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[[File:|thumb|Locations of CIA/NSA Special Collection Service (SCS) eavesdropping sites in 2004]] [[File:|thumb|Location and status of CIA/NSA Special Collection Service (SCS) eavesdropping sites as of August 13, 2010]]
The Special Collection Service (SCS), codenamed F6, [1] is a highly classified joint U.S. Central Intelligence Agency–National Security Agency program charged with inserting eavesdropping equipment in difficult-to-reach places, such as foreign embassies, communications centers, and foreign government installations. Established in the late 1970s and headquartered in Beltsville, Maryland, [2] the SCS has been involved in operations ranging from the Cold War to the Global War on Terrorism.
The SCS is a U.S. black budget program [3] that has been described as the United States' "Mission Impossible force," responsible for "close surveillance, burglary, wiretapping, breaking and entering." [4] [5] [6] [7] It is headquartered in Beltsville, Maryland, in an obscured building that was at one time labeled simply "CSSG." Next door is the U.S. Department of State's Beltsville Messaging Center, to which the SCS is linked via fiber optic cable. The SCS is jointly staffed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA). [7] [8] [9] According to intelligence historian James Bamford, "The position of SCS chief alternates between NSA and CIA officials." [10] SCS operatives are based out of U.S. embassies and consulates overseas, and operatives often use Foreign Service or Diplomatic Telecommunications Service cover when deployed. [7] [11] [12] Their mission is to intercept sensitive information on espionage, nuclear arms, terrorist networks, drug trafficking and other national-security-related issues. [4]
The SCS was established to overcome a problem in that the NSA typically intercepts communications "passively" from its various intercept facilities throughout the world, yet the increasing sophistication of foreign communications equipment renders passive interception futile and instead requires direct access to the communications equipment. The CIA, meanwhile, has access to agents specializing in clandestine operations and thus is more able to gain access to foreign communication equipment, yet lacks the NSA's expertise in communications eavesdropping. Hence, the SCS was born, combining the communications intelligence capabilities of the NSA with the covert action capabilities of the CIA in order to facilitate access to sophisticated foreign communications systems. [4] [13] [14]
The SCS employs exotic covert listening device technologies to bug foreign embassies, communications centers, computer facilities, fiber-optic networks, and government installations. [4] [5] The U.S. government has never officially acknowledged its existence, and little is known about the technologies and techniques it employs. [4] The sole inside account of SCS comes from a Canadian, Mike Frost, whose 1994 book Spyworld revealed that the program was known to insiders at the time as "College Park". [15] As of 2008, the SCS is reported to target for recruitment key foreign communications personnel such as database managers, systems administrators, and information technology specialists. [10]
During October 2013, reports by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden led to the unveiling of the SCS having systematically wiretapped Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel's private cell phone over a period of over 10 years, which among other activities to wiretap and systematically record large amounts of European and South American leaders' and citizens' communication by the NSA led to a distinct diplomatic backlash at the United States government. [16]
The SCS program was established in 1978 during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. [1] [4] [15]
As encryption technology increased in sophistication, by the end of the 20th century many coded signals proved unbreakable. Due to this problem, bugging techniques and technologies saw a revival: unable to easily intercept and decrypt foreign communications through passive means, the U.S. government needed to instead intercept the communications at their source, and thus the SCS program was expanded in the 1990s to fulfill this need. [17] [18] [19]
According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the SCS is part of a larger global surveillance program known as STATEROOM. [20]
SCS operatives reportedly hid eavesdropping devices in pigeons perched on the windowsills of the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. [7]
The SCS program was compromised by infamous Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) mole Robert Hanssen in the 1990s, which provided Moscow with sensitive information about highly sophisticated U.S. overseas bugging operations. [5] [21] However, the program was so secret that, after Hanssen's arrest, the FBI would only describe it in general terms, as a "program of enormous value, expense, and importance to the U.S. government". [4] [6]
In 1999, as the Clinton Administration sought to kill Osama bin Laden following the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, SCS operatives covertly entered Afghanistan to place eavesdropping devices within range of Al-Qaeda's tactical radios. [22]
The SCS was rumored to have been involved in the 2001 operation that planted 27 satellite-controlled bugs in the Boeing 767-300ER that was to be used as Chinese leader Jiang Zemin's official jet. The bugs were discovered, however, before they could be switched on. [23]
Prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, SCS was described as the "prime mover" of electronic surveillance in the country. [24] SCS operatives built numerous antennae, spaced throughout the Iraqi countryside, capable of intercepting Iraqi microwave communications. These Iraqi communications would have been otherwise difficult to intercept, because they beamed hilltop to hilltop in a narrow band, with an angle too oblique and thus too dissipated to be intercepted by air or spacecraft. [25]
In 1998, the U.S. government recruited an Australian operative under SCS and deployed him to Iraq. The operative reported concerns about what was transpiring in Iraq, in that there was "a very high volume of data, and that he was getting no feedback about whether it was good, bad, or useful". He further reported that "this was a massive intelligence collection operation – one that was not in accordance with what UNSCOM was supposed to be doing" at the time. [24]
After the invasion, SCS operatives were employed in the hunt for Saddam Hussein, planting sophisticated eavesdropping equipment in target areas to intercept communications that were then analyzed by voice analysis experts. [26]
The SCS was heavily involved in eavesdropping to advance the Global War on Terrorism, setting up eavesdropping posts around Middle Eastern capitals and figures close to Osama bin Laden's terrorism network. [7] [27] In 1999, an SCS team monitored al-Qaeda training camps near Khost. [1]
When the United States located Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, SCS operatives established a base in an apartment that the CIA had rented a mile away from the compound. They focused lasers on the compound windows and, by analyzing the vibrations, were able to count the number of people inside and outside, and also ascertained that there was one person who never ventured outside the compound. Bin Laden was killed inside the compound during a raid by U.S. special operations forces on May 2, 2011. [28] [29]
ECHELON, originally a secret government code name, is a surveillance program operated by the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, also known as the Five Eyes.
The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems. The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine. The NSA has roughly 32,000 employees.
Robert Philip Hanssen was an American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States from 1979 to 2001. His espionage was described by the Department of Justice as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history".
James Bamford is an American author, journalist and documentary producer noted for his writing about United States intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency (NSA). The New York Times has called him "the nation's premier journalist on the subject of the National Security Agency" and The New Yorker named him "the NSA's chief chronicler."
Project SHAMROCK was the sister project to Project MINARET, an espionage exercise started in August 1945. Project MINARET involved the accumulation of all telegraphic data that entered or exited the United States. The Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA) and its successor, the National Security Agency (NSA), were given direct access to daily microfilm copies of all incoming, outgoing, and transiting telegrams via the Western Union and its associates RCA and ITT. NSA did the operational interception, and, if there was information that would be of interest to other intelligence agencies, the material was passed to them. Intercepted messages were disseminated to the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), and the Department of Defense. No court authorized the operation and there were no warrants.
The Terrorist Surveillance Program was an electronic surveillance program implemented by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. It was part of the President's Surveillance Program, which was in turn conducted under the overall umbrella of the War on Terrorism. The NSA, a signals intelligence agency, implemented the program to intercept al Qaeda communications overseas where at least one party is not a U.S. person. In 2005, The New York Times disclosed that technical glitches resulted in some of the intercepts including communications which were "purely domestic" in nature, igniting the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy. Later works, such as James Bamford's The Shadow Factory, described how the nature of the domestic surveillance was much, much more widespread than initially disclosed. In a 2011 New Yorker article, former NSA employee Bill Binney said that his colleagues told him that the NSA had begun storing billing and phone records from "everyone in the country."
Spying on the United Nations refers to acts of espionage committed by states against the United Nations.
The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an Anglosphere intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are parties to the multilateral UK-USA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence. Informally, Five Eyes can also refer to the group of intelligence agencies of these countries.
FIRSTFRUITS is a United States counterintelligence program and database that tracks unauthorized disclosures of intelligence material in the news media. The project's goal is to reduce losses of collection capability due to journalists. The database was created by the US Central Intelligence Agency, but then transferred to US National Security Agency. The database has thousands of unofficial and negative articles and authors. Maintenance of the program was outsourced to third parties like Booz Allen Hamilton. The program became known through whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Vint Hill Farms Station (VHFS) was a United States Army and National Security Agency (NSA) signals intelligence and electronic warfare facility located in Fauquier County, Virginia, near Warrenton. VHFS was closed in 1997 and the land was sold off in 1999. Today the site hosts various engineering and technology companies, as well as two Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic control facilities.
The Beltsville Information Management Center (BIMC), formerly named the Beltsville Messaging Center (BMC) and the Beltsville Communications Center, is a United States Department of State facility located in Beltsville, Maryland, next door to the U.S. Special Collection Service (SCS). It serves as the primary relay facility for the Diplomatic Telecommunications Service and services the communications needs of various U.S. government programs and agencies, including the SCS.
Perry Fellwock is a former National Security Agency (NSA) analyst and whistleblower who revealed the existence of the NSA and its worldwide covert surveillance network in an interview, using the pseudonym Winslow Peck, with Ramparts in 1971. At the time that Fellwock blew the whistle on ECHELON, the NSA was a nearly unknown organization and among the most secretive of the US intelligence agencies. Fellwock revealed that it had a significantly larger budget than the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Fellwock was motivated by Daniel Ellsberg's release of the Pentagon Papers. Today, Fellwock has been acknowledged as the first NSA whistleblower.
The practice of mass surveillance in the United States dates back to wartime monitoring and censorship of international communications from, to, or which passed through the United States. After the First and Second World Wars, mass surveillance continued throughout the Cold War period, via programs such as the Black Chamber and Project SHAMROCK. The formation and growth of federal law-enforcement and intelligence agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA institutionalized surveillance used to also silence political dissent, as evidenced by COINTELPRO projects which targeted various organizations and individuals. During the Civil Rights Movement era, many individuals put under surveillance orders were first labelled as integrationists, then deemed subversive, and sometimes suspected to be supportive of the communist model of the United States' rival at the time, the Soviet Union. Other targeted individuals and groups included Native American activists, African American and Chicano liberation movement activists, and anti-war protesters.
During the 2010s, international media news reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly relate to top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents consist of intelligence files relating to the U.S. and other Five Eyes countries. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published, with further selected documents released to various news outlets through the year.
This is a category of disclosures related to global surveillance.
Global mass surveillance can be defined as the mass surveillance of entire populations across national borders.
STATEROOM is the code name of a highly secretive signals intelligence collection program involving the interception of international radio, telecommunications and Internet traffic. It is operated out of the diplomatic missions of the signatories to the UKUSA Agreement and the members of the ECHELON network including Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.
This timeline of global surveillance disclosures from 2013 to the present day is a chronological list of the global surveillance disclosures that began in 2013. The disclosures have been largely instigated by revelations from the former American National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Operation Monopoly was a covert plan by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to build a tunnel underneath the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., to gather secret intelligence in effect from 1977 until its public discovery in 2001.
Several years ago, according to sources, SCS relocated to a new, 300-acre, three-building complex disguised as a corporate campus and shielded by a dense forest outside Beltsville, Maryland.