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The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level 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 existence of the NSA was not revealed until 1975. The NSA has roughly 32,000 employees.
Glenn Edward Greenwald is an American journalist, author and lawyer. In 2014, he cofounded The Intercept, of which he was an editor until he resigned in October 2020. Greenwald subsequently started publishing on Substack.
PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies. The program is also known by the SIGAD US-984XN. PRISM collects stored internet communications based on demands made to internet companies such as Google LLC under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to turn over any data that match court-approved search terms. Among other things, the NSA can use these PRISM requests to target communications that were encrypted when they traveled across the internet backbone, to focus on stored data that telecommunication filtering systems discarded earlier, and to get data that is easier to handle.
Boundless Informant is a big data analysis and data visualization tool used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA). It gives NSA managers summaries of the NSA's worldwide data collection activities by counting metadata. The existence of this tool was disclosed by documents leaked by Edward Snowden, who worked at the NSA for the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Those disclosed documents were in a direct contradiction to the NSA's assurance to United States Congress that it does not collect any type of data on millions of Americans.
Edward Joseph Snowden is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and subcontractor. His disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments and prompted a cultural discussion about national security and individual privacy.
XKeyscore is a secret computer system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) for searching and analyzing global Internet data, which it collects in real time. The NSA has shared XKeyscore with other intelligence agencies, including the Australian Signals Directorate, Canada's Communications Security Establishment, New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, Japan's Defense Intelligence Headquarters, and Germany's Bundesnachrichtendienst.
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.
Ongoing news reports in the international media have revealed operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly emanate from a cache of top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, which he obtained whilst working for Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the largest contractors for defense and intelligence in the United States. In addition to a trove of U.S. federal documents, Snowden's cache reportedly contains thousands of Australian, British, Canadian and New Zealand intelligence files that he had accessed via the exclusive "Five Eyes" network. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published simultaneously by The Washington Post and The Guardian, attracting considerable public attention. The disclosure continued throughout 2013, and a small portion of the estimated full cache of documents was later published by other media outlets worldwide, most notably The New York Times, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Der Spiegel (Germany), O Globo (Brazil), Le Monde (France), L'espresso (Italy), NRC Handelsblad, Dagbladet (Norway), El País (Spain), and Sveriges Television (Sweden).
Global mass surveillance can be defined as the mass surveillance of entire populations across national borders.
U.S. president Barack Obama has received widespread criticism due to his support of government surveillance. President Obama released many statements on mass surveillance as a result.
The Intercept is an American left-wing news website founded by Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Laura Poitras and funded by billionaire eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar. Its current editor is Betsy Reed. The publication initially reported on documents released by Edward Snowden and was considered to be "activist voice for privacy and civil liberties". Co-founders Greenwald and Poitras subsequently left amid public disagreements about the leadership and direction of the organization.
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.
TURBINE is the codename of an automated system which in essence enables the automated management and control of a large network of implants.
A man-on-the-side attack is a form of active attack in computer security similar to a man-in-the-middle attack. Instead of completely controlling a network node as in a man-in-the-middle attack, the attacker only has regular access to the communication channel, which allows him to read the traffic and insert new messages, but not to modify or delete messages sent by other participants. The attacker relies on a timing advantage to make sure that the response he sends to the request of a victim arrives before the legitimate response.
The United States is widely considered to have the most extensive and sophisticated intelligence network of any nation in the world, with organizations including the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, amongst others. The targets of its foreign intelligence operations have included both allies and rivals. Its operations have included the use of industrial espionage, cyber espionage. and mass surveillance, some of which have been the subject of criticism.
ICREACH is an alleged top-secret surveillance-related search engine created by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) after the September 11 attacks.
CRISSCROSS/PROTON is a top-secret signals intelligence database system used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Its existence was revealed in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Regin is a sophisticated malware and hacking toolkit used by United States' National Security Agency (NSA) and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). It was first publicly revealed by Kaspersky Lab, Symantec, and The Intercept in November 2014. The malware targets specific users of Microsoft Windows-based computers and has been linked to the US intelligence-gathering agency NSA and its British counterpart, the GCHQ. The Intercept provided samples of Regin for download, including malware discovered at a Belgian telecommunications provider, Belgacom. Kaspersky Lab says it first became aware of Regin in spring 2012, but some of the earliest samples date from 2003. Among computers infected worldwide by Regin, 28 percent were in Russia, 24 percent in Saudi Arabia, 9 percent each in Mexico and Ireland, and 5 percent in each of India, Afghanistan, Iran, Belgium, Austria, and Pakistan.
Targeted surveillance is a form of surveillance, such as wiretapping, that is directed towards specific persons of interest, and is distinguishable from mass surveillance. Both untargeted and targeted surveillance is routinely accused of treating innocent people as suspects in ways that are unfair, of violating human rights, international treaties and conventions as well as national laws, and of failing to pursue security effectively.
RAMPART-A is the code name for global mass surveillance and world-wide signals intelligence partnership program led by the United States National Security Agency (NSA). Aim of the program is to "gain access to high-capacity international fiber-optic cables that transit at major congestion points around the world".
References
- ↑ "Ryan Gallagher – The Intercept – First Look Media". The Intercept . 27 October 2014.
- ↑ Gold, Hadas (3 March 2013). "Gawker's John Cook to First Look". Politico .
- ↑ Beaujon, Andrew (6 February 2014). "First Look adds more journalists, plans to launch first publication next week". Poynter .
- ↑ Gallagher, Ryan (25 August 2014). "The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google". The Intercept .
- ↑ Winter, Michael (25 August 2014). "NSA built 'Google-like' search engine to share data". USA Today .
- ↑ Pullam-Moore, Charles (25 August 2014). "Google-like NSA search engine implemented to learn about civilians". PBS .
- ↑ Gallagher, Ryan; Greenwald, Glenn (12 March 2014). "How the NSA Plans to Infect 'Millions' of Computers with Malware". The Intercept . Retrieved 27 October 2014.
- ↑ Holpuch, Amanda (13 March 2014). "Mark Zuckerberg: US government surveillance is a threat to the internet". The Guardian .
- ↑ Byers, Alex (13 March 2014). "Mark Zuckerberg calls Obama after NSA report". Politico .
- ↑ Pagliery, Jose (14 March 2014). "Mark Zuckerberg calls Obama to complain about NSA". CNN .
- ↑ Pinto, Nick (1 May 2013). "Will There Be Face-Recognition Surveillance at the Statue of Liberty?". Village Voice .
- ↑ Doctorow, Cory (30 April 2013). "Rumored Statue of Liberty face-recognition supplier harasses and threatens journalist". Boing Boing .
- ↑ Cushing, Tim (30 April 2013). "Private Security Contractors Try To Shut Down Journalist Using Legal Threats And Claims Of Harassment". Techdirt .
- ↑ "New America Fellows". New America Foundation . 27 October 2014.