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electronic surveillance
New declassified documents reveal the US National Security Agency spied on Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali during the height of the Vietnam War protests.
The documents show the NSA also tracked journalists from the New York Times and the Washington Post and two senators.
Some NSA officials later described the programme as “disreputable if not outright illegal”, the documents show.
The operation, dubbed “Minaret”, was originally exposed in the 1970s.
However, the names of those on the phone-tapping “watch list” had been kept secret until now.
The secret papers were published after a government panel ruled in favor of researchers at George Washington University.
New declassified documents reveal the NSA spied on Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali during the height of the Vietnam War protests
The university’s National Security Archive – a research institute that seeks to check government secrecy – described the names on the NSA’s watch-list as “eye-popping”.
The NSA eavesdropped on civil rights leaders Martin Luther King and Whitney Young as well as boxing champion Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom Wicker and Washington Post columnist Art Buchwald.
The agency also monitored the overseas phone calls of two prominent US senators – Democrat Frank Church and Republican Howard Baker.
Many of those targeted were considered to be critics of US involvement in the Vietnam War.
In 1967 the strength of the anti-war campaign led President Lyndon Johnson to ask US intelligence agencies to find out if some protests were being stoked by foreign governments.
The NSA worked with other spy agencies to draw up the “watch lists” of anti-war critics, tapping their phone calls.
The programme continued after President Richard Nixon entered the White House in 1969. US Attorney General Elliot Richardson shut down the NSA programme in 1973, just as the Nixon administration was engulfed in the Watergate scandal.
The latest revelations come as the NSA is embroiled in fresh controversy over its surveillance programmes.
US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden recently exposed far-reaching electronic surveillance of phone records and internet traffic by the agency.
Researchers Matthew Aid and William Burr, who published the documents on Wednesday, said the spying abuses during the Vietnam War era far surpassed any excesses of the current programme.
“As shocking as the recent revelations about the NSA’s domestic eavesdropping have been, there has been no evidence so far of today’s signal intelligence corps taking a step like this, to monitor the White House’s political enemies,” they wrote.
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Documents leaked by Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) broke privacy rules and overstepped its legal authority thousands of times in the past two years.
The incidents resulted in the unauthorised electronic surveillance of US citizens, according to documents published by the Washington Post.
Edward Snowden, 30, a former NSA contractor, has leaked top secret documents to the US and British media.
He has been given asylum in Russia.
On Thursday, the Washington Post posted on its website a selection of documents it said had been provided by Edward Snowden, who fled the US in June after providing documents detailing NSA surveillance programmes to the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers.
The documents purport to show that the unauthorised interception of telephone calls and emails of Americans and foreign nationals on US soil resulted from errors and departures from standard agency processes, including through a data collection method that a secret US surveillance court later ruled unconstitutional.
The documents offer more detail into the agency practices than is typically shared with members of Congress, the US justice department, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The NSA broke privacy rules and overstepped its legal authority thousands of times in the past two years
An internal audit dated May 2012 counted 2,776 incidents over the previous 12 months of unauthorised data collection. The rate of violations grew significantly each quarter, from 546 in the second quarter of 2011 to 865 in the first quarter of 2012.
It is unclear how many individuals were subjected to unauthorised surveillance.
NSA auditors speculated the number of incidents jumped in the first quarter of 2012 because a large number of Chinese surveillance targets visited the US for the Chinese New Year. NSA surveillance of foreign nationals while they are on US soil is restricted.
According to an internal NSA audit report detailing the incidents in the first quarter of 2012, the majority occurred due to “operator error”, usually from failure to follow procedures, typographical errors, insufficient research information, or workload issues.
Other incidents were attributed to “system error”, such as a lack of capabilities or glitches and bugs.
Some data was intercepted when foreign targets entered the US – where NSA surveillance is restricted – but the system was unaware the target had entered US soil.
Other “inadvertent collection incidents” were targets believed to be non-Americans but who turned out to be US citizens upon further investigation.
In one instance in 2008, a “large number” of calls placed from Washington DC were intercepted after an error in a computer program entered “202” – the telephone area code for Washington DC – into a data query instead of “20”, the country code for Egypt.
In another case, the agency vacuumed up vast amounts of international data from a fibre optic cable running through the US into an NSA computer, where it was stored and analysed. Months later, the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled the programme violated the search and seizure protections afforded by the US constitution.
Edward Snowden has been charged with espionage in a federal court in the US. He is currently in Russia, where the government of Vladimir Putin has granted him a year of asylum on the condition he cease disclosing secret US government information.
President Barack Obama has defended the series of programmes described in Edward Snowden’s leaks, but has promised reforms to guarantee greater oversight.
“Given the history of abuse by governments, it’s right to ask questions about surveillance, particularly as technology is reshaping every aspect of our lives,” Barack Obama said last week.
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Germany has decided to cancel a Cold War-era pact with the US and the UK in response to revelations about electronic surveillance operations.
Details of snooping programmes involving the transatlantic allies have been leaked to the media by Edward Snowden.
The revelations have sparked widespread outrage in Germany, where elections are due next month.
The agreement dates from 1968-1969, and its cancellation is largely symbolic.
Germany has decided to cancel a Cold War-era pact with the US and the UK in response to revelations about electronic surveillance operations
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in a statement: “The cancellation of the administrative agreements, which we have pushed for in recent weeks, is a necessary and proper consequence of the recent debate about protecting personal privacy.”
Germans’ experience of mass surveillance under the Communist and Nazi dictatorships makes them particularly sensitive to perceived infringements of personal privacy, and the country has strong data protection laws.
The agreement cancelled on Friday gave the Western countries which had troops stationed in West Germany – the US, the UK and France – the right to request surveillance operations to protect those forces.
A German official told the Associated Press news agency that the agreement had not been invoked since the end of the Cold War, and admitted that the decision would have no impact on current intelligence co-operation.
A spokesperson for the UK’s Foreign Office told reporters that the agreement had not been in use since 1990.
Henning Riecke of the German Council on Foreign Relations told AP that the German government needed to do something to demonstrate at home that it was taking the issue seriously.
“Ending an agreement made in the pre-internet age gives the Germans a chance to show they’re doing something, and at the same time the Americans know it’s not going to hurt them.
“Given the good relations between the intelligence agencies, they’ll get the information they need anyway,” he said.
The Federal Bureau has used drones for surveillance in limited cases over US soil, FBI Director Robert Mueller has told a US Senate committee.
Robert Mueller said the agency had “very few” drones and had used them in “a very minimal way” and “very seldom”.
But the director said the FBI was in the “initial stages” of developing drone policies.
In May, President Barack Obama said he would curtail the use of armed drones in operations outside the US.
Under the new policy described by the White House, the US will only allow drones to be used in areas that are not overt war zones when there was a “continuing, imminent threat” to the US and capture was not feasible.
Robert Mueller has told a US Senate committee the FBI has used drones for surveillance in limited cases over US soil
Wednesday’s acknowledgment that the US federal investigative service has also used drones comes as the nation debates electronic surveillance following the recent disclosure of massive internet and telephone data snooping programmes.
Robert Mueller, who is retiring in July after 12 years as FBI director, described the drone use in testimony in a hearing of the US Senate judiciary committee.
“I will tell you that our footprint is very small,” he said.
He said drones were used in “particular incidents where you need the capability” but said he was unsure how long images captured by the drones were kept.
A surveillance drone was used during a February stand-off with an Alabama man who shot dead a school bus driver and then took a five-year-old boy hostage, according to media reports at the time.
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Former CIA employee Edward Snowden, who leaked details of US top-secret phone and internet surveillance, has disappeared from his hotel in Hong Kong.
Edward Snowden, 29, checked out from his hotel on Monday. His whereabouts are unknown, but he is believed to be still in Hong Kong.
Earlier, he said he had an “obligation to help free people from oppression”.
It emerged last week that US agencies were gathering millions of phone records and monitoring internet data.
A spokesman for the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the case had been referred to the Department of Justice as a criminal matter.
Meanwhile a petition posted on the White House website, calling for Edward Snowden’s immediate pardon, has gathered more than 30,000 signatures.
Edward Snowden, who leaked details of US top-secret phone and internet surveillance, has disappeared from his hotel in Hong Kong
However, an opinion poll commissioned by the Washington Post suggests a majority of Americans think government monitoring of phone records is acceptable if the aim is to fight terrorism.
Hong Kong’s broadcaster RTHK said Edward Snowden checked out of the Mira hotel on Monday.
Reuters news agency quoted hotel staff as saying that he had left at noon.
Ewen MacAskill, a Guardian journalist, said he believed Edward Snowden was still in Hong Kong.
The Chinese territory has an extradition treaty with the US, although analysts say any attempts to bring Edward Snowden to America may take months and could be blocked by Beijing.
Edward Snowden was revealed as the source of the leaks at his own request by the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
He is believed to have arrived in Hong Kong on May 20. A standard visa on arrival in the territory for a US citizen lasts for 90 days.
His revelations have caused transatlantic political fallout, amid allegations that the UK’s electronic surveillance agency, GCHQ, used the US system to snoop on British citizens.
Foreign Secretary William Hague cancelled a trip to Washington to address the UK parliament on Monday and deny the claims.
Edward Snowden is described by the Guardian as an ex-CIA technical assistant, currently employed by Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense contractor for the US National Security Agency (NSA).
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Ex-CIA employee Edward Snowden has said he acted to “protect basic liberties for people around the world” in leaking details of US phone and internet surveillance.
Edward Snowden, 29, was revealed as the source of the leaks at his own request by the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
Edward Snowden, who says he has fled to Hong Kong, said he had an “obligation to help free people from oppression”.
It emerged last week that US agencies were gathering millions of phone records and monitoring internet data.
A spokesman for the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the case had been referred to the Department of Justice as a criminal matter.
The revelations have caused transatlantic political fallout, amid allegations that the UK’s electronic surveillance agency, GCHQ, used the US system to snoop on British citizens.
Foreign Secretary William Hague cancelled a trip to Washington to address the UK parliament on Monday and deny the claims.
The Guardian quotes Edward Snowden as saying he flew to stay in a hotel in Hong Kong on 20 May, though his exact whereabouts now are unclear.
He is described by the paper as an ex-CIA technical assistant, currently employed by Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense contractor for the US National Security Agency (NSA).
Edward Snowden told the Guardian: “The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting.
“If I wanted to see your emails or your wife’s phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.
“I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things… I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.”
Edward Snowden has said he acted to “protect basic liberties for people around the world” in leaking details of US phone and internet surveillance
He told the paper that the extent of US surveillance was “horrifying”, adding: “We can plant bugs in machines. Once you go on the network, I can identify your machine. You will never be safe whatever protections you put in place.”
Edward Snowden said he did not believe he had committed a crime: “We have seen enough criminality on the part of government. It is hypocritical to make this allegation against me.”
He said he accepted he could end up in jail and fears for people who know him.
Edward Snowden said he had gone to Hong Kong because of its “strong tradition of free speech”.
Hong Kong signed an extradition treaty with the US shortly before the territory returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
However, Beijing can block any extradition if it believes it affects national defense or foreign policy issues.
A standard visa on arrival in Hong Kong for a US citizen lasts for 90 days and Edward Snowden expressed an interest in seeking asylum in Iceland.
However, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post quoted Iceland’s ambassador to China as saying that “according to Icelandic law a person can only submit such an application once he/she is in Iceland”.
In a statement, Booz Allen Hamilton confirmed Edward Snowden had been an employee for less than three months.
“If accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm,” the statement said.
At a daily press briefing on Monday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said he could not comment on the Snowden case, citing an ongoing investigation into the matter.
The first of the leaks came out on Wednesday night, when the Guardian reported a US secret court ordered phone company Verizon to hand over to the NSA millions of records on telephone call “metadata”.
The metadata include the numbers of both phones on a call, its duration, time, date and location (for mobiles, determined by which mobile signal towers relayed the call or text).
On Thursday, the Washington Post and Guardian said the NSA tapped directly into the servers of nine internet firms including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to track online communication in a programme known as PRISM.
All the internet companies deny giving the US government access to their servers.
PRISM is said to give the NSA and FBI access to emails, web chats and other communications directly from the servers of major US internet companies.
The data is used to track foreign nationals suspected of terrorism or spying. The NSA is also collecting the telephone records of American customers, but said it is not recording the content of their calls.
US director of national intelligence James Clapper’s office said information gathered under PRISM was obtained with the approval of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court (FISA).
PRISM was authorized under changes to US surveillance laws passed under President George W. Bush, and renewed last year under Barack Obama.
President BarackObama has defended the surveillance programmes, assuring Americans that nobody was listening to their calls.
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