Snowden-Documents Demonstrate No Prove For Global Majority Surveillance

(Updated: May 24, 2015)

Earlier this month, it was the 1 yr anniversary of the Snowden-leaks, yesteryear far the biggest disclosure ever of highly undercover documents from the US National Security Agency (NSA). Edward Snowden together with Glenn Greenwald are using these documents to present how eager NSA is to collect every fleck of communication that travels around the world.

But yesteryear taking a unopen together with careful aspect at the master copy slides together with reports which have got been published so far it comes out that they contain no difficult evidence for a massive abuse of powerfulness or violation of the law, non fifty-fifty for the alleged mass surveillance of innocent people all over the world.

- No Place To Hide - NSA's state of war machine tasks - NSA's goals - NSA collection worldwide -

- Metadata collection - Collection within the US - Conclusion -

Snowden-documents present no evidence for global mass surveillance

Headquarters of the National Security Agency at Fort George G. Meade
(screenshot from PBS Frontline - U.S.A. of Secrets)

No Place To Hide

Edward Snowden together with Glenn Greenwald claim that NSA wants to collect, store, monitor together with analyse the electronic communications of innocent citizens all over the world, which would endure an unprecedented abuse of powerfulness together with a violation of the American constitution. This is how the story is told over together with over inwards numerous media reports worldwide, together with also inwards Greenwald's volume 'No Place To Hide', which was published inwards over xx countries on May 13, 2014.

After a yr of countless revelations, people powerfulness have got expected that this volume would provide a detailed together with comprehensive explanation of all those confusing NSA programs, tools, together with operations. But although it contains a attain of new documents, these become without whatever proper explanation. Greenwald simply uses them for picking a phrase or a number which he thinks supports his ain narrative.

Libertarianism

Both Snowden together with Greenwald are acting from points of view that are based on Libertarianism, a political ideology which encompasses minimizing the influence of authorities together with maximizing the liberty together with liberties of private citizens.

They struggle that province surveillance is a large evil, non at to the lowest degree because when people are knowing that they are beingness watched together with followed, most of them volition going to acquit compliant to the existing powers all yesteryear themselves (the so-called "chilling-effect").

But for that, people outset have got to know that they are beingness monitored, together with NSA did everything to conk along the extent of its spying operations hidden from the public. Only after the documents taken yesteryear Edward Snowden were published, people truly learned nearly how massive that spying is - inwards the eyes of Snowden together with Greenwald.

NSA's state of war machine tasks

The Snowden-leaks of the yesteryear yr learned us a lot nearly NSA, but in that location are also some of import aspects that were ignored. One is the fact that NSA is a state of war machine intelligence agency: it falls nether the US Deparment of Defense (DoD), is led yesteryear a high-ranking state of war machine officeholder together with plays an of import role inwards supporting the US armed forces.

For that, NSA is non exclusively intercepting communications that are of strategic or tactical importance, but also collecting together with analysing many other types of electromagnetic radiation, similar from radar, which is called ELINT. All 5 US Armed Services have got dedicated signals intelligence together with cryptologic units, which together cast the Central Security Service (CSS), the tactical branch of NSA:

Neither Snowden, nor Greenwald, nor the vast bulk of the media reports fifty-fifty came unopen to mentioning the truthful extent of NSA's state of war machine job. One indication that tin endure pose together from the numbers from the BOUNDLESSINFORMANT tool is that 54% of the information that NSA collects globally comes from countries inwards the Middle East plus India.

Because also no NSA activities related to US state of war machine operations, similar for illustration inwards Afghanistan, have got been revealed, most people volition at nowadays recall that NSA is exclusively spying on civilians. One of the real few exceptions was the Dutch paper NRC Handelsblad, which revealed how the Dutch state of war machine intelligence service MIVD cooperated alongside American troops inwards Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan together with helped mapping a network of somali pirates.

> See: Metadata collection yesteryear Dutch MIVD instead of NSA

Military personnel inwards NSA's National Security Operations Center (NSOC)
(Screengrab from a sixty Minutes documentary)

One illustration of where the state of war machine aspect seems to have got been withheld deliberately, was the revelation yesteryear The Guardian together with the New York Times of the 9-Eyes together with the 14-Eyes, groups inwards which a number of European countries closely cooperate alongside NSA. Later it became clear that information together with intelligence exchanged within both groups is for state of war machine purposes.

Update:
On July 9, 2014, Glenn Greenwald indicated on Reddit, that it was component of the understanding alongside Snowden non to bring out anything nearly Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan together with other state of war machine operations. This likely also led to the adjacent misrepresentation...

NSA spying inwards Europe?

During the 2nd one-half of 2013 nosotros learned nearly BOUNDLESSINFORMANT, the tool used yesteryear NSA for counting together with visualizing its worldwide information collection activities. Initially, Glenn Greenwald reported inwards diverse European newspapers that charts from this tool present that tens of millions of telephone calls of citizens from Germany, Spain, France, Kingdom of Norway together with Italy were intercepted yesteryear NSA.

But soon, state of war machine intelligence services from these countries declared that this interpretation was incorrect together with that the charts truly present metadata that were non collected yesteryear NSA, but yesteryear them. These statements are supported yesteryear the fact that the related BOUNDLESSINFORMANT charts present the DRTBox technique, which is primarily used inwards tactical state of war machine environments.

The metadata were derived from unusual communications inwards crisis zones together with collected inwards back upward of state of war machine operations abroad. Subsequently these information were shared alongside partner agencies, most probable through the SIGDASYS scheme of the SIGINT Seniors Europe (SSEUR or 14-Eyes) group, which made them available for NSA too.

In the end, the disclosures nearly diverse European countries did non proof massive spying yesteryear NSA, but rather present how unopen European agencies are cooperating alongside the Americans inwards the patch of state of war machine intelligence.

Chart from the BOUNDLESSINFORMANT tool that was released yesteryear Der Spiegel on June 18, 2014
It shows that SIGADs related to European countries are truly component of third Party collection
(click to enlarge)

NSA's goals

Something that Snowden en Greenwald are repeating over together with over is that NSA wants to have got all digital communications from all over the world: "Collect it All". But the evidence they acquaint is real sparse together with non real convincing. According to Greenwald's book, that alleged destination is from a memo nearly the satellite intercept station Misawa inwards Nippon together with from a few slides nearly the Menwith Hill satellite station inwards the UK:

About the Foreign Satellite Collection (FORNSAT)
at Menwith Hill Station (MHS) inwards the UK

NSA Director Keith Alexander talking nearly FORNSAT
during a sixteen June 2008 see to MHS

Since international telecommunication shifted to undersea fiber-optic cables after the yr 2000, satellite links nowadays ship exclusively a minor share. It could endure possible to collect all of that, but that aim can't endure applied to the entire collection endeavor of NSA, which is so much larger. Furthermore, if "Collect it All" truly was NSA's ultimate goal, together with so it sure enough would have got been inwards to a greater extent than high-level policy documents for the entire organisation - which have got non been presented so far.

In an idiot box interview from Apr 2014 alongside John Oliver, at nowadays quondam NSA manager Alexander explained that "Collect Everything" was exclusively meant for specific problems, together with equally such applied to Iraq. The same was the instance for Afghanistan, equally these are the exclusively known countries for which NSA conducted a existent mass surveillance endeavor nether the call Real Time-Regional Gateway (RT-RG).

Strategic Mission List

The existent together with far to a greater extent than specified goals for NSA tin truly endure constitute inwards the 2007 Swift, NSA together with GCHQ stealing SIM carte keys: a few things you lot should know

End-reports

For getting certainty nearly whether NSA conducted the unwanted economical espionage, or nearly the results from its eavesdropping operations inwards general, nosotros should encounter the end-product intelligence reports that NSA analysts write after having analysed the collected data. It seems that access to these reports is to a greater extent than strictly controlled, because plainly Snowden was non able to convey these too.

This indicates that NSA truly has internal access command systems that do work. Which contradicts the alleged uncontrolled access that analysts have got to virtually anyone's communications - according to Snowden, who also hasn't provided whatever documents that proof that claim, for illustration yesteryear showing deficiencies of NSA's user authentication scheme CASPORT.

At outset sight it looks real impressive that almost all documents he leaked are stamped TOP SECRET//COMINT, but within NSA information at that classification grade is truly available to virtually everyone. Really sensitive secrets are inwards compartments similar those for Exceptionally Controlled Information (ECI) of which oft non fifty-fifty the codeword is known.

Update:
On July 5, 2014, The Washington Post revealed that Snowden truly did had access to reports containing total cyberspace messages that were intercepted nether department 702 FAA authorisation together with that he was able to exfiltrate some 160.000 of them. The article suggests that he was able to do this because he had authorized access to at to the lowest degree the RAGTIME compartment.

Some other ECI-codewords that have got been disclosed are REDHARVEST (RDV) together with WHIPGENIE (WPG), together with also details nearly the orbit of the STELLARWIND (STLW) command scheme came out.

> See also: The US Classification System

Hacking operations

Misleading are also the press reports nearly NSA hacking into smartphones together with computers, whether through the telephone networks, the cyberspace or yesteryear bridging the "air gap". Without mentioning for what form of targets these methods are used, together with yesteryear using full general damage similar "internet users" instead of "targets", people acquire the thought that it tin lawsuit everyone.

This is illustrated yesteryear the story that NSA has facilities where they intercept shippings of commercial reckoner hardware inwards lodge to covertly install spying implants. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 scary thought if NSA would do that randomly alongside hundreds of thousands of shipments, but equally nosotros tin encounter inwards this internal report, the method is used to "Crack Some of SIGINT's Hardest Targets" - inwards which instance it tin endure considered legitimate together with proportionate:

Update:
On Jan 17, 2015, Der Spiegel published the full version of this NSA report, which appeared to endure longer than the 1 published inwards Greenwald's book. What he left out was a department that describes a successful supply-chain interdiction against the Syrian Telecommunications Establishment (STE) - a target for which such methods are clearly justified.

Damaging disclosures

It may non have got been that lives of American officials or specific operations have got been endangered, but there's no dubiety that disclosing these methods damaged NSA's powerfulness to acquire access to communications which are otherwise impossible to intercept. Both friends together with enemies volition at nowadays depository fiscal establishment check every novel reckoner shipment together with all of their existing sensitive reckoner together with telephone systems inwards lodge to take every slice that resembles those shown inwards the media.

Snowden said he doesn't desire to harm the US together with also non to constrain bilateral relations alongside other countries. But equally the contrary has happened, it seems that some journalists to whom he gave his documents, are non ever publishing them according to his intentions.

For example, the High German mag Der Spiegel revealed details nearly NSA's reckoner Mexico together with Brasil, which pose their human relationship alongside the US nether severe pressure level (the eavesdropping on High German chancellor Merkel was non based upon information from Snowden, but from some other source).

Similar were disclosures nearly the NSA eavesdropping on the communications of the UN, the European Union, a number of unusual embassies, international conferences together with some large private companies. It was embarrasing for the US having these activities exposed, although these form of activities are the essence concern of every unusual intelligence agency.

GCHQ operations

Looking at the legal framework together with official tasks also helps to ameliorate empathize the disclosures nearly the British signals intelligence service GCHQ. From diverse documents, it seems this agency is particularly eager together with agressive, similar for illustration inwards collecting webcam images together with planning "disruption" operations against hackers associated alongside Anonymous.

Rarely mentioned is that such activities would truly fit within the broader mandate together with the less legal restrictions which the British service has compared to the NSA. For example, GCHQ is allowed to operate domestically together with assist the safety service MI5, equally good equally police clit enforcement, where activities of NSA are strictly express to unusual intelligence.

GCHQ also wants to endure a major instrumentalist inwards the patch of unusual signals intelligence. Although it reportedly has access to 200 fiber-optic cables, the agency is exclusively able intercept 46 cables of 10 gigabits/second at a time. This would make that 21 petabytes of information catamenia yesteryear these systems every day.

GCHQ's umbrella computer programme to tap, filter together with search cyberspace traffic is codenamed TEMPORA. It incorporates NSA's XKEYSCORE scheme together with is thereby able to save all content for 3 days together with all metadata for upward to thirty days inwards a rolling buffer. Unlike NSA, which has XKEYSCORE at some 150 sites worldwide, GCHQ concentrated its TEMPORA scheme at 3 processing centers:

Explanation of the TEMPORA scheme used yesteryear GCHQ
(Source)

NSA collection worldwide

One of the major accusations of Snowden together with Greenwald is that NSA is indiscriminately gathering together with storing electronic communications from all over the world. As said, in that location are no documents nearly the tactical systems for state of war machine purposes, but nosotros learned a lot nearly the diverse ways the agency taps into full general telecommunication channels similar satellite links together with fiber-optic cables, both submarine together with landbased.

NSA's access to them tin endure unilateral or inwards cooperation alongside unusual partner agencies: alongside 2nd Party partners nether the WINDSTOP program, together with alongside third political party agencies nether the RAMPART-A program.

Some numbers

From the BOUNDLESSINFORMANT tool together with some other charts nosotros know that NSA collects billions of information a day. That sounds similar a huge number, but remarkably plenty in that location has been non 1 unmarried press study that provided numbers on the global telecommunication traffic inwards full general for comparison.

The NSA itself issued a statement (pdf) inwards August 2013 saying that nearly thirty petabytes a 24-hour interval give their collection systems, which filter out together with shop nearly 7,3 terabyte. Cisco estimates that inwards 2013 in that location was some 181 petabyte of consumer web, email, together with information traffic a day, which way that roughly 16% passes through NSA systems, which eventually shop 0,00004% of it.

XKEYSCORE

At 150 sites where NSA intercepts cables, satellites together with other communication channels, the agency has installed the XKEYSCORE (XKS) system, which is able to shop a "full take" of the communications that flows past, but exclusively 3 to 5 days of content together with thirty days of metadata. At some sites, the amount of information exceeds 20 terabyte a day, which tin exclusively endure stored for 24 hours:

With this temporary buffer, XKEYSCORE provides NSA analysts alongside the chance to search these information for "soft selectors" similar keywords together with for other target related characteristics similar the exercise of encryption, virtual private networks, the TOR network or a dissimilar language. This enables analysts to exercise the temporarily buffered information inwards lodge to notice cyberspace activities that are conducted anonymously together with thus cannot endure constitute yesteryear simply looking for a target's e-mail address.

Before XKEYSCORE was installed, in that location were exclusively the to a greater extent than traditional systems that automatically filter out content when in that location is a check alongside so-called "strong selectors" similar e-mail together with IP addresses. This is less than 5% of the cyberspace communications that passes NSA's front-end filters.

Both the traditional filters together with the XKEYSCORE scheme are picking out a relatively minor number of communications inwards a targeted together with focussed way. Traffic that is non of involvement is exclusively stored for a few days together with and so automatically disappears equally it's overridden yesteryear novel data. So, although these NSA systems "see" a huge amount of data, there's sure enough no "Store it All".

Entire countries

XKEYSCORE is exclusively used for searching together with analysing cyberspace communications, but it seems that a similar scheme for telephone calls is available nether the accounts for less than 2% of NSA's cable tapping programs, which could betoken the computer programme is used inwards a real focussed way.

Bulk collection of metadata

Probably fifty-fifty to a greater extent than misleading together with exaggerated are what most Snowden-stories say nearly the collection of metadata. This is the information needed for the technical together with administrative treatment of communications, similar the calling together with the called telephone numbers, together with the fourth dimension together with duration of a call. This thing is of import because NSA collects far to a greater extent than metadata than content, likely upward to several trillion records a month.

Chart showing the volumes together with limits of NSA metadata collection
(the domestic metadata collection seems to endure excluded)

The collection of metadata is fifty-fifty to a greater extent than controversial than storing content. Not exclusively Snowden together with Greenwald, but also most civil liberties organizations say that "bulk collection" equals "mass surveillance", because analysing metadata is to a greater extent than intrusive together with thus a bigger violation of privacy than looking at the content of telephone calls or e-mail messages.

That powerfulness endure right inwards theory together with inwards potential, but inwards reality the collection of huge amounts of information doesn't automatically hateful that equal numbers of individuals are beingness actively tracked together with traced. From the documents that have got been disclosed yesteryear Snowden together with from those that have got been declassified yesteryear the US Director of National Intelligence (DNI), nosotros acquire that NSA uses metadata inwards 2 ways:

1. To discovery novel suspects through a method called "contact chaining". Starting alongside the telephone number of a known unusual bad guy, a specialized tool presents the numbers which he was inwards contact with, together with the numbers they on their plow had been inwards contact. By cross-referencing, this tin dot to conspirators that were previously unknown.

In 2012, NSA used 288 telephone numbers equally a "seed" for starting such a question inwards its domestic telephone tape database together with this resulted inwards a total of twelve "tips" to the FBI that called for farther investigation. In 2013, the number of seeds had raised to 423. This domestic collection is legally authorized nether department 215 of the Patriot Act together with is additionally regulated yesteryear the FISA Court, so nether the existing legal framework this is non illegal spying on Americans.

Update:
On May 7, 2015, a US federal appeals courtroom ruled that NSA's volume collection of telephone metadata overstretches the pregnant together with thus violates the USA Patriot Act.

2. Only for people who are identified equally legitimate unusual intelligence targets, the metadata of their telephone numbers are pulled from the databases to endure used for creating a total "pattern-of-life" analysis. There's no evidence that NSA is randomly querying ("data-mining") the metadata they collected for some form of profiling without whatever specific lead.

> See: Video demonstration of 2 intelligence analysis tools

Most of what nosotros know nearly the domestic collection of US telephone metadata comes from declassified courtroom orders, because from the Snowden-trove nosotros haven't seen whatever internal NSA documents nearly the Section 215 program. At to the lowest degree inwards this case, NSA seems to endure able to "Store it All", but there's no "Analyse it All".

Collection within the US

Probably Snowden's biggest disclosure was the existance of the PRISM program, through which NSA collects communications from major American cyberspace companies similar Facebook, Google, Microsoft together with Apple. However, the initial claim that NSA had straight off access to the servers of these companies proved to endure misleading, together with also PRISM is non used for spying on ordinary citizens, but exclusively for gathering information for countering threats from unusual governments, terrorist groups together with weapon proliferation.

> More details: What is known nearly NSA's PRISM program

Slide from the PRISM-presentation that shows NSA has no direct
human relationship alongside communication providers - exclusively through FBI

The disclosure that had the biggest touching on on the American populace was that large telecommunication providers similar Verizon are handing over all their telephone records to NSA. Apparently Americans became exclusively fully aware of this after beingness revealed yesteryear Snowden, equally the collection of domestic telephony metadata was already revealed inwards 2006.

It should endure noted that inwards 2006, NSA silent received unopen to 100% of the domestic telephone records, but that since 2013 that part plummeted to less than 30%, mainly because 2 major jail cellular telephone phone providers do non mitt over their records.

Should NSA endure allowed to asking telephone metadata from the telecom companies, equally proposed inwards the USA FREEDOM Act, together with so they would acquire powerfulness to access virtually all records again.

Upstream collection

Also inwards 2006 it was disclosed that NSA had installed intercept devices at switching stations of major fiber-optic cables within the United States. This equipment is used to filter the telephone together with cyberspace traffic, but because this was done within the US, it looked similar NSA was eavesdropping on Americans, something that is strictly prohibited.

Sensationalist headlines of many press reports next the Snowden-leaks also suggested that NSA was "listening on American telephone calls" together with "reading American e-mails". This even so is exclusively the instance for the real few people inwards the US who are known associates of terrorist groups or unusual governments.

Update:
On July 5, 2014, The Washington Post revealed that Snowden exfiltrated some 160.000 cyberspace messages collected nether 702 FAA authorisation together with that almost 90% of them were from persons, both American together with foreign, who were non listed equally a unusual intelligence target. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 large number were correctly minimized together with there's no evidence the overcollected messages were truly read or used, but they also weren't deleted.

The domestic cable tapping is component of NSA's Upstream collection program, which is primarily used for access to communications betwixt foreigners or unusual targets together with possible conspirators within the US. Most surprising was likely how unopen the cooperation alongside American telecommunication companies is.

The codenames for these domestic programs are FAIRVIEW, BLARNEY together with STORMBREW, together with nether OAKSTAR, American telecoms are providing cable intercept facilities abroad.

In filtering the traffic from these cables, it proved to endure impossible for NSA to fully dissever communications of approved unusual targets from those of uninvolved Americans. Up to 10.000 of the latter landed inwards NSA databases each yr together with the agency was repeatedly critized for this overcollection yesteryear the FISA Court.*

This shows that this oversight machinery isn't the mere "rubber stamp" equally Snowden together with Greenwald continuously telephone telephone it. The fact that the FISA Court decides behind closed doors is also non a scandalous exception, equally the same applies to grand juries inwards ordinary criminal offence cases.

Whistleblowing?

Except for some other similar tyke violations of internal rules together with legal requirements, the documents published so far don't contain evidence of large scale abuse of power, mismanagement or deliberate illegal behaviour. Therefore, it seems that Edward Snowden tin non endure considered a whistleblower inwards the traditional together with official feel of the word. Snowden himself said that he lacked whistleblower protection because he was simply a contractor, but that's non true, equally the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA) clearly includes contractors. Besides that, the official whistleblowing criteria won't apply to his case:

US Federal Government whistleblower
awareness poster

Of course, non everything that is legally allowed is ever right, together with many people don't handle alongside the actual orbit of NSA's spying operations. Snowden additionally warns against the (future) misuse that tin endure made from this form of systems inwards general, also inwards other countries worldwide. That's a legitimate cause, but a personal disagreement alongside electrical current policies together with practices lonely doesn't constitute whistleblowing. It's rather a political and/or moral issue.

Conclusion

In the yesteryear yr nosotros truly learned a lot nearly the methods together with the collection programs of the NSA. But inwards the media, the facts that arise from the master copy documents have got oft been instrumentalized for the ideological scrap betwixt Snowden together with Greenwald on 1 side together with the NSA together with the US authorities at the other side. Latter parties are beingness defendant of trying to eliminate all forms of privacy, but inwards the documents that have got been disclosed, there's no difficult evidence that proofs that claim.

The documents present that NSA has a large, worldwide network of information collection systems, but these systems are non capable of collecting, allow lonely storing all the communications that occur all over the world. Instead, NSA tries to collect it's information equally targeted together with focussed equally possible, inwards lodge to fulfill it's unusual intelligence tasks, many of which are of a state of war machine nature.

The NSA is trying to do this carefully together with complient to the laws together with the policies, although it is sometimes operating on the border of what is legally together with politically acceptable. Preventing those borders beingness crossed tin exclusively endure done yesteryear taking a real unopen aspect at what NSA is truly doing. The documents leaked yesteryear Snowden give us some insight into that, but the myth of an agency that is able to know everything nosotros are doing, saying, thinking together with planning is simply distracting.

Update:
On July 9, 2014, Greenwald published a no evidence for the involvement of NSA, simply for FBI, which is of course of didactics the proper agency for such domestic investigations. Whatever this way for what FBI is doing, it shows no illegal activities of NSA.