Courtesy of Mish.
Today I offer a quartet of news stories on the NSA, widespread targeting of Journalists even by New Zealand, broad cellphone tracking, and a synopsis of what Google knows about you.
Let's kick off with the Guardian 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 historyA 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.
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.
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.
William Binney, a former NSA mathematician, said last year that the agency had "assembled on the order of 20 trillion 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 1.7 billion emails, phone calls and other type of communications."
Targeting of Investigative Journalists
Pater Tenebrarum on the Acting Man blog writes about the Targeting of Investigative Journalists and those opposed to the War in Afghanistan. …
