The United States is widely considered to have one of 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. It has conducted numerous espionage operations against foreign countries, including both allies and rivals. Its operations have included the use of industrial espionage, [1] cyber espionage. [2] and mass surveillance. [3] [4] [5]
Many of these operations have generated public criticism as being unethical; examples include the overthrow of foreign governments, nonconsensual human experiments, extraordinary rendition, torture, targeted killings, assassinations, and the funding and training of militants who would go on to kill civilians and non-combatants. [3] [4] [5] Through a combination of hacking and secret court orders against American technology companies, the United States has also employed mass surveillance of ordinary individuals, both American and foreign nationals alike. [4]
A cache of top secret documents leaked in 2013 by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who obtained them while working for Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the largest contractors for defense and intelligence in the United States., [6] revealed operational details about the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and its international partners' global surveillance [7] of foreign nationals and U.S. citizens. In addition to a trove of U.S. federal documents, Snowden's cache reportedly contains thousands of Australian, British and Canadian 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. [8] The disclosure continued throughout the entire year of 2013, and a significant portion of the full cache of the estimated 1.7 million documents [9] was later obtained and published by many 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 (the Netherlands), Dagbladet (Norway), El País (Spain), and Sveriges Television (Sweden). [10]
These media reports have shed light on the implications of several secret treaties signed by members of the UKUSA community in their efforts to implement global surveillance. For example, Der Spiegel revealed how the German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) transfers "massive amounts of intercepted data to the NSA", [11] while Sveriges Television revealed the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) provided the NSA with data from its cable collection, under a secret treaty signed in 1954 for bilateral cooperation on surveillance. [12] Other security and intelligence agencies involved in the practice of global surveillance include those in Australia (ASD), Britain (GCHQ), Canada (CSEC), Denmark (PET), France (DGSE), Germany (BND), Italy (AISE), the Netherlands (AIVD), Norway (NIS), Spain (CNI), Switzerland (NDB), as well as Israel (ISNU), which receives raw, unfiltered data of U.S. citizens that is shared by the NSA. [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]
The disclosure provided impetus for the creation of social movements against mass surveillance, such as Restore the Fourth, and actions like Stop Watching Us and The Day We Fight Back. On the legal front, the Electronic Frontier Foundation joined a coalition of diverse groups filing suit against the NSA. Several human rights organizations have urged the Obama administration not to prosecute, but protect, "whistleblower Snowden": Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Transparency International, and the Index on Censorship, inter alia. [21] [22] [23] [24]
Snowden's revelations confirmed that the United States, together with Israel, conducted Operation Olympic Games, a covert and still unacknowledged campaign of sabotage by means of cyber disruption, directed at Iranian nuclear facilities. As reported, it was one of the first known uses of offensive cyber weapons. [25] Started under the George W. Bush administration in 2006, Olympic Games was accelerated under President Obama, who heeded Bush's advice to continue cyber attacks on Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz. [25] Amongst other things, they created the computer worm Stuxnet, which spread beyond Iran's nuclear facilities to the internet, causing collateral damage in other nations such as India and Indonesia.
In 1994, United States trade officials were accompanied with CIA agents to various international locations such as London and Geneva to spy on Japanese auto executives and government officials during Japan-U.S. negotiations on automotive trade. [26]
An article in the New York Times [26] wrote:
Spying on allies for economic advantage is a crucial new assignment for the C.I.A. now that American foreign policy is focused on commercial interests abroad. President Clinton made economic intelligence a high priority of his Administration, specifically information to protect and defend American competitiveness, technology and financial security in a world where an economic crisis can spread across global markets in minutes.
In April 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama placed Anwar al-Awlaki on a list of people whom the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was authorized to kill because of terrorist activities. [27] [28] [29] The "targeted killing" of an American citizen was unprecedented. Al-Awlaki's father and civil rights groups challenged the order in court. [27] [29] [30] [31] Al-Awlaki was believed to be in hiding in Southeast Yemen in the last years of his life. [32] The U.S. deployed unmanned aircraft (drones) in Yemen to search for and kill him, [33] firing at and failing to kill him at least once, [34] before succeeding in a fatal American drone attack in Yemen on September 30, 2011. [35] Two weeks later, al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who was born in Denver, was killed by a CIA-led drone strike in Yemen. [36] [37] [38] Nasser al-Awlaki, Anwar's father, released an audio recording condemning the killings of his son and grandson as senseless murders. [39] In June 2014, a previously classified memorandum issued by the United States Department of Justice was released, justifying al-Awlaki's death as a lawful act of war. [40]
In 1993, the CIA's Paris station launched an economic espionage operation to gain an advantage in negotiations over the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. They attempted to use a female operative posing as a public relations director for a save-the-rain-forest foundation as a honeypot trap to ensnare Henri Plagnol, an aide to French prime minister Édouard Balladur. However, Plagnol was warned by French counterintelligence officers who had seen through the plot and told him to play along. Over the course of two years, the French used Plagnol to turn the tables on the CIA, uncovering multiple CIA operatives and ultimately publicly expelling the CIA Paris station chief along with other key agents from the country. [26]
The CIA recruited over a dozen spies working in multiple German industries, including a double agent in German intelligence. These spies were uncovered in raids on the Ministry of Defense by German authorities in 2014. Angela Merkel, whose personal cellphone was tapped by the NSA, ordered the CIA's Berlin station chief to leave the country. [41] [42]
In May 2021, Denmark's public service broadcaster, DR, revealed that the Danish Defence Intelligence Service helped the NSA spy on European leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2012 to 2014, in a scheme codenamed as "Operation Dunhammer". Intelligence was also collected on other officials from Germany, France, Sweden and Norway. [43]
In 1953, the CIA worked with the United Kingdom to overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh who had attempted to nationalize Iran's petroleum industry, threatening the profits of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, now known as BP. [44] Declassified CIA documents show that Britain was fearful of Iran's plans to nationalize its oil industry and pressed the U.S. to mount a joint operation to depose the prime minister and install a puppet regime. [45] In 1951 the Iranian parliament voted to nationalize the petroleum fields of the country. [45] [46]
The coup was led by CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. (grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt). With help from British intelligence, the CIA planned, funded and implemented Operation Ajax. [47] In the months before the coup, the UK and U.S. imposed a boycott of the country, exerted other political pressures, and conducted a massive covert propaganda campaign to create the environment necessary for the coup. The CIA hired Iranian agents provocateurs who posed as communists, harassed religious leaders and staged the bombing of one cleric's home to turn the Islamic religious community against the government. For the U.S. audience, the CIA hoped to plant articles in U.S. newspapers saying that Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi's return to govern Iran resulted from a homegrown revolt against what was being represented to the U.S. public as a communist-leaning government. The CIA successfully used its contacts at the Associated Press to put on the newswire in the U.S. a statement from Tehran about royal decrees that the CIA itself had written. [45]
The coup initially failed and the Shah fled the country. After four days of rioting, Shi'ite-sparked street protests backed by pro-Shah army units defeated Mossadeq's forces and the Shah returned to power. [48]
The CIA subsequently used the apparent success of their Iranian coup project to bolster their image in American government circles. They expanded their reach into other countries, taking a greater portion of American intelligence assets based on their record in Iran. [48]
In August 2013 the CIA admitted that it was involved in both the planning and the execution of the coup, including the bribing of Iranian politicians, security and army high-ranking officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda. [49] The CIA is quoted acknowledging the coup was carried out "under CIA direction" and "as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government." [50] The National Security Archive said it that while it "applauds the CIA's decision to make these materials available, today's posting shows clearly that these materials could have been safely declassified many years ago without risk of damage to national security." [51]
The New York Times reported in May 2017 that "the Chinese government systematically dismantled C.I.A. spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward. Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades." [52]
The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is a joint component command of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and is charged with studying special operations requirements and techniques to ensure interoperability and equipment standardization, to plan and conduct special operations exercises and training, to develop joint special operations tactics, and to execute special operations missions worldwide. It was established in 1980 on recommendation of Colonel Charlie Beckwith, in the aftermath of the failure of Operation Eagle Claw. It is headquartered at Pope Field.
Russell D. Tice is a former intelligence analyst for the United States Air Force, Office of Naval Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Security Agency (NSA).
The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an Anglosphere intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are party to the multilateral UK-USA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence. Informally, "Five Eyes" can refer to the group of intelligence agencies of these countries. The term "Five Eyes" originated as shorthand for a "AUS/CAN/NZ/UK/US Eyes Only" (AUSCANNZUKUS) releasability caveat.
Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki was an American-Yemeni lecturer and alleged jihadist who was killed in 2011 in Yemen by a U.S. government drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama. Al-Awlaki became the first U.S. citizen to be targeted and killed by a drone strike from the U.S. government. U.S. government officials have claimed that al-Awlaki was a key organizer for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda.
The Sam Adams Award is given annually since 2002 to an intelligence professional who has taken a stand for integrity and ethics. The award is granted by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, a group of retired CIA officers. It is named after Samuel A. Adams, a CIA whistleblower during the Vietnam War, and takes the physical form of a "corner-brightener candlestick".
Targeted killing is a form of assassination carried out by governments outside a judicial procedure or a battlefield.
Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki was a 16-year-old United States citizen who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen. He was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki.
William "Bill" Edward Binney is a former intelligence official with the United States National Security Agency (NSA) and whistleblower. He retired on October 31, 2001, after more than 30 years with the agency.
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 and Apple 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.
Edward Joseph Snowden is an American former NSA intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. He became a naturalized Russian citizen in 2022.
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 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.
The global surveillance disclosure released to media by Edward Snowden has caused tension in the bilateral relations of the United States with several of its allies and economic partners as well as in its relationship with the European Union. In August 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama announced the creation of "a review group on intelligence and communications technologies" that would brief and later report to him. In December, the task force issued 46 recommendations that, if adopted, would subject the National Security Agency (NSA) to additional scrutiny by the courts, Congress, and the president, and would strip the NSA of the authority to infiltrate American computer systems using "backdoors" in hardware or software. Geoffrey R. Stone, a White House panel member, said there was no evidence that the bulk collection of phone data had stopped any terror attacks.
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.
Nasser al-Awlaki was a Yemeni scholar and politician. He was the father of Anwar and grandfather of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who were killed in separate U.S. drone strikes. Nasser's granddaughter Nawar al-Awlaki was also killed in a U.S. raid in Yemen in 2017, the Raid on Yakla.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama favored some levels of mass surveillance. He has received some widespread criticism from detractors as a result. Due to his support of certain government surveillance, some critics have said his support violated acceptable privacy rights, while others dispute or attempt to provide justification for the expansion of surveillance initiatives under his administration.
Commentary on Edward Snowden's disclosure is part of the reactions to global surveillance disclosures made by Edward Snowden.
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.
Nawar "Nora" al-Awlaki the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki was killed on January 29, 2017, during the Raid on Yakla, a commando attack ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Taken together, the revelations have brought to light a global surveillance system ...
Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama
The Pentagon concluded that Edward Snowden committed the biggest theft of U.S. secrets in history, downloading about 1.7 million intelligence files, including information that could put personnel in jeopardy, according to lawmakers.
This document, dated April 18th of this year, clearly shows that the relation is very close indeed, seemingly growing even closer. 'NSA's relationship with the FRA, an extremely competent, technically innovative, and trusted Third Party partner, continues to grow. The FRA provided NSA with access to its cable collection in 2011'