said, “Sure, we do that.” They—half of them said, “Yeah, you know, I could see how people might have a problem with that.” The other half said, “You know, look, this is a hard job that we do, and we’re going after criminals and drug dealers.” The people that got the most offended, I think, were the lawyers, the prosecutors and the—you know, and the judges and the former judges. One current prosecutor told me that he had a case where—in Florida, where a DEA agent came to him with a case and said that it began with an informant. So they were proceeding with the case, and the prosecutor asked the DEA agent more information. He said, you know, “I need to know more about your informant.” Turns out, ultimately, that he found out that there was no informant. It was an NSA wiretap. And what—overseas. And that really upset the prosecutor, because he said that it really offended his sense of fair play and honesty. And he said, “It’s just a bad way of starting an investigation, if you’re going to start with a lie.”

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Ethan Nadelmann into this discussion, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Ethan, why is—are the revelations by Reuters, John Shiffman’s investigation, so significant for your work?

ETHAN NADELMANN: Well, I think what it plays into, Amy, is that there’s been this remarkable lack of oversight of DEA by Congress, by other federal oversight agencies, for decades now. I mean, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the DEA, which Nixon created as a merger of police agencies, of drug enforcement agencies, back during the—one of the earlier drug wars. And what you see is an organization with a budget of over $2 billion. You see an organization getting involved in all sorts of shenanigans, hiring informants who land up to be tied up with murderers, you know, locking up some poor drug—you know, I don’t think even drug dealer, drug—low-level offender, and forgetting about him in a prison cell in this case of Daniel Chong, who was left in a prison cell for five days and forgotten. But beyond that, you have the agency serving as a propaganda agency, with no—with none of its statements being compared or held to any sort of scientific standards. You have an administrator who testifies before Congress and is almost a laughing stock when it comes to talking about drugs. So I think that this report by Reuters and by John Shiffman—I hope it’s a sort of wake-up call for people in Congress to say, “Now is the time, finally, after really 40 years, to say this agency really needs a close examination.”

AMY GOODMAN: Ethan, the Drug Enforcement Administration has agreed to pay $4.1 million in a settlement to a San Diego college student who nearly lost his life after being left handcuffed in his cell for more than four days without food or water. He ultimately drank his urine as he lay there, yelling out to agents right outside. His name was Daniel Chong. He was arrested for a 420 celebration of marijuana culture. He was never charged with any crime, and ultimately he was released.

ETHAN NADELMANN: You know, I think—I mean, that’s the case I was mentioning before. I mean, part of—you know, one can say, “Oh, this is just an accident, and accidents happen.” But, of course, accidents like that should never happen when you’re talking about a police agency, much less a federal police agency, being allowed to just sort of forget about somebody. And in the end, what happens? The taxpayers bail out the DEA for almost killing somebody for no cause whatsoever. So, you know, each year the DEA goes through its own little, you know, appropriations hearings in Congress. Each year it gets approved. And each year they just sort of get a ride. I think these things are piling up in a way that can no longer be sustained—should no longer be sustained.

AMY GOODMAN: So what has been, John Shiffman, the response to your investigation by the DEA, by the NSA, by the FBI and others?

JOHN SHIFFMAN: Well, they say it’s perfectly legal, what they do. And they say that—one DEA official told us that, you know, “This is a bedrock principle, parallel construction. We use it every day.” They’re pretty unabashed about it and said that—you know, that they’ve been doing this since the late ’90s, and there’s really nothing wrong with it. Yesterday the Justice Department said they are going to review it. But DEA has said, you know, there’s no problem with this.

AMY GOODMAN: How many people does this impact?

JOHN SHIFFMAN: Well, it would impact—I would think it would impact everyone, because, you know, it’s—we’re talking about a principle of law here. Not to get too legal, but, I mean, if you’re arrested, one of the fundamental rights that you have is to see the evidence against you. You know, when I was at the DEA and doing the interview, they cited the Ted Stevens case, which involved prosecutorial misconduct, which had—in which the senator’s charges were thrown out, because evidence was concealed. They said that after that there had been a review of all of the discovery procedures throughout the Justice Department, including at Special Operations Division. But they said that—and so I asked, I said, “Great, can I see a copy of the review?” And they said, “No.”

AMY GOODMAN: So, Ethan Nadelmann, it’s all legal.

ETHAN NADELMANN: Well, you know, that’s what happens when any agency gets to just do what it wants to do for years and years and years without anybody looking over its shoulder. You know, I mean, Amy, this agency has also done things in the areas of medical marijuana, scientific research, the scheduling process of drugs, whereby they will go through an entirely legal process, through their own administrative law process hearings. It will have an internal judge, an administrative law judge, come down with recommendations that are scientifically based, that are credible, and then they will have the politically appointed head of this agency overrule those recommendations for no purpose whatsoever.

Once again, Congress is not asking any questions. It’s their job to look at the—I mean, obviously, it’s the Obama administration’s job, as well, and Eric Holder’s job, as well, but it’s ultimately Congress, as well, that has to care about these things. And I’m hoping that it’s not just Democrats in the Senate, but also Republicans in the House, who will say, “This agency has gone too far.” Republicans have never been great friends of overextensions of federal police power, and I hope they can find some common cause with Democrats, saying, “Wait a second. Let’s call the DEA in here. Let’s look at what—you know, what John Shiffman has found with his investigative report. Let’s look at all these other patterns of abuse and misbehavior.”

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you both for being with us, John Shiffman, for your reporting at Reuters, and Ethan Nadelmann. Thanks so much for joining us. We’ll link to the story at democracynow.org.

JOHN SHIFFMAN: Thanks.

AMY GOODMAN: Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. When we come back, we’re going to Richmond, California, to speak with the mayor. Stay with us.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Find this story at 6 August 2013

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US-Geheimdienst: BND übermittelt afghanische Funkzellendaten an NSA

Die Daten können Experten zufolge Hinweise für gezielte Tötungen liefern: Nach SPIEGEL-Informationen stammt ein beträchtlicher Teil der an die NSA übertragenen Daten aus der Funkzellenauswertung in Afghanistan. Der BND wiegelt ab.

Hamburg – Der Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) übermittelt nach SPIEGEL-Informationen afghanische Funkzellendaten an den US-Geheimdienst NSA. Spionageprogramme wie XKeyscore erstellen daraus Bewegungsprofile. Sie zeigen mit nur wenigen Minuten Verzögerung an, wo sich Handy-Nutzer aufhalten – und spielten womöglich eine wichtige Rolle bei der gezielten Tötung von Qaida-Kämpfern durch US-Drohnen.

Der BND erklärte, Mobilfunkdaten seien für eine zielgenaue Lokalisierung eines Menschen nicht geeignet. Experten gehen aber davon aus, dass Funkzellendaten Hinweise für gezielte Tötungen liefern können. Auch die “Süddeutsche Zeitung” hatte am Samstag einen Experten zitiert, wonach die Daten des BND zur Ortung nützlich seien.

Der Bürgerrechtler Burkhard Hirsch (FDP) hält den Datentransfer, der offenbar jenseits der parlamentarischen Kontrolle stattfindet, für sehr problematisch. “Wenn der BND in solchem Umfang für einen anderen Geheimdienst tätig wird, dann ist das ein politischer Vorgang, der unter allen Umständen im zuständigen Bundestagsgremium hätte behandelt werden müssen”, sagte Hirsch dem SPIEGEL.

BND-Präsident Gerhard Schindler sagte der “Bild am Sonntag”, die Kooperation mit der NSA diene “auch dem unmittelbaren Schutz unserer in Afghanistan eingesetzten Soldatinnen und Soldaten”. Die durch die Fernmeldeaufklärung gewonnenen Erkenntnisse trügen dazu bei, Anschlagsplanungen von Terroristen rechtzeitig erkennen zu können. Dies gehöre zu den “prioritären Aufgaben” eines Auslandsnachrichtendiensts.

Gegenüber dem SPIEGEL erklärte der BND, er habe seit Januar 2011 “maßgebliche Hilfe” bei der Verhinderung von vier Anschlägen auf deutsche Soldaten in Afghanistan geleistet. Bei weiteren 15 verhinderten Anschlägen habe die Datenüberwachung “zu diesen Erfolgen beigetragen”.

11. August 2013, 14:12 Uhr

Find this story at 11 August 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

Berlin Denies Military Knew About Prism

A media report on Wednesday alleged that a NATO document proves the German military knew about the NSA’s Prism surveillance program in 2011. But both Berlin and the country’s foreign intelligence agency deny the account, saying there was a NATO program with the same name in Afghanistan.

The German government has so far claimed that it knew nothing of the United States’ Prism spying program, revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden last month. But parts of a confidential NATO document published by daily Bild on Wednesday show that the German military, the Bundeswehr, may have already been aware of the National Security Agency’s operations in 2011, the paper alleged.

The document, reportedly sent on Sept. 1, 2011 to all regional commands by the joint NATO headquarters in Afghanistan, gives specific instructions for working together on a program called Prism, which the paper said was the same as that run by the NSA. According to Bild, the document was also sent to the regional command in northern Afghanistan, for which Germany was responsible at the time under General Major Markus Kneip.

Should the media report be confirmed, Berlin’s claims of ignorance will prove to have been false. But on Wednesday afternoon, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert denied the Bild story, saying that the document referred to a separate program that had been run by NATO troops, and not the US. The programs were “not identical,” he said.

The BND, Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, also weighed in with a statement, saying that the program had not been confidential and was also not the same as the NSA’s Prism operation. “The program called Prism by the Bild report today is a NATO/ISAF program that is not identical to the NSA’s program,” it said. “The BND had no knowledge of the name, range or scope of the NSA program.”

A Separate Prism Program?

According to the document cited by Bild, as of Sept. 15 that year, regional commands were instructed to apply for monitoring telephone calls and e-mails, according to the document, in which Prism is named at least three times. “Existing COMINT (communications intelligence) nominations submitted outside of PRISM must be resubmitted into PRISM IOT,” it reads.

It also states that access to the Prism program is regulated by the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS), which is used by various US intelligence services to transmit classified information.

“Coalition RCs (regional commands) will utilize the US military or civilian personnel assigned to their collection management shop ISRLO (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Liaison Officer),” it goes on. In Bild’s assessment, “military or civilian personnel” stands for US intelligence service staff.

Keeping Track of Terrorists

The purpose of all this was to “submit the telephone numbers and email addresses of terrorists into the surveillance system,” the paper reports.

It also claims to have seen documents indicating that the BND, Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, provided such telephone numbers to NATO, where they were ultimately fed into the surveillance system as well.

The reason for the NATO order was that the NSA’s director had tasked the US military with coordinating surveillance in Afghanistan, Bild reported.

The German Defense Ministry told the paper that it had “no information and knowledge of such an order,” but would be looking into the matter.

In response to the report, Green party parliamentarian and defense spokesman Omid Nouripour told SPIEGEL ONLINE that Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière must clarify the situation. “These circumstances destroy the government’s line of defense” on the NSA scandal, he said. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right coalition can “no longer claim it didn’t know anything about Prism.”

As more details emerge about the scope of the NSA’s worldwide spying program and Germany’s alleged role in the surveillance, the scandal is becoming a central issue in the country’s campaign for the upcoming general election. Germans are particularly sensitive about data protection because of their history of state encroachment on civil liberties, first under the Nazis and then in communist East Germany. And if it turns out that Berlin knowingly tolerated and participated in the NSA activities, many would see it as a betrayal by the government.

07/17/2013 12:29 PM
Media Report

Find this story at 17 July 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

Germany backs away from claims NSA program thwarted five attacks

German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich is backing off his earlier assertion that the Obama administration’s NSA monitoring of Internet accounts had prevented five terror attacks in Germany, raising questions about other claims concerning the value of the massive monitoring programs revealed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

Friedrich had made the assertion about the number of attacks that the NSA programs – which scoop up records from cellphone and Internet accounts – had helped to avert after a brief visit to the United States last week. But on Tuesday, he told a German parliamentary panel, “It is relatively difficult to count the number of terror attacks that didn’t occur.” And on Wednesday, he was publically referring to just two foiled attacks, at least one and possibly both of which appeared to have little to do with the NSA’s surveillance programs.

The questions about the programs’ value in thwarting attacks in Germany come as some members of the U.S. Congress have told Obama officials that the programs exceeded what Congress authorized when it passed laws that the administration is arguing allowed the collection of vast amounts of information on cellphone and Internet email accounts.

In Germany, the concern is that the NSA is capturing and storing as many as 500 million electronic communications each month, but Germans are getting little if anything back for what is seen as an immoral and illegal invasion of privacy.

Friedrich spent July 11-12 in the United States for meetings with U.S. officials on the NSA programs that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had requested. The point of the meetings was to gather information that would calm a building German angst over the spy scandal.

Instead of being reassured, however, opposition politicians and commentators now are talking about the arrogance of the U.S. application of “winner’s power” (a reference to the political authority the United States had here during the Cold War, when Germany was divided between east and west, and West Germany leaned heavily on America for support), and how traditionally strong relations between the two countries have been harmed by the scandal.

“German-American relations are at risk,” said Hans-Christian Stroebele, a Green Party member of the influential German intelligence oversight committee in the country’s legislature, the Bundestag, which is dominated by Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. “The longer it takes to uncover the facts after this long silence, the more problematic it becomes. No one even bothers to deny what’s been said. It could be that German or (European Union) courts will have to deal with this.”

Even as emotions build, NSA plans for expanding a listening station in Germany were revealed this week, raising more questions.

Stroebele spoke Thursday to McClatchy, addressing Friedrich’s official report, delivered behind closed doors to the Bundestag committee. He said Friedrich received little information from the United States in his quick trip to Washington.

“We’re lucky to have had Snowden,” Stroebele said. “Without him, this surveillance that is not permissible under international law would have continued for a long time. In Germany, there are prison terms for such spying.”

Perhaps most troubling was how quickly the government backed down on the claims that the surveillance helped foil terror plots. Gisela Piltz, a Liberal Party member of the Bundestag intelligence committee, said she could not give exact details of what took place in the secret hearing but noted: “There was a clear discrepancy between the previously reported number of foiled terror attacks and the number we talked about.”

And even those cases raised questions. One of them, commonly known as the Sauerland Cell Plot, involved an alleged conspiracy in 2007 to detonate a series of car bombs in crowded places. Piltz was involved in a Bundestag study of what took place. The goal of the would-be bombers was to surpass the death and injured toll from commuter train attacks in Madrid in 2004, which killed 191 and wounded another 1,800.

The conspirators, who allegedly included two Germans, had gathered nearly a ton of liquid explosives.

News reports at the time mentioned an unnamed U.S. intelligence official saying that cellphone calls by the two Germans had been intercepted. But those calls were said to have been made when the Germans were leaving a terror camp in Pakistan – an entirely different scenario from the current monitoring program, which captures data from everyday citizens by casting a worldwide net.

Piltz said even that participation by U.S. intelligence agencies remains unverified.

The other case, involving four men with al Qaida connections arrested in Dusseldorf while allegedly preparing to make a shrapnel bomb to detonate at an undecided location, also raised questions about NSA involvement. During the trial, prosecutors said they were alerted to the cell by an informant, after which they studied emails from the four. But such targeted surveillance is not the issue in the NSA programs, one of which, PRISM, reportedly taps into the computers of users of nine Internet companies, including Facebook, Google and Yahoo.

Defending NSA practices, Friedrich noted that security is a “super fundamental right.” As such it outranks fundamental rights such as privacy. German newspapers were scathing in their assessment, calling Friedrich the “idiot in charge.”

Piltz said that while terrorism is a real threat, the U.S. monitoring programs have done little to prevent it.

“Germans are not safer because of U.S. espionage,” Piltz said. “It is true Germany has been lucky not to have suffered a terror attack, but there has to be a balance. We cannot sacrifice freedom for security, and when in doubt I would always opt for freedom.”

McClatchy special correspondent Claudia Himmelreich in Berlin contributed to this report.

McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted on Thu, Jul. 18, 2013
By Matthew Schofield | McClatchy Foreign Staff

last updated: July 18, 2013 05:30:07 PM
BERLIN — ]

Find this story at 18 July 2013

© McClatchy Washington Bureau

Second Prism program emerges as Friedrich faces committee

As Germany’s interior minister faced a special select committee, another surveillance program – also called Prism – has come to light. Unlike its more famous global namesake, this Prism is said to be used in Afghanistan.

German mass-circulation daily Bild first found reference to the Afghanistan Prism program in an order sent out to regional command posts from the NATO headquarters in Kabul.

The communiqué told ISAF staff to use this Prism database for any data gleaned from monitoring telecommunications or emails, starting on September 15, 2011.

The German government said it knew nothing about the database, run by the US but accessible to ISAF troops across Afghanistan – including those with Germany’s Bundeswehr – until Wednesday’s report.

“I can only tell you that this was a NATO/ISAF program, one that was not classified as secret – according to the BND,” Chancellor Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said. Seibert was referring to a press release from Germany’s equivalent to Washington’s National Security Agency (NSA), the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). The BND also said this Prism was “not identical” to the now renowned program revealed by NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden in May.
DW.DE
Itching to ask: What does Merkel know about NSA surveillance?

A parliamentary oversight committee in Berlin would like to know how much the German government really knows about NSA spying activities in Germany. Their leverage, however, is limited. (17.07.2013)

Another ministerial spokesman, Stefan Paris with the defense ministry, said it was quite normal for information like this not to filter back to Berlin unless there was a specific need.

Friedrich faces closed-door grilling

Elsewhere in Berlin, Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich completed two days in front of the special committee for internal affairs on Wednesday, facing further questions after his impromptu visit to Washington at the weekend.

Opposition politicians, who see increasing mileage in the alleged NSA espionage activities, said after the session that Friedrich’s appearance shed little light on proceedings.

“Everywhere people seem to accept the way the US side is acting with a shrug of the shoulders, while there’s no clarity anywhere,” Social Democrat parliamentarian Michael Hartmann said, adding that he felt the chancellor’s office should be answering questions instead of the interior ministry.

“My personal impression: Before September 22, nothing is meant to be put on the table here,” Green party politician Wolfgang Wieland said, naming the date of federal elections in Germany.

Friedrich has so far stressed the NSA’s supposed contribution to stopping five terror plots in Germany, offering data on two of them to date, when discussing the issue. The minister controversially said on Monday that there was a “super-fundamental right” to protecting public safety that trumped even privacy laws.

British blow to EU data dreams?

Free Democrat politician Hartfried Wolff, a member of the Bundestag’s interior committee, said on Wednesday that Friedrich had outlined one blow to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s proposed response.

Merkel said in a key television interview on Sunday that she would be seeking unified EU rules on data protection to allow the bloc to handle the issue better.

According to Wolff, Friedrich said that the UK was unlikely to support such a move. Since Snowden went public, a UK espionage program called “Tempora” has also come to light.

Friedrich is a member of the Bavarian sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democrats, the CSU. Bavaria votes in state elections one week before the German ballot.

msh/rc (AFP, AP, Reuters)
Date 17.07.2013

Find this story at 717 July 2013

© 2013 Deutsche Welle

Prism in Afghanistan Conflicting Accounts By German Government

In Germany, the scandal surrounding NSA spying is getting odder by the day. A new Defense Ministry memo suggests a claim made by a mass-circulation newspaper that Germany’s army knew about Prism in 2011 is, in fact, true.

The scandal in Germany surrounding spying activities by the United States’ National Security Agency took a surprising twist on Thursday. A report by a German mass-circulation daily that described the use of a program called Prism in NATO-occupied Afghanistan has led to the German Defense Ministry contradicting the foreign intelligence agency BND.

It started on Wednesday when the broadsheet Bild reported that the American intelligence service NSA had deployed the controversial data-collection tool Prism in Afghanistan and that Germany’s armed forces, the Bundeswehr, knew of the program by the autumn of 2011 at the latest.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert, speaking on behalf of the BND, was quick to deny the Bild report. He said on Wednesday that the software which had been used in Afghanistan was part of “a NATO/ISAF program and was not the same as the NSA’s Prism program.” Seibert said the programs were “not identical.” According to Seibert’s account, there are two different Prism programs — the much discussed NSA Prism program, which has been used in recent years to intensively monitor German communications, as well as an ISAF program for Afghanistan.

But the Defense Ministry is now contradicting that characterization. In a two-page memo obtained by several German media outlets, Rüdiger Wolf, a high-ranking ministry official, states that the Prism program used in Afghanistan is a “computer-aided US planning and information analysis tool” used for the coordination of “American intelligence systems,” that is “operated exclusively by US personnel” and is “used Afghanistan-wide by the US side.”

Prism Accessible Exclusively to Americans

Wolf describes in detail how the Bundeswehr and NATO have no access to the US program. He adds that while there may be computer terminals at the German base in Mazar-e-Sharif that are equipped to access the program, they can only be used by Americans.

If members of the Bundeswehr wanted access to information, they had to send a special form to the IJC command center in Kabul, almost entirely controlled by the US Army — that is, if they wanted US data that went beyond the information possessed by NATO intelligence. When they got the data back, “the origin of the information” was “fundamentally unrecognizable” to the Germans.

It is precisely such procedures that Bild reported on this week, citing a classified September NATO order. In the paper, NATO members, including the German-led Regional Command North in Afghanistan, are called upon to direct requests for the “Prism” system to American personnel — military or civilian (which in this case is a reference to intelligence workers) because NATO has no access to the system. Given that Bild printed a copy of the order in its newspaper, the BND’s portrayal already seemed odd on Wednesday.

According to Wolf’s own admissions, the Germans don’t know very much about the Prism program in Afghanistan. It is unclear, for example, how Prism is deployed at the US Army-dominated headquarters in Kabul and the ministry doesn’t know the “extent of use.” However, Wolf once more reiterated that all information obtained from intelligence sources served to protect German soldiers — including “insights provided by the US side that could have come from Prism.”

A Slap in the Face

The Defense Ministry is also very cautious compared to the BND when it comes to deferentiating the Prism program in Afghanistan from the Prism spying program that was exposed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and involves the systematic monitoring of German communications. The information supplied by the US would have pertained only to the situation in Afghanistan. It was “not a data fishing expedition” on German citizens, according to the memo, and in fact had “no proximity” to the NSA surveillance program in Germany and Europe.

With his cautious formulation, Wolf deliberately avoids saying whether or not the two programs are identical.

This representation of the facts, which was already made to some extent on Wednesday by Defense Ministry spokesman Stefan Paris, is like a slap in the face for the BND. Shortly after Seibert appeared at the press conference, insiders wondered why the intelligence agency would so unambiguously commit itself to the position that the Prism program in Afghanistan is part of the composite ISAF system. But the BND didn’t pull back on its position, although Paris clearly said that the Prism program in Afghanistan is operated exclusively by Americans.

Members of the opposition were quick to attack the BND for its assertions. “The Chancellery, acting on behalf of the BND, deliberately lied to the public on Wednesday,” Green Party defense expert Omid Nouripour told SPIEGEL ONLINE. According to Nouripour, Wolf’s description makes it clear that there is no NATO Prism program. The German government, he says, should stop making excuses and finally begin to seriously investigate the spying scandal.

07/18/2013 09:26 PM

By Matthias Gebauer

Find this story at 18 July 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

Other Agencies Clamor for Data N.S.A. Compiles

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency’s dominant role as the nation’s spy warehouse has spurred frequent tensions and turf fights with other federal intelligence agencies that want to use its surveillance tools for their own investigations, officials say.

Agencies working to curb drug trafficking, cyberattacks, money laundering, counterfeiting and even copyright infringement complain that their attempts to exploit the security agency’s vast resources have often been turned down because their own investigations are not considered a high enough priority, current and former government officials say.

Intelligence officials say they have been careful to limit the use of the security agency’s troves of data and eavesdropping spyware for fear they could be misused in ways that violate Americans’ privacy rights.

The recent disclosures of agency activities by its former contractor Edward J. Snowden have led to widespread criticism that its surveillance operations go too far and have prompted lawmakers in Washington to talk of reining them in. But out of public view, the intelligence community has been agitated in recent years for the opposite reason: frustrated officials outside the security agency say the spy tools are not used widely enough.

“It’s a very common complaint about N.S.A.,” said Timothy H. Edgar, a former senior intelligence official at the White House and at the office of the director of national intelligence. “They collect all this information, but it’s difficult for the other agencies to get access to what they want.”

“The other agencies feel they should be bigger players,” said Mr. Edgar, who heard many of the disputes before leaving government this year to become a visiting fellow at Brown University. “They view the N.S.A. — incorrectly, I think — as this big pot of data that they could go get if they were just able to pry it out of them.”

Smaller intelligence units within the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security have sometimes been given access to the security agency’s surveillance tools for particular cases, intelligence officials say.

But more often, their requests have been rejected because the links to terrorism or foreign intelligence, usually required by law or policy, are considered tenuous. Officials at some agencies see another motive — protecting the security agency’s turf — and have grown resentful over what they see as a second-tier status that has undermined their own investigations into security matters.

At the drug agency, for example, officials complained that they were blocked from using the security agency’s surveillance tools for several drug-trafficking cases in Latin America, which they said might be connected to financing terrorist groups in the Middle East and elsewhere.

At the Homeland Security Department, officials have repeatedly sought to use the security agency’s Internet and telephone databases and other resources to trace cyberattacks on American targets that are believed to have stemmed from China, Russia and Eastern Europe, according to officials. They have often been rebuffed.

Officials at the other agencies, speaking only on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the tensions, say the National Security Agency’s reluctance to allow access to data has been particularly frustrating because of post-Sept. 11 measures that were intended to encourage information-sharing among federal agencies.

In fact, a change made in 2008 in the executive order governing intelligence was intended to make it easier for the security agency to share surveillance information with other agencies if it was considered “relevant” to their own investigations. It has often been left to the national intelligence director’s office to referee the frequent disputes over how and when the security agency’s spy tools can be used. The director’s office declined to comment for this article.

Typically, the agencies request that the N.S.A. target individuals or groups for surveillance, search its databases for information about them, or share raw intelligence, rather than edited summaries, with them. If those under scrutiny are Americans, approval from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is required.

The security agency, whose mission is to spy overseas, and the F.B.I., its main partner in surveillance operations, dominate the process as the Justice Department’s main “customers” in seeking warrants from the intelligence court, with nearly 1,800 approved by the court last year.

In a statement, the security agency said that it “works closely with all intelligence community partners, and embeds liaison officers and other personnel at those agencies for the express purpose of ensuring N.S.A. is meeting their requirements and providing support to their missions.”

The security agency’s spy tools are attractive to other agencies for many reasons. Unlike traditional, narrowly tailored search warrants, those granted by the intelligence court often allow searches through records and data that are vast in scope. The standard of evidence needed to acquire them may be lower than in other courts, and the government may not be required to disclose for years, if ever, that someone was the focus of secret surveillance operations.

Decisions on using the security agency’s powers rest on many complicated variables, including a link to terrorism or “foreign intelligence,” the type of surveillance or data collection that is being conducted, the involvement of American targets, and the priority of the issue.

“Every agency wants to think that their mission has to be the highest priority,” said a former senior White House intelligence official involved in recent turf issues.

Other intelligence shops usually have quick access to N.S.A. tools and data on pressing matters of national security, like investigating a terrorism threat, planning battlefield operations or providing security for a presidential trip, officials say. But the conflicts arise during longer-term investigations with unclear foreign connections.

In pressing for greater access, a number of smaller agencies maintain that their cases involve legitimate national security threats and could be helped significantly by the N.S.A.’s ability to trace e-mails and Internet activity or other tools.

Drug agency officials, for instance, have sought a higher place for global drug trafficking on the intelligence community’s classified list of surveillance priorities, according to two officials.

Dawn Dearden, a drug agency spokeswoman, said it was comfortable allowing the N.S.A. and the F.B.I. to take the lead in seeking surveillance warrants. “We don’t have the authority, and we don’t want it, and that comes from the top down,” she said.

But privately, intelligence officials at the drug agency and elsewhere have complained that they feel shut out of the process by the N.S.A. and the F.B.I. from start to finish, with little input on what groups are targeted with surveillance and only sporadic access to the classified material that is ultimately collected.

Sometimes, security agency and bureau officials accuse the smaller agencies of exaggerating links to national security threats in their own cases when pushing for access to the security agency’s surveillance capabilities. Officials from the other agencies say that if a link to national security is considered legitimate, the F.B.I. will at times simply take over the case itself and work it with the N.S.A.

In one such case, the bureau took control of a Secret Service investigation after a hacker was linked to a foreign government, one law enforcement official said. Similarly, the bureau became more interested in investigating smuggled cigarettes as a means of financing terrorist groups after the case was developed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Mr. Edgar said officials in the national intelligence director’s office occasionally allow other agencies a role in identifying surveillance targets and seeing the results when it is relevant to their own inquiries. But more often, he acknowledged, the office has come down on the side of keeping the process held to an “exclusive club” at the N.S.A., the F.B.I. and the Justice Department, with help from the Central Intelligence Agency on foreign issues.

Officials in the national intelligence director’s office worry about opening the surveillance too widely beyond the security agency and the F.B.I. for fear of abuse, Mr. Edgar said. The two intelligence giants have been “burned” by past wiretapping controversies and know the political consequences if they venture too far afield, he added.

“I would have been very uncomfortable if we had let these other agencies get access to the raw N.S.A. data,” he said.

As furious as the public criticism of the security agency’s programs has been in the two months since Mr. Snowden’s disclosures, “it could have been much, much worse, if we had let these other agencies loose and we had real abuses,” Mr. Edgar said. “That was the nightmare scenario we were worried about, and that hasn’t happened.”

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

August 3, 2013
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

Find this story at 3 August 2013

© 2013 The New York Times Company

For Western Allies, a Long History of Swapping Intelligence

BERLIN — When Edward J. Snowden disclosed the extent of the United States data mining operations in Germany, monitoring as many as 60 million of the country’s telephone and Internet connections in one day and bugging its embassy, politicians here, like others in Europe, were by turns appalled and indignant. But like the French before them, this week they found themselves backpedaling.

In an interview released this week Mr. Snowden said that Germany’s intelligence services are “in bed” with the National Security Agency, “the same as with most other Western countries.” The assertion has added to fresh scrutiny in the European news media of Berlin and other European governments that may have benefited from the enormous American snooping program known as Prism, or conducted wide-ranging surveillance operations of their own.

The outrage of European leaders notwithstanding, intelligence experts and historians say the most recent disclosures reflect the complicated nature of the relationship between the intelligence services of the United States and its allies, which have long quietly swapped information on each others’ citizens.

“The other services don’t ask us where our information is from and we don’t ask them,” Mr. Snowden said in the interview, conducted by the documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras and Jacob Appelbaum, a computer security researcher, and published this week in the German magazine Der Spiegel. “This way they can protect their political leaders from backlash, if it should become public how massively the private spheres of people around the globe are being violated.”

Britain, which has the closest intelligence relationship with the United States of any European country, has been implicated in several of the data operations described by Mr. Snowden, including claims that Britain’s agencies had access to the Prism computer network, which monitors data from a range of American Internet companies. Such sharing would have allowed British intelligence agencies to sidestep British legal restrictions on electronic snooping. Prime Minister David Cameron has insisted that its intelligence services operate within the law.

Another allegation, reported by The Guardian newspaper, is that the Government Communications Headquarters, the British surveillance center, tapped fiber-optic cables carrying international telephone and Internet traffic, then shared the information with the N.S.A. This program, known as Tempora, involved attaching intercept probes to trans-Atlantic cables when they land on British shores from North America, the report said.

President François Hollande of France was among the first European leaders to express outrage at the revelations of American spying, and especially at accusations that the Americans had spied on French diplomatic posts in Washington and New York.

There is no evidence to date that French intelligence services were granted access to information from the N.S.A., Le Monde reported last week, however, that France’s external intelligence agency maintains a broad telecommunications data collection system of its own, amassing metadata on most, if not all, telephone calls, e-mails and Internet activity coming in and out of France.

Mr. Hollande and other officials have been notably less vocal regarding the claims advanced by Le Monde, which authorities in France have neither confirmed nor denied.

Given their bad experiences with domestic spying, first under the Nazis and then the former the East German secret police, Germans are touchy when it comes to issues of personal privacy and protection of their personal data. Guarantees ensuring the privacy of mail and all forms of long-distance communications are enshrined in Article 10 of their Constitution.

When the extent of the American spying in Germany came to light the chancellor’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, decried such behavior as “unacceptable,” insisting that, “We are no longer in the cold war.”

But experts say ties between the intelligence services remain rooted in agreements stemming from that era, when West Germany depended on the United States to protect it from the former Soviet Union and its allies in the East.

“Of course the German government is very deeply entwined with the American intelligence services,” said Josef Foschepoth, a German historian from Freiburg University. Mr. Foschepoth spent several years combing through Germany’s federal archives, including formerly classified documents from the 1950s and 1960s, in an effort to uncover the roots of the trans-Atlantic cooperation.

In 1965, Germany’s foreign intelligence service, known by the initials BND, was created. Three years later, the West Germans signed a cooperation agreement effectively binding the Germans to an intensive exchange of information that continues up to the present day, despite changes to the agreements.

The attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, in the United States saw a fresh commitment by the Germans to cooperate with the Americans in the global war against terror. Using technology developed by the Americans and used by the N.S.A., the BND monitors networks from the Middle East, filtering the information before sending it to Washington, said Erich Schmidt-Eenboom, an expert on secret services who runs the Research Institute for Peace Politics in Bavaria.

In exchange, Washington shares intelligence with Germany that authorities here say has been essential to preventing terror attacks similar to those in Madrid or London. It is a matter of pride among German authorities that they have been able to swoop in and detain suspects, preventing several plots from being carried out.

By focusing the current public debate in Germany on the issue of personal data, experts say Chancellor Angela Merkel is able to steer clear of the stickier questions about Germany’s own surveillance programs and a long history of intelligence sharing with the United States, which still makes many Germans deeply uncomfortable, more than two decades after the end of the cold war.

“Every postwar German government, at some point, has been confronted with this problem,” Mr. Foschepoth said of the surveillance scandal. “The way that the chancellor is handling it shows that she knows very well, she is very well informed and she wants the issue to fade away.”

Reporting contributed by Stephen Castle from London, Scott Sayare from Paris and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

July 9, 2013
By MELISSA EDDY

Find this story at 9 July 2013

© 2013 The New York Times Company

Spy access to NZ used as bargaining tool

The Southern Cross Cable Network links Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

The ability for US intelligence agencies to access internet data was used as a bargaining tool by a Telecom-owned company trying to keep down the cost of the undersea cable from New Zealand.

Lawyers acting for Southern Cross Cable quoted a former CIA and NSA director who urged the Senate to “exploit” access to data for an intelligence edge.

The value of intercepted communications to the US was raised during negotiations last year which could increase internet costs 15 per cent.

Documents on the Federal Communications Commission website show the issue was raised by lawyers acting for “undersea cable operators”, including Southern Cross Cables, half-owned by Telecom and owner of the 28,900km cable which links New Zealand to the internet.

Lawyers acting for the cable operators told the FCC there were benefits to their clients not having to pay for their cables to land on US soil.

The FCC was told the number of internet connections passing through the US was dropping.

“There has long been speculation that US surveillance following implementation of the Patriot Act could push internet content and information storage outside the United States-to the detriment of the United States.”

The legal team footnoted the statement with a 2006 quote from former CIA director and National Security Agency director General Michael Hayden, who set up domestic wiretapping and widespread internet snooping during his terms as an intelligence chief.

He was quoted as saying: “Because of the nature of global telecommunications, we are playing with a tremendous home-field advantage, and we need to exploit that edge.

“We also need to protect that edge, and we need to protect those who provide it to us.”

In other documents, Southern Cross Cables raised the possibility of submarine cables coming to land in Canada or Mexico.

Southern Cross Cables lawyer Nikki Shone said the company was legally obliged to co-operate with US laws and it was in relation to those obligations that “it noted that the FCC’s proposed universal services charges could harm US security interests by encouraging infrastructure to bypass the United States”.

She said Southern Cross Cable was “wholly unaware of recently disclosed US surveillance programmes”.

A Telecom spokesman cited the company’s contract with residential customers, which tells them it will pass on their information without permission if it believes it is legally required to do so or if it is necessary “to help maintain the law”.

Telecom Users Association chief executive Paul Brislen said revelations about US interception of internet traffic meant “we have to assume that all our communications are intercepted”.

He said internet and telecoms companies had to comply with US rules or be shut out of lucrative contracts.

Mr Brislen believed the cable from Auckland to Los Angeles was secure but said intelligence agencies would access information beyond the landing stations.

Tech Liberty director Thomas Beagle said any use of American services and networks exposed data to being captured by the US.

But shifting to other countries “will just expose you to surveillance from their national governments”.

“It seems that we now have the choice between taking the time to understand and implement secure encryption or choosing services based on which governments we don’t mind spying on us.”

By David Fisher @DFisherJourno
5:30 AM Saturday Aug 10, 2013

Find this story at 10 August 2013

© Copyright 2013, APN Holdings NZ Limited

US spy agencies eavesdrop on Kiwi

The New Zealand military received help from US spy agencies to monitor the phone calls of Kiwi journalist Jon Stephenson and his associates while he was in Afghanistan reporting on the war.

Stephenson has described the revelation as a serious violation of his privacy, and the intrusion into New Zealand media freedom has been slammed as an abuse of human rights.

The spying came at a time when the New Zealand Defence Force was unhappy at Stephenson’s reporting of its handling of Afghan prisoners and was trying to find out who was giving him confidential information.

The monitoring occurred in the second half of last year when Stephenson was working as Kabul correspondent for the US McClatchy news service and for various New Zealand news organisations.

The Sunday Star-Times has learned that New Zealand Defence Force personnel had copies of intercepted phone “metadata” for Stephenson, the type of intelligence publicised by US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden. The intelligence reports showed who Stephenson had phoned and then who those people had phoned, creating what the sources called a “tree” of the journalist’s associates.

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New Zealand SAS troops in Kabul had access to the reports and were using them in active investigations into Stephenson.

The sources believed the phone monitoring was being done to try to identify Stephenson’s journalistic contacts and sources. They drew a picture of a metadata tree the Defence Force had obtained, which included Stephenson and named contacts in the Afghan government and military.

The sources who described the monitoring of Stephenson’s phone calls in Afghanistan said that the NZSIS has an officer based in Kabul who was known to be involved in the Stephenson investigations.

And since early in the Afghanistan war, the GCSB has secretly posted staff to the main US intelligence centre at Bagram, north of Kabul. They work in a special “signals intelligence” unit that co-ordinates electronic surveillance to assist military targeting. It is likely to be this organisation that monitored Stephenson.

Stephenson and the Defence Force clashed in the Wellington High Court two weeks ago after it claimed Stephonson had invented a story about visiting an Afghan base.

The Human Rights Foundation says Defence Force involvement in monitoring a journalist is an abuse of fundamental human rights.

“Don’t they understand the vital importance of freedom of the press?” spokesman Tim McBride said. “Independent journalism is especially important in a controversial war zone where the public has a right to know what really happens and not just get military public relations,” he said.

The news has emerged as the Government prepares to pass legislation which will allow the Defence Force to use the GCSB to spy on New Zealanders.

The Stephenson surveillance suggests the Defence Force may be seeking the GCSB assistance, in part, for investigating leaks and whistleblowers.

Stephenson said monitoring a journalist’s communications could also threaten the safety of their sources “by enabling security authorities to track down and intimidate people disclosing information to that journalist”.

He said there was “a world of difference between investigating a genuine security threat and monitoring a journalist because his reporting is inconvenient or embarrassing to politicians and defence officials”.

The Star-Times asked Chief of Defence Force Rhys Jones and Defence Minister Jonathan Coleman if they were aware of the surveillance of Stephenson, if they approved of it and whether they authorised the investigation of Stephenson (including the phone monitoring).

They were also asked if they thought journalists should be classified as threats. Neither answered the questions.

Defence Force spokesman Geoff Davies said: “As your request relates to a legal matter involving Jon Stephenson which is still before the court, it would not be appropriate for the Chief of Defence Force to comment.”

In fact, none of the issues before that court relate to the surveillance or security manual.

Coleman’s press secretary said the minister was not available for comment and to try again next week.

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said the monitoring of Stephenson demonstrates that the security services see the media and journalists as a legitimate target.

“Democracy totally relies on a free and independent press,” he said. “Current attempts to strengthen the security apparatus for monitoring New Zealanders is deeply disturbing and menacing for democracy.”

An internal Defence document leaked to the Star-Times reveals that defence security staff viewed investigative journalists as “hostile” threats requiring “counteraction”. The classified security manual lists security threats, including “certain investigative journalists” who may attempt to obtain “politically sensitive information”.

The manual says Chief of Defence Force approval is required before any NZDF participation in “counter intelligence activity” is undertaken. (See separate story)

Stephenson took defamation action against the Defence Force after Jones claimed that Stephenson had invented a story about visiting an Afghan base as part of an article about mishandling of prisoners.

Although the case ended with a hung jury two weeks ago, Jones conceded during the hearing that he now accepted Stephenson had visited the base and interviewed its Afghan commander.

Victoria University lecturer in media studies Peter Thompson said the Afghanistan monitoring and the security manual’s view of investigative journalists confirmed the concerns raised in the High Court case.

There was “a concerted and deliberate effort to denigrate that journalist’s reputation for political ends”.

There is currently controversy in the United States over government monitoring of journalists. In May the Associated Press reported that the Justice Department had secretly obtained two months’ worth of phone records of its reporters and editors.

The media organisation said it was a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into its news gathering process.

PROBING JOURNALISTS DEEMED THREAT

A leaked New Zealand Defence Force security manual reveals it sees three main “subversion” threats it needs to protect itself against: foreign intelligence services, organisations with extreme ideologies and “certain investigative journalists”.

In the minds of the defence chiefs, probing journalists apparently belong on the same list as the KGB and al Qaeda.

The manual’s first chapter is called “Basic Principles of Defence Security”. It says a key part of protecting classified information is investigating the “capabilities and intentions of hostile organisations and individuals” and taking counteraction against them.

The manual, which was issued as an order by the Chief of Defence Force, places journalists among the hostile individuals. It defines “The Threat” as espionage, sabotage, subversion and terrorism, and includes investigative journalists under the heading “subversion”.

Subversion, it says, is action designed to “weaken the military, economic or political strength of a nation by undermining the morale, loyalty or reliability of its citizens.”

It highlights people acquiring classified information to “bring the Government into disrepute”.

This threat came from hostile intelligence services and extreme organisations, and “there is also a threat from certain investigative journalists who may seek to acquire and exploit official information for similar reasons”, it says.

Viewing journalism as a security threat has serious implications. The manual states that “plans to counter the activities of hostile intelligence services and subversive organisations and individuals must be based on accurate and timely intelligence concerning the identity, capabilities and intentions of the hostile elements”.

It says “one means of obtaining security intelligence is the investigation of breaches of security”.

This is where the security manual may be relevant to the monitoring of Jon Stephenson’s phone calls. The Defence Force was unhappy at Stephenson’s access to confidential information about prisoner handling in Afghanistan and began investigating to discover his sources.

The manual continues that “counter intelligence” means “activities which are concerned with identifying and counteracting the threat to security”, including by individuals engaged in “subversion”.

It notes: “The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service is the only organisation sanctioned to conduct Counter Intelligence activities in New Zealand. [Chief of Defence Force] approval is required before any NZDF participation in any CI activity is undertaken.”

Under the NZSIS Act, subversion is a legal justification for surveillance of an individual.

The sources who described the monitoring of Stephenson’s phone calls in Afghanistan said the NZSIS has an officer based in Kabul who was known to be involved in the Stephenson investigations.

To reinforce its concern, the defence security manual raises investigative journalists a second time under a category called “non-traditional threats”. The threat of investigative journalists, it says, is that they may attempt to obtain “politically sensitive information”.

Politically sensitive information, such as the kind of stories that Stephenson was writing, is however about politics and political accountability, not security. Metro magazine editor Simon Wilson, who has published a number of Jon Stephenson’s prisoner stories, said the Defence Force seemed to see Stephenson as the “enemy”, as a threat to the Defence Force.

“But that’s not how Jon works and how journalism works,” he said. “Jon is just going about his business as a journalist.”

The New Zealand Defence Force “seems to be confusing national security with its own desire not to be embarrassed by disclosures that reveal it has broken the rules”, he said.

Last updated 05:00 28/07/2013
NICKY HAGER

Find this story at 28 july 2013

© 2011 Fairfax New Zealand Limited

Bundesheer-Lauschstation als Teil einer US-Peilkette

Die Amerikaner finanzierten den Horchposten Königswarte bei Hainburg und banden ihn in ein ganzes Netz ein, das sich von Norwegen über Deutschland bis Italien zog.

Das österreichische Heeresnachrichtenamt (HNA) und der US-Militärgeheimdienst (NSA) tauschen seit mehr als 50 Jahren Informationen aus. Einer der Angelpunkte der Kooperation ist der Horchposten auf der Königswarte bei Hainburg an der Grenze zur Slowakei. Finanziert haben die Station die Amerikaner. Das bestätigte ein Sprecher des Verteidigungsministeriums bereits in der Samstagsausgabe der „Presse“. Das Nachrichtenmagazin „Profil“ förderte nun weitere Details zutage.
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Demnach waren die 1958 errichtete Königswarte und kleinere Stationen in Neulengbach, Großharras, Gols, Pirka bei Graz und Stockham bei Wels Teil einer amerikanischen Peilkette, die sich von Norwegen über Deutschland bis nach Italien zog. Österreich war der einzige neutrale Staat in diesem Nato-Lauschverbund. Die USA haben die immer noch aktive Anlage auf der Königswarte ständig erneuert. Von dort aus konnten vor 1989 Gespräche weit hinter dem Eisernen Vorhang belauscht werden. Jetzt stellt sich die Frage, ob immer noch in dieselbe Richtung gehorcht wird. Wie „Die Presse“ erfuhr, verhalfen die Österreicher der NSA zu Informationen, die 2007 zur Ergreifung einer deutschen Terrorzelle, der Sauerland-Gruppe, geführt haben.

Mit den abgefangenen Daten hat das Bundesheer laut „Profil“ immer schon wenig anfangen können. Die Bänder seien stets zu einer US-Station nahe Frankfurt geflogen worden. Wie „Die Presse“ berichtete, hat die NSA im Kalten Krieg einen Vertrag mit dem HNA abgeschlossen. In den Nullerjahren, nach den Terroranschlägen vom 11. September 2001, soll das Dokument erneuert und ergänzt worden sein. Das bestätigten mehrere Quellen, sowohl Politiker als auch hochrangige Beamte aus dem Sicherheitsbereich. Das Verteidigungsministerium wollte sich nichtdazu äußern, die US-Botschaft in Wien ebenso wenig, sie betonte jedoch die „sehr gute Kooperation mit dem österreichischen Militär und den österreichischen Nachrichtendiensten“.

FPÖ-Chef Heinz-Christian Strache forderte Bundeskanzler Faymann und Verteidigungsminister Klug auf, unverzüglich Stellung zum Geheimvertrag mit der NSA zu nehmen. Es müsse überprüft werden, inwieweit die Neutralität verletzt worden sei.

13.07.2013 | 17:57 | von CHRISTIAN ULTSCH (Die Presse)

Find this story at 13 July 2013

© 2013 DiePresse.com

NSA hat Vertrag mit Österreich abgeschlossen

Die National Security Agency schloss im Kalten Krieg eine Vereinbarung mit dem Heeresnachrichtenamt und finanzierte dessen Horchposten bei Hainburg. Im Krieg gegen den Terror haben Österreich und die USA das Abkommen erneuert.

Es ist eines der großen Geheimnisse der Republik, aber wirklich gut gehütet ist es nicht: Das neutrale Österreich hat mit dem US-Nachrichtendienst NSA (National Security Agency) einen Vertrag abgeschlossen. Darin sind die Rahmenbedingungen für die Zusammenarbeit und den Informationsaustausch zwischen der US-Überwachungsbehörde und dem Heeresnachrichtenamt HNaA, dem Auslandsnachrichtendienst des österreichischen Bundesheeres, festgelegt. Seine Wurzeln hat das Dokument im Kalten Krieg, doch nach den Terroranschlägen vom 11. September 2001 hat es der damalige NSA-Direktor, Michael Hayden, erneuern lassen. Das erfuhr „Die Presse“ aus mehreren Quellen: von österreichischen Politikern und hochrangigen Beamten im Sicherheitsbereich.
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Michael Bauer, der Sprecher des Verteidigungsministeriums, will die Existenz des NSA-Vertrags mit Österreich weder bestätigen noch dementieren: „Ich kann dazu nichts sagen.“ Auch die US-Botschaft in Wien äußert sich nicht zu der Vereinbarung. Sie weist jedoch ausdrücklich auf die „sehr gute Kooperation mit dem österreichischen Militär und den österreichischen Nachrichtendiensten“ hin.
Minister Klug schweigt

Die NSA war zuletzt auch Thema im parlamentarischen Unterausschuss für Landesverteidigung. Doch Verteidigungsminister Gerald Klug zog es vor, über den Vertrag zu schweigen. Dass das Heeresnachrichtenamt als Kontaktstelle für die NSA fungiert, ist bekannt. Das Verteidigungsressort hat diesen Umstand nach einem Bericht der „Presse“ vom 13. Juni nicht abgestritten. Damals wie heute betont das Ministerium jedoch, dass das HNaA keinen Massenaustausch von Daten mit anderen Nachrichtendiensten betreibe.

Wie breit der Fluss österreichischer Daten in die USA ist, darüber gehen die Einschätzungen auseinander. Ein Geheimdienst-Insider gab sich gegenüber der „Presse“ überzeugt, dass die Amerikaner in der Lage sind, jegliche elektronische Kommunikation abzufangen. Allein mithilfe ihres Überwachungsprogramms Prism kann die NSA die Verbindungsdaten jeglichen Internetverkehrs aufzeichnen, der über US-Server läuft. Das gestand der US-Botschafter in Wien bei einem Treffen mit Innenministerin Johanna Mikl-Leitner ein. Nachzuvollziehen ist ihre Empörung nicht ganz. Denn ihr Verfassungsschutz ist im Bild über die Aktivitäten der NSA in Österreich.

Die Amerikaner sind unglücklich über den Verlauf der Diskussion seit den Enthüllungen des Ex-NSA-Mitarbeiters Snowden. Denn ihre Dienste nehmen nicht nur, sie geben auch. So halfen sie jüngst bei der Befreiung der österreichischen Geisel im Jemen. Umgekehrt lieferte Österreich angeblich Informationen an die NSA, die 2007 zur Ergreifung der Sauerland-Gruppe, einer deutschen Terrorzelle, führten.

Die Partnerschaft zwischen österreichischen und US-Geheimdiensten reicht lang zurück, in die Zeit, als Europa noch geteilt war. Einer ihrer Brennpunkte war immer die Königswarte, ein Horchposten des Heeresnachrichtenamts bei Hainburg an der Grenze zur Slowakei, dort, wo früher der Eiserne Vorhang verlief. Die Österreicher waren in der Lage, von den niederen Karpaten aus tief in das sowjetische Imperium hineinzuhören. Ihre Informationen teilten sie zuweilen mit den Amerikanern.
Unterschrieb Platter das Papier?

Auch 24 Jahre nach Ende des Kalten Kriegs ist die Lauschstation des HNaA noch in Betrieb. Vor einiger Zeit wurde sie erneuert. In Militärkreisen kursieren Gerüchte, dass die teure Ausrüstung auf der Königswarte aus den USA stamme. Unter anderem das sei in einem Appendix zum NSA-Vertrag mit Hayden in den Nullerjahren vereinbart worden. Das Papier soll die Unterschrift von Günther Platter tragen, der 2003 bis 2007 Verteidigungsminister war. Im Büro des heutigen Tiroler Landeshauptmannes will man davon nichts wissen.

Michael Bauer, der Sprecher des Verteidigungsministeriums, bestreitet, dass die Amerikaner die Renovierung der Königswarte finanziert hätten. Ob sie freilich Equipment zur Verfügung stellten, kann der Oberst nicht sagen. Was er jedoch bestätigen kann, ist für das historische Selbstverständnis Österreichs brisant: „Die Königswarte war zur Zeit des Kalten Krieges ein Vorposten der Amerikaner. Sie haben die Anlage finanziell unterstützt.“ Wirklich neutral agierte Österreich schon damals nicht.

(“Die Presse” Printausgabe vom 13.07.2013)

12.07.2013 | 17:08 | VON RAINER NOWAK UND CHRISTIAN ULTSCH (Die Presse)

Find this story at 12 July 2013

© 2013 DiePresse.com

The NSA’s mass and indiscriminate spying on Brazilians

As it does in many non-adversarial countries, the surveillance agency is bulk collecting the communications of millions of citizens of Brazil
Follow Glenn Greenwald on security and liberty by emailBeta

The National Security Administration headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. Whistleblower Edward Snowden worked as a data miner for the NSA in Hawaii. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

I’ve written an article on NSA surveillance for the front page of the Sunday edition of O Globo, the large Brazilian newspaper based in Rio de Janeiro. The article is headlined (translated) “US spied on millions of emails and calls of Brazilians”, and I co-wrote it with Globo reporters Roberto Kaz and Jose Casado. The rough translation of the article into English is here. The main page of Globo’s website lists related NSA stories: here.

As the headline suggests, the crux of the main article details how the NSA has, for years, systematically tapped into the Brazilian telecommunication network and indiscriminately intercepted, collected and stored the email and telephone records of millions of Brazilians. The story follows an article in Der Spiegel last week, written by Laura Poitras and reporters from that paper, detailing the NSA’s mass and indiscriminate collection of the electronic communications of millions of Germans. There are many more populations of non-adversarial countries which have been subjected to the same type of mass surveillance net by the NSA: indeed, the list of those which haven’t been are shorter than those which have. The claim that any other nation is engaging in anything remotely approaching indiscriminate worldwide surveillance of this sort is baseless.

As those two articles detail, all of this bulk, indiscriminate surveillance aimed at populations of friendly foreign nations is part of the NSA’s “FAIRVIEW” program. Under that program, the NSA partners with a large US telecommunications company, the identity of which is currently unknown, and that US company then partners with telecoms in the foreign countries. Those partnerships allow the US company access to those countries’ telecommunications systems, and that access is then exploited to direct traffic to the NSA’s repositories. Both articles are based on top secret documents provided by Edward Snowden; O Globo published several of them.

The vast majority of the GuardianUS’s revelations thus far have concerned NSA domestic spying: the bulk collection of telephone records, the PRISM program, Obama’s presidential directive that authorizes domestic use of cyber-operations, the Boundless Informant data detailing billions of records collected from US systems, the serial falsehoods publicly voiced by top Obama officials about the NSA’s surveillance schemes, and most recently, the bulk collection of email and internet metadata records for Americans. Future stories in the GuardianUS will largely continue to focus on the NSA’s domestic spying.

But contrary to what some want to suggest, the privacy rights of Americans aren’t the only ones that matter. That the US government – in complete secrecy – is constructing a ubiquitous spying apparatus aimed not only at its own citizens, but all of the world’s citizens, has profound consequences. It erodes, if not eliminates, the ability to use the internet with any remnant of privacy or personal security. It vests the US government with boundless power over those to whom it has no accountability. It permits allies of the US – including aggressively oppressive ones – to benefit from indiscriminate spying on their citizens’ communications. It radically alters the balance of power between the US and ordinary citizens of the world. And it sends an unmistakable signal to the world that while the US very minimally values the privacy rights of Americans, it assigns zero value to the privacy of everyone else on the planet.

This development – the construction of a worldwide, ubiquitous electronic surveillance apparatus – is self-evidently newsworthy, extreme, and dangerous. It deserves transparency. People around the world have no idea that all of their telephonic and internet communications are being collected, stored and analyzed by a distant government. But that’s exactly what is happening, in secrecy and with virtually no accountability. And it is inexorably growing, all in the dark. At the very least, it merits public understanding and debate. That is now possible thanks solely to these disclosures.
The Guardian’s reporting

One brief note on the Guardian is merited here: I’ve been continuously amazed by how intrepid, fearless and committed the Guardian’s editors have been in reporting these NSA stories as effectively and aggressively as possible. They have never flinched in reporting these stories, have spared no expense in pursuing them, have refused to allow vague and baseless government assertions to suppress any of the newsworthy revelations, have devoted extraordinary resources to ensure accuracy and potency, and have generally been animated by exactly the kind of adversarial journalistic ethos that has been all too lacking over the last decade or so (see this Atlantic article from yesterday highlighting the role played by the Guardian US’s editor-in-chief, Janine Gibson).

I don’t need to say any of this, but do so only because it’s so true and impressive: they deserve a lot of credit for the impact these stories have had. To underscore that: because we’re currently working on so many articles involving NSA domestic spying, it would have been weeks, at least, before we would have been able to publish this story about indiscriminate NSA surveillance of Brazilians. Rather than sit on such a newsworthy story – especially at a time when Latin America, for several reasons, is so focused on these revelations – they were enthused about my partnering with O Globo, where it could produce the most impact. In other words, they sacrificed short-term competitive advantage for the sake of the story by encouraging me to write this story with O Globo. I don’t think many media outlets would have made that choice, but that’s the kind of journalistic virtue that has driven the paper’s editors from the start of this story.

This has been a Guardian story from the start and will continue to be. Snowden came to us before coming to any other media outlet, and I’ll continue to write virtually all NSA stories right in this very space. But the O Globo story will resonate greatly in Brazil and more broadly in Latin America, where most people had no idea that their electronic communications were being collected in bulk by this highly secretive US agency. For more on how the Guardian’s editors have overseen the reporting of the NSA stories, see this informative interview on the Charlie Rose Show from last week with Gibson and Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger:

Glenn Greenwald
theguardian.com, Sunday 7 July 2013 00.32 BST

Find this story at 7 July 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Brazil wants answers on US surveillance

Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota is deeply concerned about the scope of a US monitoring programme targeting Brazilians.

Whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed top secret US surveillance programmes to alert the public [Reuters]

Brazil’s foreign minister has said his government is worried by a report that the United States has collected data on millions of telephone and email conversations in his country and promised to push for international protection of internet privacy.

Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota on Sunday expressed “deep concern at the report that electronic and telephone communications of Brazilian citizens are being the object of espionage by organs of American intelligence.

“The Brazilian government has asked for clarifications” through the US Embassy in Brazil and Brazil’s embassy in Washington, he said.

Patriota also said Brazil will ask the UN for measures “to impede abuses and protect the privacy” of internet users, laying down rules for governments.

The O Globo newspaper reported over the weekend that information released by NSA leaker Edward Snowden shows that the number of telephone and email messages logged by the US National Security Agency in January alone was not
far behind the 2.3 million reportedly collected in the United States.

The spokesman for the US embassy in Brazil’s capital, Dean Chaves, said earlier that any response to the O Globo report would be issued in Washington.

There was no immediate response from the office of the US national intelligence director’s office on Sunday, but in response to earlier reports of covert monitoring in Europe, the office said it would respond to concerns of specific nations through diplomatic channels.

However, “as a matter of policy, we have made clear that the United States gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations,” last month’s statement said, without providing further details.

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff warned Sunday that Snowden’s overall disclosures have undermined US relationships with other countries and affected what he calls “the importance of trust”.

O Globo’s article said that “Brazil, with extensive digitalised public and private networks operated by large telecommunications and internet companies, appears to stand out on maps of the US agency as a priority target for telephony and data traffic, alongside nations such as China, Russia and Pakistan.”

The report did not describe the sort of data collected, but the US programs appear to gather what is called metadata: Logs of message times, addresses and other information rather than the content of the messages.

The report was co-authored by US journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has been key in earlier reports on Snowden’s revelations.

In a column Sunday for the British-based newspaper The Guardian, Greenwald said that “the NSA has, for years, systematically tapped into the Brazilian telecommunication network and indiscriminately intercepted, collected and stored the email and telephone records of millions of Brazilians.”

He said Brazil was merely an example of a global practice.

Last Modified: 07 Jul 2013 20:49

Find this story at 7 July 2013

© www.aljazeera.com

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

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.”

Glenn Greenwald
theguardian.com, Wednesday 31 July 2013 13.56 BST

Find this story at 31 July 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies

Snooping Fears; German Firms Race to Shield Secrets

Edward Snowden’s revelations about data surveillance have left German firms feeling acutely vulnerable to industrial espionage. In the medium-sized business sector, which contains a host of world leaders in high-tech fields, the race is on to shield vital know-how.

Markus Stäudinger is a cautious person — especially when he’s sitting in front of his computer. He’s an IT security expert at Gustav Eirich, a southern German engineering company that makes industrial mixing equipment, and he has been encrypting his emails for years. “While I was typing I always had in the back of my mind that it could still be deciphered,” says Stäudinger, 48. He has tried to entrench that mindset in his company.

Stäudinger has spent years trying to enhance the security of Eirich’s data and communications. He kept telling colleagues to be careful when dealing with sensitive information. He installed extra security features on notebooks and smartphones before they were taken off company premises. Some of the firm’s 750 employees probably shook their heads at all this paranoia. But now, after the NSA revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden, they all know that Stäudinger was right. “We were always aware that the intelligence services and business work closely together in the US,” said the IT expert. “When we heard about what’s been going on, it didn’t hit us completely out of the blue.”

Other companies were taken by surprise, though. Be it Prism, Tempora or XKeyscore, reports about mass electronic surveillance and tapped Internet hubs and trans-Atlantic data lines have alarmed German companies. Many firms are now worried that the intelligence services aren’t just trying to pinpoint terrorists but to get at German industrial secrets as well. They fear that their lead over US, British and French competitors could be at risk. And they’ve suddenly realized that they’ve got to do something to protect themselves against the organized theft of data.

“The reports of the activities of intelligence services are a wake-up call for many companies. It sent alarm bells ringing,” said Rainer Glatz, director of product and know-how protection at the VDMA German engineering association. In the past, warnings of hacker attacks and IT espionage often fell on deaf ears. But now Germany’s small and medium-sized business sector, or Mittelstand, often described as the backbone of the German economy, has woken up to the risk. “There is growing sensitivity,” said Glatz. “In many firms, the management boards are now thinking about how they can shield themselves better.”

Spying Causes Billions of Euros in Damage

Action is urgently needed. At most, only one in four Mittelstand firms has an IT security strategy, said Christian Schaaf, founder of the Munich-based consultancy Corporate Trust. Many have limited themselves to a simple firewall and a few anti-virus programs. But that’s not enough to keep out professional hackers, let alone the likes of the NSA. “Many companies are starting to realize that they have to cast a safety net over their data,” said Schaaf.

There’s plenty to spy on in the Mittelstand, with its thousands of high-tech businesses, ranging from newly developed products to production processes and process control systems, as well as customer lists and price offers in contract tenders. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, estimates that industrial espionage causes damage totalling between €30 billion and €60 billion ($40 billion to $80 billion) per year. No one knows the exact figure because companies in Germany and across Europe tend to keep quiet when they find out they have been spied on. There are a number of reasons for this: They’re afraid of copycat espionage, they don’t want to reveal to potential new attackers where their weak points are and what they’re doing to protect themselves. And they’re afraid that they may lose customers if their data leaks become public.

Engineering company Gustav Eirich would be worth spying on. The 150-year-old, family-owned business from Hardheim in the Odenwald region of southern Germany is among the world leaders in its field. Eirich’s machines can mix chemicals and all sorts of materials faster, more thoroughly and more efficiently than those of its international competitors. This is thanks to a host of inventions and innovations that the company has had patented. “Our know-how is our big competitive advantage,” said security chief Stäudinger. And Eirich is doing all it possibly can to protect that lead.

Possible Boost For German Data Security Firms

The company refrains from storing information in foreign data processing centers. Video conferences, data transmission and emails — Eirich handles all that via its own cloud server. Skype is forbidden, and the use of Facebook is discouraged. All staff members are given clear instructions to avoid any unintentional releases of sensitive data. As a rule, the company encrypts all emails it sends outside the firm, if the clients go along with that, and they use German software to do the encrypting. “With US programs the intelligence agency will definitely have the general key,” said Stäudinger. “That’s why we try to use domestic products whenever we can.” In Germany, security authorities usually don’t get access to the algorhythms of firms that offer encryption.

Germany’s comparatively strict rules on data privacy protection represent a possible competitive advantage for German suppliers of IT security. Data processing centers based in Germany have been enjoying a strong increase in demand of late, said Gatz, VDMA’s IT security expert. Providers of private clouds such as Demando, a subsdiary of the Kaiserslautern municipal utility company, offer their customers their own server cabinets and can even make exclusive glass fiber lines available to them so that they don’t have to send sensitive data through the Internet.

However, even such lines can be tapped into, and almost every encryption code can be cracked. “You can never guarantee 100 percent security,” said Stäudinger. “We know there’s a residual risk. But we set the hurdles as high as possible.” Maybe that will make potential attackers seek easier targets: among companies with less distrustful security chiefs.

07/23/2013 06:04 PM
By Claus Hecking

Find this story at 23 July 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

Ghosts of the NSA Relics of Cold War Spying Dot Germany

The National Security Agency has long been active in Germany, though much of its spying was conducted against the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. Today, former listening stations and other facilities dot the German landscape.

Tracking down traces of the National Security Agency in Germany isn’t particularly difficult. One merely has to head to Berlin and look for the city’s highest point. It can be found in the southwest corner of the city — Teufeslberg, or “Devil’s Mountain.” Made of piled up rubble gathered from Berlin following World War II, the “mountain” rises 115 meters (377 feet) above the nearby waterway known as the Havel.

In the winter, it is the place where Berliners meet to sled; in the summer it is a haven for mountain bikers and daytrippers. And hobby historians: At the very top of the hill stands the most famous NSA relict in Germany — five gigantic white radar balls. The listening station was used until the end of the Cold War, primarily to spy on the east.

Teufelsberg used to be part of the NSA’s global espionage network called Echelon, which the US intelligence service used to keep an eye on Moscow. From 1957 to 1991, the NSA maintained a presence on Teufelsberg and eavesdropped on satellite-based telephone conversations, filtered fax reports and analyzed Internet datasets. The NSA was still doing all that in 2013, as SPIEGEL recently reported, but it no longer requires the massive radar towers.

Desolate and in Disrepair

Today, the artificial hill looks desolate. When the Americans withdrew, the listening station began to fall into disrepair. The covering on the radomes is torn in many places, and inside the facility weeds are growing out of the debris.

But it’s not just weather and age that have led the buildings to deteriorate. Shortly after the turn of the century, the government of the city-state of Berlin decided that guarding the empty facility had become too expensive. It then became the target of regular break-ins and vandalism. Rotraud von der Heide, an artist and the curator of the Initiative Teufelsberg, a group seeking to preserve the facility, says, “the facility is totally destroyed because private owners weren’t able to carry out their construction plans, and now the building permits have expired. For the past year-and-a-half, two young people have been leasing it.” Originally, a conference hotel had been envisioned for the site, but those plans ultimately failed.

Those leasing the site are now responsible for security at the facility. Using revenues generated through frequent tours, they are financing the constant repairs required for the fence surrounding property. “New holes are cut in the fence every night, and we turn trespassers over to the police,” said von der Heide. “Earlier, people had parties in the facility. There were also copper thieves who ripped wires out of the walls. That’s no longer possible now.”

Big Plans

The initiative has big plans for the hill. During Germany’s “Day of Open Monuments,” in September, they plan to open the former listening station to the public for three days.

By then, von der Heide plans to completely transform the area into one giant artwork. “The hill is becoming more and more fantastic. It’s a magical art space that is constantly changing,” the artist says. That’s also a product of anonymous graffiti artists whose paintings cover the massive walls and the insides of the radomes, she says.

A second NSA listening station in Germany, located some 200 kilometers to the west — represents the opposite extreme. Whereas the Teufelsberg radomes were difficult to ignore, the facility in Schöningen, near Braunschweig, was more hidden. Mayor Henry Bäsecke says that there was an American facility in the nearby forest consisting of “containers and large antennas. But the facility has since been torn down. “There’s nothing left here, and nature is slowly reconquering the property,” Bäsecke says.

At Least 17 Surveillance Hubs at Cold War Peak

Some 50 kilometers south of Munich is yet another listening post of note. Bad Aibling the southernmost facility in a chain of such espionage centers operated in Germany by US intelligence agencies. In 1989, shortly before the end of the Cold War, SPIEGEL counted 17 such surveillance hubs. But it’s a figure that may have been even higher. The network extended from the town of Schleswig near the Danish border right down to the edge of the Alps. Most of the facilities were located close to the former border between West and East Germany, as close as possible to the enemy.

In Bad Aibling, the outsized radomes of the disused listening station also dominate the landscape. In 2004, the Americans left, but Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND, continues to operate nearby. The 17,000 resident city is hard at work transforming the 134 hectare (331 acre) property for civilian use. The community has already turned a small part of the property into sporting facilities, Peter Schmid of the city administration says. Here, local teams play football in the shadows of the radomes. The rest is to be built up by a property developer, with plans for a zero-energy settlement to be constructed.

Still, the area’s eventful history hasn’t been forgotten. Since 2009, it has hosted an annual electro- and house-music festival that attracted 17,000 fans last year to revel between the radar towers and a former aircraft hangar. The name of the two-day festival recalls the American spy network: The Echelon festival.

07/05/2013 03:24 PM
By Johannes Korge

Find this story at 5 July 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

„Prism ist nur die Spitze des Eisbergs“ NSA-Mitarbeiter: BND nutzt seit den 90ern Spähsoftware

Eine Kuppel der ehemaligen Abhörstation der NSA auf dem Teufelsberg in Berlin
Der BND und der US-Geheimdienst NSA arbeiten offenbar bereits 20 Jahre bei der Datenspionage zusammen. Einem Medienbericht zufolge wurden entsprechende Spähprogramme schon früher geteilt. Auch Kanzlerin Merkel könnte ausspioniert worden sein.
Die Zusammenarbeit des Bundesnachrichtendienstes BND und der amerikanischen National Security Agency (NSA) bei der Nutzung von Spähsoftware war offenbar schon in den 1990er-Jahren intensiver als bislang bekannt. In einem Gespräch mit dem Magazin „Stern“ sagte der langjährige NSA-Mitarbeiter William Binney, der BND habe neben „Xkeyscore“ noch ein weiteres NSA-Ausspähprogramm genutzt. Der Entschlüsselungsspezialist arbeitete mehr als 30 Jahre in leitender Funktion bei der NSA und war viele Jahre auch für die technische Zusammenarbeit mit dem BND zuständig.

Laut Binney soll die Zusammenarbeit im Bereich der Spähsoftware bereits Anfang der 1990er-Jahre begonnen haben. 1999 habe der BND von der NSA den Quellcode zum damals entwickelten Spähprogramm „Thin Thread“ erhalten. „Thin Thread“ sollte die Erfassung und Analyse von Verbindungsdaten wie Telefondaten, E-Mails oder Kreditkartenrechnungen weltweit ermöglichen. „Mein Ziel war es, den Datenverkehr der ganzen Welt zu erfassen“, sagte Binney dem „Stern“. Der BND sei „bis heute einer unserer wichtigsten Partner“.

Mindestens 50 Spähprogramm lieferten Daten
Auf der Basis von „Thin Thread“ sei eine Vielzahl von Abhör- und Spähprogrammen entwickelt worden. Eines der wichtigsten davon soll das Dachprogramm „Stellar Wind“ sein, dem nach Angaben von Binney mindestens 50 Spähprogramme Daten zugeliefert haben – auch die durch Edward Snowden bekannt gewordene Software „Prism“ zur direkten Erfassung von Telefon- und Internetdaten bei Telekommunikationsunternehmen.

„Stellar Wind“ sei mindestens bis 2009, möglicherweise auch bis 2011 im Einsatz gewesen. Es werde heute wahrscheinlich unter anderem Namen fortgeführt, so Binney gegenüber dem Magazin.

Nach Schätzungen von Binney speichert die NSA mittlerweile zwischen 40 und 50 Billionen Telefonate und E-Mails aus der ganzen Welt, vor allem Verbindungsdaten, aber auch Inhalte. Das von der NSA zurzeit gebaute Datenzentrum in Bluffdale im US-Bundesstaat Utah könne aufgrund seiner Kapazitäten „mindestens 100 Jahre der globalen Kommunikation speichern“, sagte Binney dem „Stern“. „Dieser Ort sollte uns endgültig in Angst und Schrecken versetzen. Die NSA will alles. Jederzeit.“ Er fügte hinzu: „Diese Macht gefährdet unsere Demokratie.“

Regierungskommunikation im Visier der NSA
Neben William Binney äußerten sich im „Stern“ zwei weitere ehemalige ranghohe NSA-Mitarbeiter, die zu Whistleblowern wurden: J. Kirk Wiebe, der für die Datenanalyse zuständig war, und Thomas Drake, der zur Führungsebene des Geheimdienstes gehörte. Binney trat im Oktober 2001 aus Protest gegen die NSA-Spähprogramme unter der Regierung von George W. Bush von seinem Posten zurück.
Die Ex-Geheimdienstler halten es für möglich, dass selbst Daten von Kanzlerin Angela Merkels Handy auf den Servern der NSA landen. „Prism ist nur die Spitze des Eisbergs“, so Drake gegenüber dem „Stern“. „Ihre Kanzlerin könnte sich einmal für das Programm „Ragtime“ interessieren. Es dient unter anderem der Abschöpfung von Regierungskommunikation durch die NSA“. Auch Binney hält das Ausspionieren von Merkels Verbindungsdaten für nicht ausgeschlossen. „Ich würde sogar sagen, dass es durchaus möglich ist“, sagte er dem Magazin.

Mittwoch, 24.07.2013, 16:59

Find this story at 24 July 2013

© FOCUS Online 1996-2013

BND nutzte bislang unbekanntes NSA-Spähprogramm

Im stern packen drei Ex-NSA-Mitarbeiter aus: Der BND nutzte seit Anfang der 90er Jahre ein bislang unbekanntes Spähprogramm. Für die Kanzlerin könnte der Begriff “Ragtime” wichtig werden. Von Katja Gloger

“Hallo, Merkel am Apparat.”: Womöglich landen auf den Servern der NSA auch Handydaten der Kanzlerin. Mit dem Programm “Ragtime” spioniert die NSA Kommunikation von Regierungen aus.
© Rainer Jensen/DPA/LBN

Die Zusammenarbeit des Bundesnachrichtendienstes BND und der amerikanischen National Security Agency (NSA) bei der Nutzung von Spähsoftware war offenbar schon in den 90er Jahren intensiver als bislang bekannt. In einem Gespräch mit dem stern sagte der langjährige NSA-Mitarbeiter William Binney, der BND habe neben “Xkeyscore” noch ein weiteres NSA-Ausspähprogramm genutzt. Der Entschlüsselungsspezialist arbeitete mehr als 30 Jahre in leitender Funktion bei der NSA und war viele Jahre auch für die technische Zusammenarbeit mit dem BND zuständig.

BND hatte den Quellcode

Laut Binney soll die Zusammenarbeit im Bereich der Spähsoftware bereits Anfang der 90er Jahre begonnen haben. 1999 habe der BND von der NSA den Quellcode zum damals entwickelten Spähprogramm “Thin Thread” erhalten, zu Deutsch “dünner Faden”.

“Thin Thread” sollte die Erfassung und Analyse von Verbindungsdaten wie Telefondaten, E-Mails oder Kreditkartenrechnungen weltweit ermöglichen. “Mein Ziel war es, den Datenverkehr der ganzen Welt zu erfassen”, so Binney zum stern. Der BND sei “bis heute einer unserer wichtigsten Partner”.

Auf der Basis von “Thin Thread” wurde eine Vielzahl von Abhör- und Spähprogrammen entwickelt. Eines der wichtigsten davon soll das Dachprogramm “Stellar Wind” (“Sternwind”) sein, dem nach Angaben von Binney mindestens 50 Spähprogramme Daten zugeliefert haben – auch die durch Edward Snowden bekannt gewordene Software “Prism” zur direkten Erfassung von Telefon- und Internetdaten bei Telekommunikationsunternehmen. “Stellar Wind” war mindestens bis 2009, möglicherweise auch bis 2011 im Einsatz. Es werde, so Binney, heute wahrscheinlich unter anderem Namen fortgeführt.
Neues Datenzentrum kann 100 Jahre der globalen Kommunikation speichern

Nach Schätzung von Binney speichert die NSA mittlerweile zwischen 40 und 50 Billionen Telefonate und E-Mails aus der ganzen Welt, vor allem Verbindungsdaten, aber auch Inhalte. Das von der NSA zur Zeit gebaute Datenzentrum in Bluffdale im US-Bundesstaat Utah könne aufgrund seiner Kapazitäten “mindestens 100 Jahre der globalen Kommunikation speichern”, sagte Binney dem stern. “Dieser Ort sollte uns endgültig in Angst und Schrecken versetzen. Die NSA will alles. Jederzeit.” Und fügte hinzu: “Diese Macht gefährdet unsere Demokratie.”

Neben William Binney äußern sich im stern zwei weitere ehemalige ranghohe NSA-Mitarbeiter, die zu Whistleblowern (“Enthüllern”) wurden: J. Kirk Wiebe, der für die Datenanalyse zuständig war, und Thomas Drake, der zur Führungsebene des Geheimdienstes gehörte. Binney trat im Oktober 2001 aus Protest gegen die NSA-Spähprogramme unter der Regierung von George W. Bush von seinem Posten zurück.
Auch Merkels Handydaten womöglich auf NSA-Servern

Die Ex-Geheimdienstler halten es für möglich, dass selbst Daten von Kanzlerin Angela Merkels Handy auf den Servern der NSA landen. “Prism ist nur die Spitze des Eisbergs”, so Drake zum stern. “Ihre Kanzlerin könnte sich einmal für das Programm “Ragtime” interessieren. Es dient unter anderem der Abschöpfung von Regierungskommunikation durch die NSA”. Auch Binney hält das Ausspionieren von Merkels Verbindungsdaten für nicht ausgeschlossen: “Ich würde sogar sagen, dass es durchaus möglich ist.”

24. Juli 2013, 16:51 Uhr

Find this story at 24 July 2013

© stern.de

Skandale, Organisation, Geschichte NSA, Mossad und die verräterische Nackttänzerin – so spionieren die Geheimdienste

Eine Chronik der Geheimdienstarbeit: Von Meisterspionin Mata Hari bis zur Cyber-Spionage der NSA
Geheimdienste wie NSA, Mossad oder BND scheinen tun zu können, was sie wollen: Überwachen, ausspionieren, töten – ihre Methoden sind dabei nicht immer legal. FOCUS Online zeigt die interessantesten Geheimdienste der Welt, ihre Organisation, ihre Geschichte, ihre Skandale.
Die Enthüllungen des ehemaligen Geheimdienstlers Edward Snowden zeigen, wie zügellos und weit verbreitet heute abgehört wird. Dabei richtet sich die Arbeit der Geheimdienste nicht nur gegen Offizielle und Politiker. Auch ganz normale Bürger werden überwacht. Die Öffentlichkeit ist besorgt, Fragen nach der Kontrolle der Behörden drängen sich auf, die Menschen fordern Konsequenzen.

Dabei galten Geheimdienste schon immer als mysteriös und spannend. Doch die Realität ihrer Arbeit hat oft wenig mit den Meisterspionen a la James Bond oder „Mission Impossible“-Held Ethan Hunt zu tun. Die Behörden sammeln Daten, werten sie aus, informieren, desinformieren, verhandeln und tauschen. Ihr Netz haben sie über die ganze Welt ausgeworfen. Das zeigen nicht erst die Enthüllungen von Prism und Edward Snowden.

Eines der ältesten Gewerbe der Welt
„Spionage ist eines der ältesten Gewerbe der Welt“, erklärt der Historiker und Geheimdienstexperte Siegfried Beer im Gespräch mit FOCUS Online. Beer leitet das österreichische Center für „Intelligence, Propaganda & Security Studies“, kurz ACIPSS, in Graz. Das Wissen um den Feind sei für jeden Staat von entscheidender Bedeutung. Schon Alexander der Große, der makedonische Heeresführer, dessen Reich ungeheure Ausmaße annahm, verließ sich auf Spionage.

Das wurde ihm beinahe zum Verhängnis, wie Wolfgang Krieger in seiner „Geschichte der Geheimdienste“ zeigt: 333 v. Christus, bei Issus „berühmter Keilerei“, wurde Alexander falsch informiert. Seine Agenten sagten ihm, der Perserkönig und sein Heer seien noch weit entfernt – Tatsache war, dass sie aneinander vorbeimarschiert waren. Und Alexander so in umgekehrter Schlachtformation kämpfen musste – doch er siegte.

Eine Folge der Industrialisierung
„Organisierte, moderne Spionage gibt es aber erst seit etwa 130 Jahren“, erklärt der Geheimdienst-Experte Beer vom ACIPSS. „Großbritannien nahm eine Vorreiterrolle ein.“ Die Briten begannen in den 1870er-Jahren mit dem Aufbau eines Nachrichtendienstes: aus Angst vor den unterdrückten und rebellischen Iren. Das brachte die anderen Länder unter Zugzwang: Alle europäischen Großmächte des 19. Jahrhunderts gründeten ihrerseits nach und nach Geheimdienste.

„Die moderne Spionage ist eine Folge der Industrialisierung“, sagt Beer. Wegen der verbesserten Kommunikation, den schnellen Transportwegen und der beginnenden Globalisierung mussten die Regierungen umdenken. In den Weltkriegen und dem Kalten Krieg entwickelten sie neue Methoden, um ihre Feinde besser zu überwachen und sich entscheidende Vorteile zu sichern. Heute hat jedes Land eigene Geheimdienste. Nicht nur zur Spionage und Gegenspionage, sondern auch zur Sicherung eigener Daten. Und, vor allem nach 9/11, zur Terrorismusbekämpfung.
Geschichten aus Hunderten Jahren Spionage
Doch die Prism-Enthüllung ist nur eine in einer langen Reihe vergleichbarer Skandale. Seien es Spione, die überliefen, die gefährlichen Methoden des Mossad oder die Meisterspione des KGB. Seitdem es organisierte Spionage gibt, werden die verborgenen Tätigkeiten in regelmäßigen Abständen enthüllt. Und immer bieten sie genug Stoff für spektakuläre Geschichten. FOCUS Online stellt eine Auswahl der aktivsten und gefährlichsten Geheimdienste der Welt und ihre Methoden vor – und zeigt ihre brisantesten Skandale und berühmtesten Spione.
Deutschland – BND, BfV, MAD
Montage/Panther
In Deutschland sammelt unter anderem der Bundesnachrichtendienst Informationen
Organisation der deutschen Nachrichtendienste

Drei Nachrichtendienste teilen sich in Deutschland den Schutz der Bürger: Das Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) beobachtet das Inland, der Bundesnachrichtendienst das Ausland (BND), der militärische Abschirmdienst (MAD) kümmert sich um den Schutz der Armee. Die drei Behörden arbeiten großteils getrennt.

Geschichte des BND

Die Alliierten gaben 1949 die Struktur des Geheimdienstes in der Bundesrepublik vor. Dabei zogen sie vor allem die Lehren aus dem System des NS-Regiems: Die Geheime Staatspolizei, kurz Gestapo, hatte dort die Möglichkeit, eigenmächtig Verhaftungen durchzuführen. Das darf der Verfassungsschutz in Deutschland nicht. Die Nachrichtendienste haben generell keine polizeilichen Befugnisse.

Der BND ist als deutscher Auslandsgeheimdienst dem Kanzleramt unterstellt und wurde 1956 gegründet. Zu den Aufgabenbereichen gehört die Beobachtung mutmaßlicher Terroristen, der organisierten Kriminalität, illegaler Finanzströme, des Rauschgifthandels, der Weitergabe von ABC-Waffen und Rüstungsgütern sowie von Krisenregionen wie Afghanistan oder Pakistan. Dazu wertet der BND Informationen von menschlichen Quellen, elektronische Kommunikation sowie Satelliten- und Luftbilder aus. Er zählt etwa 6000 Mitarbeiter – vom Fahrer bis zum Nuklearphysiker. Wie viel Geld der BND für Spionage ausgeben darf, hält die Behörde streng geheim.

1950 wurde in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik wohl einer der bekanntesten Geheimdienste der Welt gegründet: Das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, kurz Stasi. Angegliedert an die Stasi war der Auslandsgeheimdienst Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, die sich vor allem mit dem westlichen Bruder beschäftigte. Die Stasi mauserte sich zu einem entscheidenden Machtinstrument der sozialistischen Regierung. Sie unterdrückte Andersdenkende, warb sogenannte Spitzel an, inhaftierte Dissidenten – die Bevölkerung hatte Angst vor der Behörde. Das lag daran, dass die Behörde polizeiliche Befugnisse hatte. Bis heute läuft die Aufarbeitung über das Ausmaß der Stasi-Überwachung.

Spektakuläres über den BND

Deutsche Spione à la James Bond? Falsch. Beim BND sind Fremdsprachenexperten, Informatiker, Juristen, Biologen, Ingenieure und Islamwissenschaftler gefragt, keine Superagenten. Sie werden innerhalb von zwei bis drei Jahren zum Agenten ausgebildet – und dann als Tarifbeschäftigte, Soldaten und Beamten angestellt.

2006 erschütterte ein Bericht über die Arbeit des BND die Bundesrepublik: Im großen Stil hörte der Dienst Journalisten ab. Gerade in den Achtzigern war der Bedarf an Informationen besonders hoch, namhafte Autoren bei Zeitungen wie Stern, Spiegel oder FOCUS standen unter Beobachtung.
Welche Rolle spielte der BND im Irak-Krieg 2003? Hartnäckig halten sich Gerüchte, dass der Dienst einen Informanten hatte, der behauptete, dass der Irak Massenvernichtungswaffen und Biolabore besessen haben soll. Weiterhin haben Agenten des BND, so zeigt Alexandra Sgro in ihrem Buch „Geheimdienste der Welt“, angeblich strategische Informationen über irakische Verteidigungsstellungen und Truppenbewegungen an die USA weitergegeben. Die Bundesregierung hatte offiziell verlauten lassen, dass sich Deutschland aus dem Irak-Krieg heraushält – lässt sich dieser Status nach den Enthüllungen noch halten?
Türkei – MIT
Colourbox/Montage
Die Türkei hat nur einen Nachrichtendienst: den „Millî Istihbarat Teşkilâti“
Organisation türkischen Geheimdienstes

Der Millî Istihbarat Teşkilâti (MIT) ist der einzige Nachrichtendienst der Türkei. Er ist für innere Sicherheit und Spionageabwehr zuständig. Außerdem hat er die Pflicht, für den Schutz der Landesgrenzen zu sorgen. Der Geheimdienst untersteht direkt dem Premierminister und ist dafür verantwortlich, bedrohliche Gruppierungen im In- und Ausland zu beobachten. Dabei gibt es häufig gewaltsame Konflikte mit Anhängern der verbotenen Arbeiterpartei Kurdistans PKK. Denn diese kämpfen für die Autonomie der kurdischen Gebiete der Türkei.

Geschichte des MIT

Schon vor der Gründung der Türkei gab es Geheimdienste. 1913 wurde Teşkilât-I Mahsusa als erster zentralisierter und organisierter türkischer Nachrichtendienst gegründet. Er sollte die Aktivitäten von Separatisten eindämmen. Während des Ersten Weltkrieges erlebte die Behörde ihre Blütezeit und war militärisch und paramilitärisch aktiv. Das Ende des Krieges bedeutete auch das Ende des Geheimdienstes.

Sein Nachfolger war Karakol Cemiyeti, der Zivilpersonen und kleine Gruppierungen ab 1919 im türkischen Unabhängigkeitskrieg mit Waffen ausstattete. So gelang es, die Besatzungsmächte zu besiegen. Als die Briten im Jahr 1920 Istanbul besetzten, lösten sie auch den Nachrichtendienst auf. Danach gab es viele verschiedene Geheimdienste, die nie lange Bestand hatten. Bis 1965 der Millî Istihbarat Teşkilâti gegründet wurde.

Spektakuläres über den MIT

Wie Sgro in ihrem Buch „Geheimdienste der Welt“ schreibt, werden beim türkischen Geheimdienst nur schriftliche Bewerbungen angenommen, die per Post eingesendet werden – eine Vorbereitung auf die Spionagetätigkeit? Die frisch gebackenen Agenten bekommen ihren Arbeitsort dann per Losverfahren zugeteilt.

In den Neunzigern machten Berichte die Runde, der türkische Geheimdienst würde militante Separatisten bekämpfen. Allerdings nicht nur im eigenen Land, sondern auch in Deutschland. Dabei schüchterten die Agenten angeblich Oppositionelle ein, bedrohten Asylbewerber und kündigten Repressalien gegen die in der Türkei lebenden Verwandten an.
Ein anderes Ziel hatte laut Spekulationen sogenannter Experten der türkische Geheimdienst Mitte der 2000er-Jahre: Zu diesem Zeitpunkt war gerade die sogenannte Sauerland-Gruppe verhaftet worden. Sie plante offenbar einen Bombenanschlag in Deutschland, unterstützt von dem Türken Mevlüt K. – laut Medienberichten ein Informant des türkischen Geheimdienstes. Fakt ist: Er ist untergetaucht und wird per internationalem Haftbefehl gesucht.
Frankreich – DGSE
Motage/Panther
Frankreichs Geheimdienst DGSE
Organisation des französischen Geheimdienstes

Der französische Geheimdienst nennt sich „Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure“, kurz DGSE. Spezialoperationen des DGSE müssen von oberster Stelle genehmigt werden: Seit 2009 darf sie nur der französische Präsident bewilligen. Wer eingestellt wird, entscheidet das Verteidigungsministerium. Schwerpunkt des Geheimdienstes mit Sitz in Paris: Terrorismusbekämpfung. Außerdem haben die Geheimdienstler ein Auge auf Länder, in denen Massenvernichtungswaffen hergestellt und vertrieben werden.

Geschichte des DGSE

Die Geschichte des DGSE beginnt mit Charles de Gaulle. Der spätere Ministerpräsident Frankreichs ließ 1940 aus dem Exil einen Geheimdienst zusammenstellen. Er sollte für die Widerstandsbewegung „France Libre“ gegen das NS-Regime spionieren. Nach dem Krieg wurde ein neuer Geheimdienst gegründet, der Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE). Seine Aufgaben: ausländische Berichterstattung und Gegenspionage. 1982 löste ihn der DGSE ab.

Die Schwerpunkte des DGSE sind stark von Frankreichs Geschichte als Kolonialmacht geprägt. Denn zu seinen ehemaligen Kolonien pflegt Frankreich auch heute noch wirtschaftliche Beziehungen. Die Regierungen sollten also stabil bleiben. Wo Frankreich Fundamentalismus fürchtete, griff der Geheimdienst ein. So wie Ende der 1980er-Jahre in Algerien. Angeblich ermordete der DGSE 1992 den algerischen Präsidenten Muhammad Boudiaf. Und auch in Syrien könnte sich die Behörde 2012 eingemischt haben, Sgro. Agenten sollen dem syrischen General Manaf Tlass bei der Flucht geholfen haben. Der stand einst Machthaber Assad nahe.

Spektakuläres über den DGSE

Die wohl legendärste Doppelspionin überhaupt war für die Franzosen im Einsatz: Mata Hari. Die Nackttänzerin ließ sich zur Zeit des Ersten Weltkriegs von den Deutschen dafür bezahlen, französischen Militärs Geheimnisse zu entlocken. Gleichzeitig spionierte sie für die Franzosen in den von den Deutschen besetzten Gebieten. Die schöne Niederländerin wurde schließlich von den Franzosen zum Tode verurteilt, weil sie auch an Deutschland Geheimnisse verraten haben soll. Was genau sie wem erzählt hat, ist bis heute nicht bekannt. Erst 2017 wird der französische Staat die Akten freigegeben.

In den 1980er-Jahren kämpfte der französische Geheimdienst gegen Greenpeace. Die französische Regierung testete zu dieser Zeit im Mururoa-Atoll im Pazifik Atomwaffen. Greenpeace-Aktivisten wollten dagegen protestieren. Agenten des DGSE gelang es, auf dem Greenpeace-Schiff Sprengsätze anzubringen. Bei der Explosion starb ein Mensch. Bewilligt wurde die Aktion angeblich vom damaligen Präsidenten François Mitterand. Der Verteidigungsminister rechtfertigte das Vorgehen: Anders hätte man den Protest nicht verhindern können.
Großes Aufsehen erregte auch der Vorgänger des DGSE, der SDECE: 1965 verschwand Ben Barka, ein Marokkaner im französischen Exil – bis heute ist nicht geklärt, wer ihn entführt hat. Im Verdacht stehen französische Agenten. Sie hätten damit dem marokkanischen König geholfen und zugleich den Einfluss Frankreichs auf Marokko gesichtert. Bakra war in Marokko wegen Hochverrats verurteilt worden, weil er den König scharf kritisiert hatte. Er soll vom marokkanischen Innenminister getötet worden sein.
Brasilien – Abin
dpa/Montage
Brasiliens Nachrichtendienst heißt „Agência Brasiliera de Inteligência“
Organisation des brasilianischen Geheimdienstes

Der brasilianische Geheimdienst heißt Agência Brasileira de Inteligência (Abin) und ist dem Präsidenten unterstellt. Die Aufgaben umfassen Spionage- und Terror-Abwehr, Informationsbeschaffung und Schutz der Bürger.

Geschichte der Albin

Schon 1927 wurde die militärische Behörde Conselho de Defesa Nacional gegründet, die sich zunächst mit geheimdienstlichen Aufgaben beschäftigte. Nachdem die Folgeorganisation die Arbeit in den Wirren des Militärputsches von 1964 schon wieder einstellte und durch einen regimehörigen Dienst ersetzt wurde, bestand die Behörde bis 1990. Die Abin wurde 1999 gegründet und übernimmt seitdem die Aufgabe des In- und Auslands-Geheimdienstes – im Gegensatz zu seinem Vorgänger als zivile Behörde.

Spektakuläres über die Albin

Nachwuchsarbeit bei Zehn bis 15-Jährigen? Warum nicht, muss sich die Abin gedacht haben. 2005, so beschreibt es Sgro in ihrem Buch, habe eine Informationsveranstaltung stattgefunden, bei der Jugendlichen die Arbeit von Agenten nahegebracht wurde. Dieses Programm soll weitergeführt werden und sich in Zukunft verstärkt an Schüler und Studenten richten.

Es muss eine skurrile Situation gewesen sein: 1983 entdeckte ein Maler im Büro des damaligen Präsidenten eine Wanze mit aktivem Sender. Brasilianische Zeitungen machten schnell den Schuldigen aus: den Geheimdienst. Der habe sich derartige Abhör-Vergehen schon öfters zuschulden kommen lassen, so die Argumentation. Die wahren Hintergründe bleiben unbekannt.
Im Juli diesen Jahres kam im Zuge des weltweiten Abhörskandals heraus, dass auch Brasilien im Fadenkreuz der NSA stand: Millionen Emails und Telefonate seien abgehört worden. Nach Informationen der Zeitung „O Blobo“ ist Brasilien das am meiste ausgespähte Land Lateinamerikas.
Syrien – Abteilung für militärische Aufklärung
AFP
Syriens Geheimdienst ist in der Hand des Machthabers Baschar al-Assad
Organisation des syrischen Geheimdienstes

Etwas unübersichtlich stellt sich die Situation in Syrien dar: Fünf Behörden teilen die Geheimdienst-Aufgaben unter sich auf. Es gibt einen allgemeinen zivilen Nachrichtendienst, einen Nachrichtendienst der Luftwaffe, das Direktorat für Staatssicherheit sowie das Direktorat für politische Sicherheit im Innenministerium – in den Zeiten des Umbruchs ist aber vor allem eine Behörde wichtig: die Abteilung für Aufklärung. Sie unterstützt die militärischen Truppen und soll Dissidentengruppen zerschlagen – und soll dabei an illegalen Aktionen beteiligt gewesen sein.

Geschichte der Abteilung für Militärische Aufklärung

Die Gründung der Abteilung für Militärische Aufklärung datiert auf das Jahr 1969. In der westlichen Welt wurde der Geheimdienst allerdings erst in den 2000er-Jahren bekannt. Im Kampf gegen die Auswirkungen des arabischen Frühlings in Syrien koordinierte die Abteilung ab 2010 die Niederschlagung von Demonstrationen und die Diskreditierung der Rebellen.

Doch auch in westliche Staaten entsendete der Geheimdienst seine Agenten: So soll ein Deutsch-Libanese über mehrere Jahre hinweg Informationen über syrische Oppositionelle in der Bundesrepublik gesammelt und an den syrischen Geheimdienst weitergegeben haben. Und auch der BND hat offenbar gute Kontakte nach Syrien: Die Tagesschau berichtete im Mai, dass der BND-Präsident an einem Treffen mit syrischen Geheimdienstlern teilgenommen haben soll.

Spektakuläres über die Abteilung für Militärische Aufklärung

Wenig ist über die Arbeit des syrischen Geheimdienstes bekannt. Doch ein Name steht wohl in direktem Zusammenhang mit einer Aktion syrischer Agenten im Jahr 2011: Oberstleutnant Hussein Harmusch. Er rief in einem Internetvideo dazu auf, sich gegen die syrische Regierung zu stellen und setzte sich in die Türkei ab. Kurze Zeit später verschwand er spurlos. Was war passiert? Sgro schildert die Geschichte folgendermaßen: Am Tag seines Verschwindens traf sich Harmusch mit einem türkischen Agenten, der ihn mit dem Auto abholte, aber nach Eigenaussage wenige Minuten später wieder absetzte.

Mehr als zwei Wochen nach dieser Episode strahlte das syrische Staatsfernsehen ein Video aus, in dem Harmusch seinen Aufruf zum Widerstand widerrief. Experten erkennen einen tiefverängstigten Mann, sie gehen davon aus, dass er gezwungen wurde. Harmusch verschwindet daraufhin von der Bildfläche, bis heute weiß niemand, wo er ist. Nur die türkische Regierung äußerte sich noch einmal zu dem Fall: Sie ließ verlauten, dass der angebliche türkische Agent tatsächlich aus Syrien stammte.

Mit welcher Grausamkeit der syrische Geheimdienst beispielsweise gegen Dissidenten vorgeht, zeigen Berichte aus dem Jahr 2012: Menschenrechtsorganisationen sprechen bei den Geheimdienstzentren in Damaskus von der „Hölle auf Erden“. „Human Rights Watch“ erfasste zahlreiche Fälle, in denen Familien ihre vermissten Angehörigen nur noch tot finden konnten: Mit Brandflecken und Blutergüssen übersät. Überlebende berichten von Methoden, die man aus dem europäischen Mittelalter kennt: Sie wurden an den Händen aufgehangen, dann wurden sie geschlagen und geschnitten. Oder sie wurden auf Kreuz-ähnliche Holzbretter geschnallt und von Häschern auf die Fußsohlen geschlagen. Andere berichten von Stromschocks im Genitalbereich und weiteren Foltermethoden.
Die Beobachtergruppe „Violations Documentation Center“ spricht von über 25 000 Syrern, die seit 2011 verhaftet worden sind. Weniger als ein Fünftel sei bislang freigelassen worden. Experten gehen allerdings von weiter höheren Zahlen aus: Sie sprechen von Hunderttausenden Inhaftierten.
Russland – KGB, FSB, SWR, GRU
Colourbox/Montage
Der FSB ist nur einer von Russlands Geheimdiensten
Organisation des russischen Geheimdienstes

Russland verlässt sich seit dem Zerfall der Sowjetunion auf diese Geheimdienst-Behörden: Den Inlandsgeheimdienst FSB, den Auslandsnachrichtendienst SWR, den Schutzdienst FSO und den Militärnachrichtendienst GRU. Die Aufgaben des SWR umfassen dabei Gegenspionage und Fernaufklärung, der Dienst umfasst rund 13 000 Mitarbeiter. Spannend ist aber vor allem der Inlandsgeheimdienst FSB, da er als Nachfolger des berüchtigten KGB gilt.

Geschichte des russischen Geheimdienstes

Die Wirren um die Abdankung des Zaren Nikolaus II. in der Februarrevolution 1917 forderten ein ganzes Land heraus: Eine provisorische Regierung wurde gebildet, die Oktoberrevolution brach aus, schon bald übernahmen kommunistische Bolschewiken die Macht. Der starke Mann Lenin regte die Gründung eines neuen Geheimdienstes an, um die Konterrevolution und Klassenfeinde zu bekämpfen.

Nach einigen Umstrukturierungen und dem Zweiten Weltkrieg entstand 1954 der KGB als eigenständiges Ministerium. Erst 1991, mit dem Ende der Sowjetunion, hörte er auf zu existieren – wobei der Geheimdienst in Weißrussland noch immer KGB heißt. Der sowjetische KGB arbeitete dabei sowohl nach innen als auch nach außen, dazu gehörten Gegenspionage, Auslandsspionage, Bekämpfung von Regimegegnern, Sicherung der Parteimitglieder. SWR und FSB wurden in den 1990-Jahren gegründet und teilen sich wiederum in eigene Büros und Organe auf.

Spektakuläres über den russischen Geheimdienst

Normalerweise sind es Geschichtsbegeisterte, die Geheimdiensten Verschwörungstheorien andichten. In den 80er-Jahren, so schreibt Sgro in ihrem Buch, war es allerdings der KGB selbst, der für Furore sorgte: Tüchtige Sowjet-Agenten setzten das Gerücht in Umlauf, dass die US-Amerikaner den HI-Virus hergestellt und aus Versehen freigesetzt hätten. Der Plan: die USA damit zu diskreditieren. Selbst die deutsche Zeitung „taz“ griff die These auf. 1987 entschuldigte sich der Staatschef Gorbatschow bei US-Diplomaten, die Zeitung brauchte 20 Jahre länger und entschuldigte sich 2010.

Unabhängig davon unterstanden dem KGB einige der berühmtesten Spione des 20. Jahrhunderts: Beispielsweise sorgte der Journalist Richard Sorge dafür, dass sich die Sowjets auf die deutschen und japanischen Angriffspläne einstellen konnten – weil der überzeugte Kommunist Dokumente weitergab. Aldrich Ames dagegen arbeitete eigentlich beim CIA, dort leitete der die Abteilung „Gegenspionage UDSSR“. Was niemand wusste: Ames spionierte für Russland. Er bekam Geld, die Sowjets die Namen von US-Spitzeln. Und dann wären da noch das Spionage-Ehepaar Rosenberg, der Doppel-Agent Heinz Felfe, der Atomwaffen-Physiker Klaus Fuchs und und und.

Wie im Kalten Krieg: Erst im Juli stand ein russisches Agenten-Ehepaar vor dem Gericht in Stuttgart. Das Ehepaar firmierte unter den Decknamen Andreas und Heidrun Anschlag. Auch wenn die beiden nicht als klassische Spione gearbeitet haben sollen, hatten sie wohl als eine Art Briefkasten gedient. Das Paar wurde 2011 von Beamten des BKA und der GSG9 aufgespürt und festgenommen, nachdem sie 20 Jahre lang unentdeckt geblieben waren. Derzeit verhandeln russische und deutsche Behörden über einen Austausch der beiden Russen gegen einen deutschen Agenten.
Dass auch der moderne russische Geheimdienst an traditionellen Methoden festhält, zeigt eine Meldung der russischen Zeitung „Iswestija“. Zum Schutz streng geheimer Informationen schreiben russische Geheimdienste auf Schreibmaschinen, nicht digital, auch handschriftliche Aufzeichnungen seien üblich. Besonders beliebt: das deutsche Modell Triumph-Adler Twen 180. Dabei hat jede Schreibmaschine eine eigene Signatur, so dass jedes Dokument der Maschine zugeordnet werden kann, auf der es geschrieben wurde.
Neuseeland – GCSB
Colourbox/Montage
„Government Communications Security Bureau“ heißt der Geheimdienst Neuseelands
Organisation des neuseeländischen Geheimdienstes

Neuseeland hat zwei Geheimdienstbehörden: Den Security Intelligence Service und das nachgeordnete Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). Das GCSB kümmert sich um die nationale Sicherheit, überwacht ausländische Datenströme, stellt Sicherheitssysteme für die Regierung zusammen – Einheimische und Zugezogene mit ständigem Wohnsitz dürfen dabei nicht überwacht werden. Die Behörde ist dem Premierminister unterstellt.

Geschichte des GCSB

Im Jahr 1977 wünschte sich der neuseeländische Premierminister einen Geheimdienst – vergleichsweise spät im Vergleich zu anderen Staaten. Schnell wurden Anlagen für die Überwachung in Waihopai und in Tangimoana gebaut. Bis dahin arbeiteten Angestellte des Auslands- und Verteidigungsministeriums an der Nachrichtenbeschaffung. Um besser reagieren zu können, baute die Regierung das GCSB auf.

Vor den Augen der Öffentlichkeit im Verteidigungsministerium versteckt, wurde die Behörde in den Anfang der 80er-Jahren zunächst nur der Politik vorgestellt. 1984 erfuhr die neuseeländische Öffentlichkeit von der Existenz des Geheimdienstes.Bis das GCSB aber eine eigene Behörde wurde, sollten noch mehrere Jahrzehnte vergehen: 2003, durch einen Erlass, wurde das GCSB als öffentliche Dienstleistungsabteilung eingerichtet.

Spektakuläres über das GCSB

Ausgerechnet ein Deutscher mit doppelter Staatsbürgerschaft – er hat auch einen finnischen Pass – wurde zum Politikum in Neuseeland: Kim Schmitz, auch bekannt als Kim Dotcom, geriet aufgrund zwielichtiger Online-Geschäfte in das Fadenkreuz des GCSB. Schmitz wurde im Januar 2012 aufgrund des Verdachts auf Urheberrechtsverletzungen sowie Geldwäsche verhaftet, doch bereits zuvor hörten neuseeländische Agenten Mr Dotcom ab – ohne Einverständnis der Regierung, allerdings im Auftrag der Polizei.
Die Auswertung von Emails und Telefonaten, so zeichnet Sgro in ihrem Buch „Geheimdienste der Welt“ nach, brachte die Behörde auf die Spur der meisten Mitangeklagten. Das Problem: langjährige Bewohner Neuseelands dürfen nicht bespitzelt werden. Das Ergebnis: Die gesammelten Daten waren illegal erworben, der Premierminister entschuldigte sich bei Schmitz und dem neuseeländischen Volk.
Österreich – HNA, HAA, BVT
Motage/Panther
Einer der österreichischen Geheimdienste, das Abwehramt
Organisation des österreichischen Geheimdienstes

In Österreich gibt es drei Geheimdienste: Der Auslandsnachrichtendienst ist das Heeresnachrichtenamt (HNaA oder HNA). Sein Gegenstück ist das Heeres-Abwehramt (HAA oder HabwA) als militärischer Inlandsnachrichtendienst. Beide unterstehen dem Bundesministerium für Landesverteidigung und Sport. Das Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismusbekämpfung (BVT) ist die dritte Behörde.

Geschichte der österreichischen Geheimdienste

Militärische Nachrichtendienste gibt es in Österreich seit den Napoleonischen Kriegen. Napoleon veränderte damals mit seiner „Grande Armée“ die Kriegsführung, die Truppen waren beweglicher und agierten schneller. Die österreichische Monarchie musste darauf reagieren und begann, ein strukturiertes „militärisches Nachrichtenwesen“ aufzubauen. 1850 wurde der erste offizielle Nachrichtendienst in der österreichischen Monarchie eingerichtet: das Evidenzbüro. Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts überwachten dann die ersten „Geheimen Polizeiagenten“ hauptsächlich die öffentliche Sittlichkeit.

Diese Struktur änderte sich bis zum Anschluss Österreichs an das Deutsche Reich im Jahr 1938 kaum. Danach spionierte die Gestapo im Inland, der Sicherheitsdienst war für das Ausland zuständig und die Abwehr für militärische Spionage. Sie galten auch in Österreich als mächtiges Instrument der Nationalsozialisten. Eine der ersten Amtshandlungen nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg war die Gründung einer österreichischen Staatspolizei. Erst 1955 gründete das Bundesheer einen militärischen Geheimdienst.

1972 wurde dieser in das heutige Heeres-Nachrichtenamt (HNaA) umgebaut. Zunächst beschäftigte sich dieses sowohl mit Auslandsaufklärung als auch mit Abwehr. 1985 wurde vom HNaA das Abwehramt abgespalten, weil das Heeresnachrichtenamt zu mächtig geworden war. Heute ist das Heeresnachrichtenamt vor allem im Einsatz gegen Terrorismus, Organisierte Kriminalität und irreguläre Migration.

Spektakuläres über die österreichischen Geheimdienste

Im Parlament ist ein ständiger Unterausschuss des Landesverteidigungsausschuss für die Kontrolle des Heeresnachrichtenamtes zuständig, die Parlamentarier sind aber auf strenge Verschwiegenheit vereidigt. Das HNaA soll eng mit US-amerikanischen Geheimdiensten zusammenarbeiten und vor allem in der Zeit des Kalten Krieges wichtige Informationen über Vorgänge in den Balkanstaaten an die USA weitergegeben haben. 1968 waren es österreichische Agenten des Heeresnachrichtenamtes, die als erste über den Einmarsch der Truppen des Warschauer Pakts in die Tschechoslowakei Bescheid wussten.
Das Stillschweigen rund um die Arbeit des Heeresnachrichtenamtes verlieh dem Nachrichtendienst zwischenzeitlich große Macht. Das ging so weit, dass sogar Verteidigungsminister ausspioniert worden sein sollen. Als Verteidigungsminister Friedhelm Frischenschlager das zufällig erfuhr, soll er so erbost gewesen sein, dass er im Jahr 1985 das Heeresnachrichtenamt reformieren und das Heeres-Abwehramt davon abspalten ließ. Die beiden Nachrichtendienste sind bis heute politisch verfeindet: Das HNaA wird der Österreichischen Volkspartei zugeordnet, das HAA den österreichischen Sozialdemokraten. Diese sollen sich seit ihrem Bestehen immer wieder gegenseitig ausspionieren.
USA – CIA, FBI, NSA, DEA
Montage/Colourbox
Zwei der US-Geheimdienste: FBI und CIA
Organisation des US-amerikanischen Geheimdienstes

Über keinen Geheimdienst gibt es derart viele Informationen wie über den US-amerikanischen. Der Auslandsgeheimdienst CIA, die inländische Spionageabwehr FBI, die weltweit operierende NSA, die amerikanische Bundespolizei, die Drogenbehörde DEA und elf weitere Dienste bilden die sogenannte United States Intelligence Community (IC). Insgesamt sollen dort etwa 200 000 Menschen arbeiten mit einem Gesamtbudget von 30 Milliarden Euro.

Geschichte des CIA und der NSA

Mit Gründung des Amts der Marineaufklärung begann 1882 die offizielle geheimdienstliche Aufklärung der USA. Doch schon unter George Washington hatten Agenten in geheimen Operationen, Aufklärung und Spionage gearbeitet. Die bekannteste Einrichtung, die Central Intelligence Agency, wurde 1947 ins Leben gerufen. Sie ist die Folgeorganisation des Office of Strategic Services, das im Laufe des Zweiten Weltkriegs aufgebaut wurde. Das Ziel: Die Sammlung strategisch wertvoller Informationen, aber auch Sabotage und Spionageabwehr. Mit dem National Security Act übernahm die Behörde Aufgaben, die FBI-Chef J. Edgar Hoover zunächst für seine Agenten vorgesehen hatte. ACIPSS-Experte Siegfried Beer erklärt, dass die USA zwar sehr spät mit der Errichtung eines Auslandsgeheimdienstes begonnen haben, dieser heute aber zu den effizientesten weltweit gehört.

Doch eine andere Behörde macht derzeit Schlagzeilen: Die National Security Agency (NSA). Ihr Aufgabengebiet ist die weltweite, nachrichtliche Aufklärung. Die Wurzeln der Behörde reichen bis in die 40er-Jahre zurück, die offizielle Gründung datiert auf das Jahr 1952. Seitdem hält die NSA mit den technologischen Entwicklungen von Satellit bis Internet Schritt. In den Mittelpunkt einer weltweiten Diskussion über Datenschutz rückte die NSA, weil der Geheimdienstler Edward Snowden brisante Informationen über die weltweite Überwachung und die Kenntnisnahme europäischer Politiker von den Abhör-Programmen der Behörde veröffentlichte.

Spektakuläres über die CIA

„Bis in die frühen Siebziger hinein hatte die CIA weitgehend freie Hand“, sagt Beer. Und das nutzte die Agency voll aus: Waren CIA-Agenten am Attentat an John F. Kennedy beteiligt? Welche Rolle spielte die CIA bei den Anschlägen von 2001? Verdient die Behörde an weltweiten Drogen- und Geldwäschegeschäften? Für Verschwörungstheoretiker ist der US-Geheimdienst eine wahre Pandora-Kiste hanebüchener Geschichten. Dabei gibt es zahlreiche verbriefte Operationen: 1961 war die CIA beispielsweise an der Invasion in der Schweinebucht beteiligt, bei der Exilkubaner auf Kuba landen und die Regierung Castros stürzen wollten – und scheiterte spektakulär.
Viele weitere Operationen mit dem Ziel, Machthaber zu stürzen, wurden von der CIA angeleiert. In Afghanistan warben CIA-Agenten ab 1979 bis zu 100 000 Einheimische an, trainierten sie, unterstützten sie mit Waffen und Geld und schickten sie in den Kampf gegen sowjetische Truppen. Wohl einer der Hauptgründe für die gegenwärtige Stärke der Taliban in dem befreiten Land. Nicht immer nutzt die Agency bei ihren Operationen legale Mittel, Menschenrechtsorganisationen werfen der Behörde Verletzung internationalen Rechts und Folter vor.
Großbritannien – MI5, MI6
Motage/Panther
Großbritanniens MI5 und MI6
Organisation des englischen Geheimdienstes

Neun Behörden kümmern sich in Großbritannien um die Geheimdienstarbeit, organisiert im Secret Service Bureau. Am bekanntesten sind sicherlich der Security Service und der Secret Intelligence Service, kurz: MI5 und SIS oder MI6. Während sich der Blick des MI5 in das eigene Land richtet, kümmert sich der MI6 um das Ausland. Hinlänglich bekannt wurde der MI6 durch die Arbeit des wohl berühmtesten Spions James Bond, auch wenn dieser natürlich nur ein Roman- und Filmheld und kein echter Agent ist.

Geschichte des MI6

Ursprünglich war der MI6 für die Marine zuständig, als er 1909 gegründet wurde. Zunehmend spezialisierte sich der Dienst aber auf das Ausland, im Ersten Weltkrieg sammelten Agenten Informationen über das Deutsche Reich und kämpften gegen den Kommunismus in Russland. Nach der Machtübernahme durch die Nationalsozialisten arbeitete der SIS unter anderem an der Entschlüsselung der Geheim-Codes der Nazis.

Im Kalten Krieg versuchte sich die Behörde in der Anwerbung sowjetischer Offizieller oder an Staatsstreichen, über die Erfolgsrate schweigt sie sich bis heute aus. Seit 1994 sind die Zuständigkeiten im Intelligence Services Act geregelt. Auch die Überwachung von Telefonaten und Internetaktivitäten Verdächtiger gehört zur Aufgabe der Behörde. Könnten Sie ein MI6-Agent sein?

Spektakuläres über den MI6

Eine der bekanntesten und schillerndsten Personen in der Geschichte der Geheimdienste ist Thomas Edward Lawrence, auch bekannt als Lawrence von Arabien. Der studierte Archäologe begab sich 1914 offiziell zur Kartographierung in den Nahen Osten, unter der Hand ging es um militärisches Auskundschaften. Aufgrund seiner Erfolge und Fähigkeiten wurde er schnell vom britischen Geheimdienst angeworben – und integrierte sich derart gut in die einheimischen Beduinenvölker, dass er sie zum Aufstand gegen die Fremdherrschaft durch die Türken führte. Ganz im Sinne seines Heimatlandes. Noch zu Lebzeiten wurde Lawrence zum Mythos – und zu einem beliebten Gesprächsgegenstand der englischen Aristokratie.
Eine spektakuläre Mordtheorie geistert seit dem 3. August 1997 durch Großbritannien: Wurde Prinzessin Diana, die Ex-Frau des britischen Thronfolgers Prinz Charles, vom MI6 beseitigt? Sgro schreibt dazu, dass das britische Königshaus Angst vor einem muslimischen Schwiegervater des zukünftigen Königs gehabt hatte und Lady Di zu allem Überfluss auch noch schwanger gewesen sein soll. Diana war seit kurzem mit Dodi Al-Fayed zusammen, dem Sohn des Harrod-Geschäftsführers Mohamed Al-Fayed. Bis heute ist der Fall nicht aufgeklärt, Gerüchte über vertauschte Blutproben, eine überschnelle Einbalsamierung zur Vertuschung der Schwangerschaft und den Einsatz einer Stroboskop-Lichtkanone zur Blendung des Limousinen-Fahrers machen noch immer die Runde.
Spanien – CNI
panther/Montage
CNI, das Kürzel des spanischen Geheimdienstes, steht für „Centro Nacional de Inteligencia“
Organisation des spanischen Geheimdienstes

In Spanien kümmert sich der Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI) um Spionage-Dinge. Der Geheimdienst ist Teil des spanischen Verteidigungsministeriums. Seine Aufgaben umfassen die Informationsbeschaffung und Abwehr, aber auch wirtschaftliche Analysen und politische Risikobewertungen. Der spanische Ministerrat fungiert einerseits als Kontrollorgan, andererseits bestimmt er jährlich die Ziele der Behörde neu. Der CNI umfasst etwa 600 Mitarbeiter.

Geschichte des CNI

Die Wurzeln der Behörde liegen in der Zeit des spanischen Bürgerkriegs: 1935 gründete die Zweite Republik einen Geheimdienst, der – überrascht vom Beginn des Krieges – allerdings nie seine Arbeit aufnahm. Bis zu acht verschiedene Dienste arbeiteten bis in die 70er-Jahre gleichzeitig, zum Teil beschafften sie sogar dieselben Informationen.

Erst 1972 gründete sich der erste offizielle Geheimdienst in Spanien, der sogenannte Zentrale Dokumentationsdienst – noch unter der Diktatur des Generals Francisco Franco. Hauptzweck war der Schutz der Diktatur und die Aufdeckung von Umsturzplänen. 1977, zwei Jahre nach dem Tod des Diktators, wurde der Geheimdienst reformiert und dem Verteidigungsministerium angegliedert.

Spektakuläres über das CNI

„Sieben spanische Agenten im Irak getötet“ – diese Nachricht ging 2003 um die Welt. Mit einem Schlag verlor der spanische Geheimdienst praktisch alle Experten in dem Land. Und alles nur, weil die Agenten offenbar einem irakischen Doppelagenten zum Opfer fielen. An einem Samstag im November trafen sich vier dort stationierte CNI-Agenten mit ihren Kollegen, die sie ablösen sollten. Mit dabei: ihre Kontaktperson und Informanten – und ein Maulwurf, der die Spanier an Saddams Truppen verriet. Ein tödlich verwundeter Agent rief offenbar noch während des Hinterhalts bei der CNI-Zentrale an und flehte mit letzter Kraft: „Sie bringen uns um. Schickt Hubschrauber herbei!“.
Ein schwieriges Verhältnis hat der CNI zum spanischen Königshaus: Als sich König Juan Carlos in den 2000ern eine Geliebte leistete, musste Spaniens Geheimdienstchef vor dem Parlament antanzen und Auskunft geben – offiziell zum Schutz der Monarchie und des Wohl des Königs. Doch eigentlich ging es um die Frage, ob die „enge Freundin“ des Königs auf Staatskosten ausgehalten wurde. Die Befragung verlief allerdings hinter verschlossenen Türen und ergab nichts Erhellendes. Erst ein Mitarbeiter der Polizeigewerkschaft erhärtete die Gerüchte und so wurde das Verhältnis zum Politikum – ohne Beteiligung des CNI.
Israel – Mossad
AFP/Montage
Israels berüchtigter Geheimdienst Mossad
Organisation des israelischen Geheimdienstes

In Israel gibt es vier Behörden, die sich um nachrichtendienstliche Belange kümmern: Den militärischen Geheimdienst Aman, den wissenschaftlichen Nachrichtendienst Lakam, den Inlandsgeheimdienst Schin Bet und den – sicherlich am bekanntesten – Auslandsgeheimdienst Mossad. Das Hauptquartier des Mossad befindet sich in Tel Aviv, laut Schätzungen arbeiten in der Behörde etwa 1200 Geheimdienstler. Darunter aktive Agenten, die sogenannten Katsas, und freiwillige Helfer, die sogenannten Sjanim – organisiert in einem weltweiten Netz israelischer Spione. Der Mossad kümmert sich um die Sicherheit des Landes und des Militärs, gilt aber auch als operativer Arm der Regierung – Geschichten über Liquidierungen und Entführungen durch Mossad-Agenten gibt es seit jeher.

Geschichte des Mossad

Israel ist ein vergleichsweise junger Staat: 1947 teilte die UN Palästina in einen jüdischen und einen arabischen Staat – um einen Lebensraum für die Überlebenden des Holocausts zu schaffen. Für die arabische Bevölkerung stellten die Pläne jedoch eine Provokation dar: Einer der zentralen Konflikte des 20. Jahrhunderts war geschaffen. Kriegerische Auseinandersetzungen folgten, gleichzeitig arbeiteten inoffizielle Organisationen daran, arabische Aufstände zu vermeiden. 1949 gründete der damalige Premierminister David Ben-Gurion dann den ersten offiziellen Geheimdienst, zunächst dem Außenministerium zugeordnet, später Teil des Büros des Premierministers.

Spektakuläres über den Mossad

Wie Alexandra Sgro in ihrem Buch „Geheimdienste der Welt“ beschreibt, wählte der Mossad seine Bewerber besonders streng aus: Angehende Agenten mussten ihre Geschicklichkeit unter Beweis stellen, indem sie an gut einsehbaren Stellen Bomben platzieren sollten – ohne, dass sie dabei gesehen werden. Wer geschickt genug war, wurde Agent. Heute steht am Beginn lediglich ein medizinischer und psychologischer Check, die Ausbildung dauert drei Jahre – mit einem Stundenplan aus Ausfragen, Leeren toter Briefkästen, Durchführung von Anschlägen und die spezielle israelische Kampfkunst Krav Maga.

Doch das sollte nicht darüber hinwegtäuschen, dass der Mossad einer der effizientesten Geheimdienste weltweit ist, erklärt der Experte Beer. Eine der spektakulärsten – und ersten großen – Operationen des Mossads war die Gefangennahme des nach Argentinien geflohenen Nazis Adolf Eichmann. Er war als Mitglied des Reichsicherheitshauptamtes maßgeblich an der Deportation und Ermordung der Juden im „Dritten Reich“ beteiligt. Er tauchte in Südamerika unter, wurde allerdings vom Mossad aufgespürt und 1960 verhaftet. Nach einem neunmonatigen Prozess wurde er zum Tode verurteilt und 1962 hingerichtet.

Zehn Jahre später kam es bei den Olympischen Spiele in München zur Katastrophe: Eine palästinensische Terror-Gruppe ermordete elf israelische Sportler – die israelische Führung schwor Rache. Die Sonderheinheit „Caesarea“ jagte die acht Mörder über den gesamten Globus und vollendete die Hatz mit dem Mord an dem letzten Attentäter im Jahr 1979. Die Operation „Zorn Gottes“ ging in die Geschichte ein – wohl auch deshalb, weil ein Unschuldiger sterben musste. Mossad-Agenten töteten den Marokkaner Ahmed Bouchiki. Sie verwechselten ihn mit einem der palästinensischen Attentäter.
Und auch heute noch scheint der Mossad sehr aktiv zu sein. 2012 machte ein Medienbericht die Runde, wonach sich israelische Agenten Mitte der 2000er als CIA-Spione ausgegeben haben sollen, um eine Rebellen-Organisation zu Anschlägen im Iran anzustiften. Es war eine der „besonderen“ Methoden im geheimen Atomkrieg. Von 2010 bis 2012 wurden vier iranische Atom-Wissenschaftler ermordet – von Israel, so Beobachter.
China – Ministerium für Staatssicherheit
Colourbox
In China ist das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit als Geheimpolizei tätig
Organisation des chinesischen Geheimdienstes

Der Geheimdienst in der Volksrepublik China teilt sich in das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit und den Militärnachrichtendienst auf. Das Ministerium kümmert sich dabei um in- wie ausländische Belange und gilt als einer der größten Geheimdienste weltweit. Die Methoden wie Netzzensur, Verletzung von Menschenrechten und zum Teil gewalttätige Überwachung von Dissidenten zeigt, dass das Ministerium ein Dienst mit polizeilichen Befugnissen zu sein scheint.

Geschichte des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit

Dass Geheimdienste nicht erst ein Phänomen der Moderne sind, zeigt das riesige Netzwerk von Geheimdiensten in der Ming-Dynastie. Die Agenten wurden von Eunuchen angeführt, zumeist einfache Männer aus dem Volk. Die Ming-Herrscher sahen sich im 16. Jahrhundert zunehmend bedroht durch die Macht der Geheimtruppen und ihren Führern. Alle Maßnahmen kamen schließlich zu spät, die große Ming-Dynastie zerbrach. Unter anderem wegen des Konflikts zwischen hohen Beamten und den aus niedriger Herkunft stammenden Eunuchen.

Im Jahr 1949 gründete die Kommunistische Partei den Vorläufer des Sicherheitsministeriums. Die Behörde sollte die Granden der Partei über weltweite Vorkommnisse unterrichten, basierend auf Nachrichten der Presseagenturen und einer limitierten Zahl Zeitungen und Bücher. Mit der Konsolidierung der Macht der Kommunistischen Partei wuchs auch die Aufgabe des Geheimdienstes, die jäh durch die Kulturrevolution unterbrochen wurde. In den Siebziger Jahren wurde die Arbeit wieder aufgenommen und die Behörde in kurzer Zeit massiv erweitert, bis sie 1983 in das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit überformt wurde – um alles abzuwehren, was dem sozialistischen System Chinas gefährlich werden könnte.

Spektakuläres über das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit

Die größte Bedrohung geht von Chinas Cyberspionage aus: Erst im Mai hatte eine US-Expertenkommission eine Liste von militärischen Projekten veröffentlicht, die vom chinesischen Geheimdienst über das Internet ausspioniert wurde. Darunter derart wichtige strategische Objekte wie das Patriot-Raketenabwehrsystem, Flugzeuge und Kriegsschiffe. Aber auch das Videosystem für Drohnen, Nanotechnologie, Nachrichtenverbindungen – der Schaden sei kaum absehbar, so die Kommission. Der Hintergrund sind offenbar die Modernisierungsbemühungen der chinesischen Armee.
Doch auch vor Ort scheinen chinesische Spione ihrer subversiven Tätigkeit nachzugehen: Etwa 120 Agenten arbeiten in den USA, Kanada, Japan, West-, Ost- und Nord-Europa als Geschäftsleute, Industrie-Arbeiter, Banker, Wissenschaftler, Journalisten.
Finnland – Supo
Motage/Panther
Der „Supo“, der zivile Nachrichtendienst, ist nur einer von Finnlands Geheimdiensten
Organisation des finnischen Geheimdienstes

In Finnland gibt es zwei offizielle Nachrichtendienste: Zum einen die „Suojelupoliisi“ (Supo), den zivilen Nachrichtendienst, und das „Pääesikunnan tiedusteluosasto“, den militärischen Nachrichtendienst. Die Supo ist ein Teil der finnischen Polizei und untersteht dem Innenminister, ihr Hauptquartier steht in Helsinki. Etwa 220 Geheimdienstler arbeiten dort an Terrorismus-Bekämpfung, Gegenspionage und allgemein der Bekämpfung von Verbrechen, die sich gegen die Regierung und die Politik richten.

Das „Pääesikunnan tiedusteluosasto“ dagegen untersteht dem finnischen Verteidigungsminister. Die Behörde ist mit dem Schutz des finnischen Hoheitsgebiets beauftragt. Ein zentrales Mittel für die Überwachung ist die Funkaufklärung: Sie sitzt in der zentralfinnischen Kleinstadt Tikkakoski.

Geschichte der Supo

Finnland litt schon immer unter seiner exponierten Lage: Über Jahrhunderte hinweg führten Schweden und Russland ihre kriegerischen Konflikte auf dem finnischen Festland aus, erst im 19. Jahrhundert konnten die Finnen die Fremdherrschaft abschütteln und zu einem eigenständigen Staat werden, obgleich eine starke Abhängigkeit zu Russland auch weiterhin bestand. 1917 rief Finnland seine Unabhängigkeit aus, eine tiefe Kluft zwischen rechten und linken politischen Kräften durchzog jedoch das Land.

Darin fußt die Geschichte der Geheimdienste: Rechte Kräfte gründeten eine Vorläufer-Organisation der Supo, um die „Roten“ zu überwachen. Nach dem Ende der Konflikte 1919 wurde die Geheimdienstarbeit dem Innenministerium unterstellt. Ab da lässt sich eine durchgehende Spionage-Tätigkeit bis in die Gegenwart verfolgen. Doch die politische Entzweiung brodelte weiter: 1949 wurde die Supo gegründet, um die mit Kommunisten besetzte Staatspolizei abzulösen. Die Organisation hat kein eigenes Einsatzkommando. Sie kann allerdings auf das „Karhu“-Team zurückgreifen, ähnlich dem amerikanischen Swat-Team.

Spektakuläres über die Supo

Eine der spektakulärsten Einsätze ist sicherlich Operation Stella Polaris: Im Zweiten Weltkrieg wurde Finnland erneut Dreh- und Angelpunkt östlicher und westlicher Machtinteressen. Einerseits verbündete sich Finnland zwar mit Nazi-Deutschland, andererseits fürchtete die Führung sowohl eine Invasion der Wehrmacht als auch der sowjetischen Truppen. Die Lösung war eine geheime Operation mit den Vereinigten Staaten: Mehrere finnische Spione setzten sich in das benachbarte Schweden ab und verkauften Informationen über das „Dritte Reich“ und die Sowjetunion an die USA.
1942, bei einem Besuch Heinrich Himmlers, spionierte der finnische Geheimdienst den damaligen Reichsführer SS aus – und rettete so wohl 2000 Juden das Leben, wie die Historikerin Janne Könönen 2002 herausfand. Die heimlich abfotografierte Liste mit den Namen einheimischer Juden wurde dem damaligen Staatspräsidenten ausgehändigt – dieser sprach sich vehement gegen eine Auslieferung der Juden aus und bewahrte sie so vor der sicheren Deputation in deutsche Lager.
Die schwierige Quellenlage
Das Internet ist voll brisanter Informationen über die Geheimdienste der Welt. Teilweise ist die Quellenlage mysteriös – und oft falsch. Behörden, die im Geheimen agieren, haben es natürlich an sich, zu den wildesten Verschwörungstheorien einzuladen, die Grenzen zwischen Wahrheit und Fiktion verwischen gerne. Doch es gibt auch seriöse und wissenschaftliche Ansätze – eine Übersicht:

Einen pragmatischen und sehr überblicksreichen Ansatz bietet das Buch „Geheimdienste der Welt“ von Alexandra Sgro, 2013 erschienen im Compact Verlag. Sgro fasst die wichtigsten Informationen zu bekannten Geheimdiensten wie MI6, BND, CIA aber auch unbekannteren Behörden wie Schwedens Säkerhetspolisen oder Griechenlands Ethniki Ypiresia Pliroforion zusammen und reichert die Berichte mit Geschichten zu den größten Skandalen und bekanntesten Spionen an.

Auf der wissenschaftlichen Seite schreibt der emeritierte Professor Dr. Wolfgang Krieger in seiner Monographie „Geschichte der Geheimdienste. Von den Pharaonen bis zur CIA“, 2010 in der zweiten Auflage bei C.H. Beck erschienen. Wie der Titel vermuten lässt, beginnt Krieger seine historische Suche nach den Wurzeln der Spionage in der Antike und verfolgt sie bis in die Gegenwart. Die aktuellsten Entwicklungen zu Snowden und der NSA fanden dabei aufgrund des Veröffentlichungszeitpunktes nicht in das Buch. Spannend: Trotz allem schreibt Krieger über Bürgerrechtsverletzungen, versteckte Kooperationen der internationalen Geheimdienste und „Whistleblower“.

Das „Austrian Center for Intelligence, Propaganda & Security Studies“ (ACIPSS) ist eine wissenschaftliche Plattform unter der Ägide von Professor Dr. Siegfried Beer. Das ACIPSS bietet Tagungsberichte, wissenschaftliche Studien und Interviews zu aktuellen Phänomenen – wie beispielsweise zum Abhör-Skandal. Außerdem beschäftigt sich das Center mit der Geschichte der Geheimdienste im europäischen Westen sowie den USA.

Von FOCUS-Online-Redakteur Julian Rohrer , FOCUS-Online-Autor Johannes Ruprecht und FOCUS-Online-Autorin Lisa Kohn

Find this story at Augustus 2013

© FOCUS Online 1996-2013

Datenspionage in Deutschland; BND schnüffelte millionenfach für US-Geheimdienste

Ist der Bundesnachrichtendienst ein Handlanger der US-Geheimdienste? Einem Bericht des “Spiegel” zufolge leiten die deutschen Agenten noch weit mehr Daten an die US-Kollegen weiter als angenommen.

Eine Demonstrantin vor dem Gebäude des Bundesnachrichtendienstes

Der Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) übermittelt nach einem “Spiegel”-Bericht in großem Umfang Metadaten aus der eigenen Fernmeldeaufklärung an die wegen ihrer Datensammelwut umstrittene US-Behörde NSA. Der deutsche Auslandsgeheimdienst gehe inzwischen davon aus, dass sich sein Standort im bayerischen Bad Aibling hinter einer der beiden Datensammelstellen (Sigads) verbergen könnte, über die der US-Geheimdienst laut Unterlagen aus dem Archiv des US-Informanten Edward Snowden allein im Dezember 2012 unter der Überschrift “Germany – Last 30 days” rund 500 Millionen Metadaten erfasste. Das schreibt das Hamburger Magazin in seiner neuen Ausgabe.
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Der BND betonte, man arbeite mit der NSA seit über 50 Jahren zusammen – “insbesondere bei der Aufklärung der Lage in Krisengebieten, zum Schutz der dort stationierten deutschen Soldatinnen und Soldaten und zum Schutz und zur Rettung entführter deutscher Staatsangehöriger. Genau diesen Zielen dient auch die Zusammenarbeit mit der NSA in Bad Aibling, die in dieser Form seit über zehn Jahren erfolgt und auf einer Vereinbarung aus dem Jahr 2002 basiert.” Nach wie vor gebe es “keine Anhaltspunkte dafür, dass die NSA in Deutschland personenbezogene Daten deutscher Staatsangehöriger erfasst”, betonte der Geheimdienst-Sprecher.

Man gehe davon aus, “dass die Sigad US-987LA und -LB” den Stellen “Bad Aibling und der Fernmeldeaufklärung in Afghanistan zugeordnet sind”, teilte der BND laut “Spiegel” mit. “Vor der Weiterleitung von auslandsbezogenen Metadaten werden diese in einem mehrstufigen Verfahren um eventuell darin enthaltene personenbezogene Daten Deutscher bereinigt.” Deutscher Telekommunikationsverkehr werde nicht erfasst, so der BND.

Unterlagen aus dem Snowden-Archiv zufolge unterhalten NSA-Abhörspezialisten auf dem Gelände der Mangfall-Kaserne in Bad Aibling eine eigene Kommunikationszentrale und eine direkte elektronische Verbindung zum Datennetz der NSA, so “Der Spiegel”. Die Weiterleitung der Metadaten in diesem Umfang wirft laut Magazin neue Fragen auf, etwa nach der rechtlichen Grundlage für einen derart weitgehenden Austausch.

Dem BND zufolge laufen “alle Aktivitäten im Rahmen von Kooperationen mit anderen Nachrichtendiensten unter Einhaltung der Gesetze, insbesondere des BND-Gesetzes und des G-10-Gesetzes”. Die Übermittlung personenbezogener Daten deutscher Staatsangehöriger erfolge auch “nicht massenhaft, sondern nur im Einzelfall und nach Vorgaben des G-10-Gesetzes. Im Jahr 2012 wurden lediglich zwei Datensätze eines deutschen Staatsangehörigen im Rahmen eines derzeit noch laufenden Entführungsfalls an die NSA übermittelt.”

3. August 2013, 20:34 Uhr

Find this story at 3 August 2013

© stern.de

NSA use of bases in Germany remains murky

More than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the US still has several military bases in Germany. Experts think that they could play a key role for the NSA’s activities.

“German law applies on German soil and anyone operating here needs to adhere to it,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a news conference before the summer recess. Merkel made the comment in connection with alleged US intelligence activities in Germany.

After Merkel had gone off on holiday, UK daily The Guardian published fresh revelations on the NSA software XKeyscore. The article showed a graphic that pointed to data being mined by US intelligence from servers in Germany rather than just from servers based in the US.

There is now speculation that the NSA and other US intelligence agencies obtain access to German Internet hubs via US military bases in Germany. More than 50,000 US soldiers are still based in Germany – more than the entire armed forces of Belgium. Worldwide, the US has several hundred bases.
Gaycken: Spying from US military basis likely

It helps to be close by

IT specialist Sandro Gaycken from the Free University Berlin says it is highly likely that the US uses its military bases to gain access to cables. “It helps to be physically close to the data hubs you want to mine from,” he told DW. “It does make sense,” he added.

But can US intelligence really gain access without the German government’s knowledge? Gaycken says it is possible, but unlikely. “If it’s servers in allied countries, it could be that special contracts allow you direct and legal access to those systems,” he explains.

Legal basis for spying

And there are agreements regulating US intelligence activities on US military bases in Germany. In 1968, the G10 law was passed, regulating the surveillance of postal and telecommunications services by German intelligence agencies.

The law also included an administrative agreement that allowed wiretapping and surveillance by the allied forces in Germany for the purpose of protecting the troops.

On Friday (02.08.2013) Germany’s Foreign Ministry declared that “the administrative agreement from 1968/69 in connection with the G10 law” with the US and the UK was being suspended “by mutual consent.”

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle called it “a necessary and correct consequence resulting from the recent debates about privacy.”
The German government suspended an agreement with the US

Purely symbolic?

But the announcement has not changed anything, as the agreement has long been obsolete, according to a government spokesman, who said on July 8 that it had not been applied since reunification in 1990.

And so the speculating continues as to the legality of the NSA’s activities in Germany. What is clear is that US intelligence agencies operate on US military bases in Germany.

The German Defense Ministry issued a paper listing companies that profited from discounts available to those who do business with US forces in Germany. The paper names 207 companies that were granted discounts “for analytical services.”

“Senior intelligence systems analyst” or “signal intelligence analyst” are two job descriptions that would have fit the bill, according to the paper.

The German government told reporters on July 31 that “analytical activities” included technical, military services. But they said they were not exactly sure what that entails.

The firm whistleblower Edward Snowden worked for, Booz Allen Hamilton, was granted a license for “intelligence operations” in Germany, according to a German Foreign Ministry source from November 28, 2008.
Scmidt-Eenboom: NSA is an all too powerful force

What happened in the Dagger complex?

Some of the companies eligible for those discounts may well be working for the NSA in the Dagger complex in Griesheim near Darmstadt. More than 1,000 US intelligence agents work in this predominantly underground complex.

“Germany could demand for the US to close down a facility like the one in Griesheim – if Germany took the view that the Americans are violating Germans’ civil rights,” says intelligence expert Erich Schmidt-Eenboom.

“But that would mean confrontation, also between the various agencies. And that’s something the relatively small [German Foreign Intelligence Service] BND cannot afford.”

Date 03.08.2013
Author Marcus Lütticke / ng
Editor Richard Connor

Find this story at 3 August 2013

© 2013 Deutsche Welle

Überwachung; BND leitet massenhaft Metadaten an die NSA weiter

Die NSA verfügt über Millionen Verbindungsdaten aus Deutschland – nach SPIEGEL-Recherchen übermittelt der Bundesnachrichtendienst viele der Informationen. Auch die technische Kooperation der beiden Geheimdienste ist enger als bislang bekannt.

Hamburg – Der Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) übermittelt in großem Umfang Metadaten aus der eigenen Fernmeldeaufklärung an die NSA. Der deutsche Auslandsgeheimdienst geht inzwischen davon aus, dass sich sein Standort in Bad Aibling hinter einer der beiden Datensammelstellen (Sigads) verbergen könnte, über die der US-Geheimdienst laut Unterlagen aus dem Archiv des Whistleblowers Edward Snowden allein im Dezember vergangenen Jahres unter der Überschrift “Germany – Last 30 days” rund 500 Millionen Metadaten erfasste.

Man gehe davon aus, “dass die Sigad US-987LA und -LB” den Stellen “Bad Aibling und der Fernmeldeaufklärung in Afghanistan zugeordnet sind”, erklärte der BND gegenüber dem SPIEGEL. Unter Metadaten versteht man bei Telefonaten, E-Mails oder SMS die Verbindungsdaten, also unter anderem die Informationen, wann welche Anschlüsse miteinander verbunden waren.

“Vor der Weiterleitung von auslandsbezogenen Metadaten werden diese in einem mehrstufigen Verfahren um eventuell darin enthaltene personenbezogene Daten Deutscher bereinigt.” Deutscher Telekommunikationsverkehr werde nicht erfasst, so der BND. Zudem habe man bislang “keine Anhaltspunkte, dass die NSA personenbezogene Daten deutscher Staatsangehöriger in Deutschland erfasst”. Ob die NSA noch weitere Metadaten aus Deutschland sammelt, und wenn ja auf welchem Wege, ist weiterhin unbekannt.

Unterlagen aus dem Snowden-Archiv zufolge unterhalten NSA-Abhörspezialisten auf dem Gelände der Mangfall-Kaserne in Bad Aibling eine eigene Kommunikationszentrale und eine direkte elektronische Verbindung zum Datennetz der NSA.

Die Weiterleitung der Metadaten in diesem Umfang wirft neue Fragen auf, etwa nach der rechtlichen Grundlage für einen derart weitgehenden Austausch. Dem BND zufolge laufen “alle Aktivitäten im Rahmen von Kooperationen mit anderen Nachrichtendiensten unter Einhaltung der Gesetze, insbesondere des BND-Gesetzes und des G-10-Gesetzes”.

BND gab NSA Kopie zweier Programme

Auch die technische Kooperation ist enger als bekannt. Unterlagen aus dem Snowden-Archiv zufolge gaben NSA-Spezialisten Vertretern von BND und Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz ein Training im Umgang mit den neuesten Analysemethoden des Programms XKeyscore – dem Material zufolge soll es dabei unter anderem um Verhaltenserkennung (“behavior detection”) gehen.

Umgekehrt zeigten sich NSA-Analysten schon vor Jahren an Systemen wie Mira4 und Veras interessiert, die beim BND vorhanden waren. “In einigen Punkten haben diese Werkzeuge Fähigkeiten, die die US-Sigint-Möglichkeiten übertreffen”, heißt es in den Unterlagen. Sigint bedeutet nachrichtendienstliche Informationsgewinnung. Weiter heißt es, dass der BND “positiv auf die NSA-Bitte nach einer Kopie von Mira4 und Veras” geantwortet habe.

Der BND teilte am Abend als Reaktion auf den SPIEGEL-Bericht mit, er arbeite seit über 50 Jahren mit der NSA zusammen, insbesondere bei der Aufklärung der Lage in Krisengebieten. Diesem Ziel diene auch die Kooperation in Bad Aibling, die seit mehr als zehn Jahren erfolge und auf gesetzlicher Grundlage stattfinde. Personenbezogene Daten deutscher Staatsangehöriger würden nur im Einzelfall übermittelt.

03. August 2013, 18:06 Uhr

Find this story at 3 August 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013