N.S.A. Examines Social Networks of U.S. Citizens (Decision Made In Secret 2010) [View all]

[kpete]

Source: New York TImes

N.S.A. Examines Social Networks of U.S. Citizens
By JAMES RISEN and LAURA POITRAS
New York Times
September 28, 2013 12:10PM (EDT

. . . the decision to revise the limits concerning Americans was made in secret, without review by the nation’s intelligence court or any public debate.

WASHINGTON — Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials.

This slide from an N.S.A. PowerPoint presentation shows one of the ways the agency uses e-mail and phone data to analyze the relationships of foreign intelligence targets.


The spy agency began allowing the analysis of phone call and e-mail logs in November 2010 to examine Americans’ networks of associations for foreign intelligence purposes after N.S.A. officials lifted restrictions on the practice, according to documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor.

The policy shift was intended to help the agency “discover and track” connections between intelligence targets overseas and people in the United States, according to an N.S.A. memorandum from January 2011. The agency was authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of every e-mail address, phone number or other identifier, the document said. Because of concerns about infringing on the privacy of American citizens, the computer analysis of such data had previously been permitted only for foreigners.

The agency can augment the communications data with material from public, commercial and other sources, including bank codes, insurance information, Facebook profiles, passenger manifests, voter registration rolls and GPS location information, as well as property records and unspecified tax data, according to the documents. They do not indicate any restrictions on the use of such “enrichment” data, and several former senior Obama administration officials said the agency drew on it for both Americans and foreigners.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/nsa-examines-social-networks-of-us-citizens.html?src=twrhp&_r=0

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UPDATED TO ADD THIS LITTLE GEM:

note that the NYT says that analysts could trace Americans " as long as they cited a foreign intelligence justification.". Cited, not 'demonstrated' or 'proved'


N.S.A. analysts were told that they could trace the contacts of Americans as long as they cited a foreign intelligence justification. That could include anything from ties to terrorism, weapons proliferation or international drug smuggling to spying on conversations of foreign politicians, business figures or activists.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/nsa-examines-social-networks-of-us-citizens.html?pagewanted=3&utm_medium=twitter&_r=0&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss