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Martin Schulz, the head of the European Parliament, has demanded “full clarification” from the US over a report that key EU premises in America have been bugged.
Martin Schulz said that if this was true, it would have a “severe impact” on ties between the EU and the US.
The report, carried by Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, cites a secret 2010 document alleging that the US spied on EU offices in New York and Washington.
Fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked the paper, Der Spiegel says.
Edward Snowden – a former contractor for the CIA and also the National Security Agency (NSA) – has since requested asylum in Ecuador.
According to the document – which Der Spiegel says comes from the NSA – the agency spied on EU internal computer networks in Washington and at the 27-member bloc’s UN office in New York.
The document also allegedly referring to the EU as a “target”.
It is not known what information US spies might have got, but details of European positions on to trade and military matters would have been useful to those involved in negotiations between Washington and European governments.
In a statement on Saturday, Martin Shultz said: “On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations.”
The European Parliament has demanded full clarification from the US over a report that key EU premises in America have been bugged
Der Spiegel also quotes Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn as saying: “If these reports are true, it’s disgusting. The United States would be better off monitoring its secret services rather than its allies.”
The US government has so far made no public comments on the Spiegel’s report.
Edward Snowden is believed to be currently staying at Moscow’s airport. He arrived there last weekend from Hong Kong, where he had been staying since he revealed details of top secret US surveillance programmes.
The US has charged him with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence.
Each charge carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence.
On Saturday, US Vice-President Joe Biden and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa held a telephone conversation about Edward Snowden’s asylum request.
According to Rafael Correa, Joe Biden had “passed on a polite request from the United States to reject the request”.
The left-wing Ecuadorian leader said his answer was: “Mr. vice-president, thanks for calling. We hold the United States in high regard. We did not seek to be in this situation.”
If Edward Snowden ever came to “Ecuadoran soil” with his request, he added, “the first people whose opinion we will seek is that of the United States”.
Quito earlier said it was willing to consider Edward Snowden’s request but only when he was physically in the Latin American country.
Meanwhile, White House spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said only that Joe Biden and Rafael Correa had held a wide-ranging conversation.
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US Vice-president Joe Biden has talked to Ecuador’s leader Rafael Correa by phone about fugitive Edward Snowden’s bid for asylum.
Joe Biden held talks with President Rafael Correa on Friday, the two countries confirmed.
According to Rafael Correa, Joe Biden asked him to reject the request but Washington gave no details.
In a new development, a German magazine says a document leaked by Edward Snowden shows the US bugged EU offices.
Spiegel magazine says a September 2010 “top secret” document of the US National Security Agency (NSA) outlines how the agency bugged offices and spied on EU internal computer networks in Washington and at the UN. The document explicitly referred to the EU as a “target”, the magazine reports.
Edward Snowden is believed to be staying at a Moscow airport, having arrived nearly a week ago from Hong Kong, where he had been staying since he revealed details of top secret US surveillance programmes.
The US has charged him with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence.
Each charge carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence.
US Vice-president Joe Biden has talked to Ecuador’s leader Rafael Correa by phone about fugitive Edward Snowden’s bid for asylum
Ecuador has said it is willing to consider Edward Snowden’s request but only when he is physically in the Latin American country.
Rafael Correa said on Saturday that Joe Biden had “passed on a polite request from the United States to reject the request”.
He said he had told Joe Biden: “Mr. Vice-president, thanks for calling. We hold the United States in high regard. We did not seek to be in this situation. Do not get the idea that we are anti-American, as some ill-spirited media outlets are doing.”
If Edward Snowden ever came to “Ecuadoran soil” with his request, he added, “the first people whose opinion we will seek is that of the United States”.
The Ecuadorean president, a leftist economist who received a doctorate in the US, denied he was seeking to disrupt relations and said he had “lived the happiest days of my life” in the US.
White House spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said only that Joe Biden and Rafael Correa had held a wide-ranging conversation.
Edward Snowden’s father has said he believes his son would return to the US under certain conditions.
Lon Snowden asked for “ironclad assurances” his son’s rights would be protected in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.
He asked his son not be held before trial nor subjected to a gag order, and be able to choose where he was tried.
President Barack Obama has said there will be no “wheeling and dealing” as part of extradition attempts against whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Speaking on a visit to the West African nation of Senegal, Barack Obama said the case would be handled through routine legal channels.
“I am not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker,” the president added.
Edward Snowden, who faces espionage charges, flew to Moscow last weekend and requested asylum in Ecuador.
Barack Obama said on Thursday that he had not called China and Russia’s presidents about the case, adding: “I shouldn’t have to.”
He told a news conference in the Senegalese capital Dakar: “I’m not going to have one case of a suspect who we’re trying to extradite suddenly being elevated to the point where I’ve got to start doing wheeling and dealing and trading on a whole host of other issues.”
The president added: “My continued expectation is that Russia or other countries that have talked about potentially providing Mr. Snowden asylum recognize that they are a part of an international community and they should be abiding by international law.”
The US has accused Russia and China of helping Edward Snowden, which both deny.
President Barack Obama has said there will be no “wheeling and dealing” as part of extradition attempts against whistleblower Edward Snowden
Edward Obama said the leak highlighted significant vulnerabilities at the National Security Agency (NSA), the US electronic spying organization where Edward Snowden worked as a contractor until last month.
“In terms of US interests, the damage was done with respect to the initial leaks,” he said.
Ecuador said on Thursday it had not processed Edward Snowden’s asylum request because he had not reached any of its diplomatic premises.
The country also renounced its multi-million dollar trade relationship with the US, saying its forthcoming renewal would not influence any decision on Edward Snowden’s case.
“Ecuador will not accept pressures or threats from anyone, and it does not traffic in its values or allow them to be subjugated to mercantile interests,” said government spokesman Fernando Alvarado.
He also made an apparently tongue-in-cheek offer of economic aid to the US for human rights training.
The remarks come a day after the chairman of the US Senate foreign relations committee, Robert Menendez, suggested punishing Ecuador economically if it offered asylum to Edward Snowden.
The American is wanted for leaking to media that the US is systematically seizing vast amounts of phone and web data under a surveillance programme known as PRISM.
On Thursday, Beijing accused the US of “double standards” on cybersecurity.
China’s defense ministry said the Prism programme “has revealed the concerned country’s true face and hypocritical behavior”.
Edward Snowden, now 30, fled to Hong Kong on May 20 before flying to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport on Sunday, where Russian authorities say he remains in transit.
Although Russia has no extradition treaty with the US, Washington says it wants Moscow to extradite him without delay.
Russia denies reports its secret police have questioned Edward Snowden, whose US passport has been revoked.
Hong Kong officials said he had been allowed out of the territory because of a mistake in the middle name given on US arrest documents.
The US justice department dismissed that as a “pretext for not acting”.
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Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Russia has had no involvement in the travel plans of fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.
Edward Snowden’s whereabouts are unclear after he flew from Hong Kong to Moscow on Sunday. His US passport has been revoked.
Sergei Lavrov insisted Edward Snowden had not crossed the border and rejected what he termed US attempts to blame Russia for his disappearance.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said the US did not seek “confrontation” but Russia should hand over Edward Snowden.
Correspondents say Sergei Lavrov’s comments suggest that Edward Snowden remained air-side after landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, and so has technically never entered Russian territory.
“We are in no way involved with either Mr. Snowden, his relations with US justice, nor to his movements around the world,” Sergei Lavrov said.
“He chose his itinerary on his own. We learnt about it… from the media. He has not crossed the Russian border.
“We consider the attempts to accuse the Russian side of violating US laws, and practically of involvement in a plot, to be absolutely groundless and unacceptable.”
Edward Snowden, 30, is wanted by the US for revealing to the media details of a secret government surveillance programme, which he obtained while working as a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA).
Speaking during a visit to Saudi Arabia, John Kerry said the transfer of Edward Snowden was a matter of rule of law, and that Russia should remain “calm”.
Edward Snowden’s whereabouts are unclear after he flew from Hong Kong to Moscow
Edward Snowden is charged with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence.
He has applied for asylum in Ecuador. The US has revoked his passport.
Reuters news agency quotes a Moscow airport source as saying that Edward Snowden arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on Sunday afternoon and was due to depart for the Cuban capital, Havana, the following day, but did not use the ticket.
The source said he was travelling with Sarah Harrison, a British legal researcher working for the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.
Meanwhile, China has also described US accusations that it facilitated the departure of fugitive Edward Snowden from Hong Kong as “groundless and unacceptable”.
A foreign ministry spokeswoman said the Hong Kong government had handled the former US intelligence officer’s case in accordance with the law.
The White House had criticized what it termed “a deliberate choice to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant”.
The Chinese government has expressed deep concern about Edward Snowden’s allegations that the US had hacked into networks in China.
Tuesday saw the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party praise Edward Snowden for “tearing off Washington’s sanctimonious mask”.
In a strongly worded front-page commentary, the overseas edition of the People’s Daily said: “Not only did the US authorities not give us an explanation and apology, it instead expressed dissatisfaction at the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for handling things in accordance with law.
“In a sense, the United States has gone from a <<model of human rights>> to <<an eavesdropper on personal privacy>>, the <<manipulator>> of the centralized power over the international internet, and the mad <<invader>> of other countries’ networks.”
Speaking during a visit to India, US Secretary of State John Kerry said it would be “deeply troubling” if it became clear that China had “willfully” allowed him to fly out of Hong Kong.
“There would be without any question some effect and impact on the relationship and consequences,” he said.
He also called on Russia to “live by the standards of the law because that’s in the interests of everybody”.
Edward Snowden was in hiding in Hong Kong when his leaks were first published.
He is being supported by the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, which said on Sunday that he was heading to Ecuador accompanied by some of its diplomats and legal advisers.
Ecuador is already giving political asylum at its London embassy to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Edward Snowden’s leaks have led to revelations that the US is systematically seizing vast amounts of phone and web data under an NSA programme known as PRISM.
US officials have defended the practice of gathering telephone and internet data from private users around the world.
They say PRISM cannot be used to target intentionally any Americans or anyone in the US, and stress that it is supervised by judges.
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Secretary of State John Kerry has said US would be “disappointing” if Russia and China had helped fugitive Edward Snowden evade US attempts to extradite him from Hong Kong.
Speaking during a visit to India, John Kerry said there would inevitably be “consequences” to such a move.
Edward Snowden flew from Hong Kong to Moscow on Sunday.
A seat was booked in his name on a flight to Cuba on Monday morning, but he is not thought to have boarded.
Edward Snowden has applied to Ecuador for political asylum, but the country’s foreign minister has implied he is still in Russia.
And speaking at a news briefing later on Monday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said: “It is our understanding that he [Edward Snowden] is still in Russia.”
He added that senior US officials were briefing President Barack Obama regularly about all the developments.
Edward Snowden, 30, is wanted by the US for revealing to the media details of a secret government surveillance programme, which he obtained while working as an IT contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA).
He is charged with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence.
Speaking during a visit to Delhi in India, John Kerry told reporters it would “be obviously disappointing if he was willfully allowed to board an airplane”.
“As a result there would be without any question some effect and impact on the relationship and consequences.”
Edward Snowden is believed to have spent the night in an airside hotel at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. The US has revoked his passport and wants Russia to hand him over.
John Kerry urged Moscow to “live by the standards of the law because that’s in the interests of everybody”.
John Kerry has said US would be “disappointing” if Russia and China had helped fugitive Edward Snowden evade US attempts to extradite him from Hong Kong
“In the last two years we have transferred seven prisoners to Russia that they wanted so I think reciprocity and the enforcement of the law is pretty important,” he said.
The decision not to “provisionally arrest” Edward Snowden in Hong Kong “unquestionably has a negative impact on the US-China relationship”, he said.
He added that senior US officials were briefing President Barack Obama regularly about all the developments, and called on Russia to use all options to expel the former US spy agency contractor.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Interfax state news agency quoted an informed source as saying Moscow was considering a US extradition request, but that Edward Snowden had not officially crossed the Russian border so could not be detained.
Edward Snowden was in hiding in Hong Kong when his leaks were first published.
During a visit to Vietnam on earlier Monday, Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino read out a letter Edward Snowden had sent to request asylum, in which he said he was “at risk of being persecuted by the US and its agents”.
Ricardo Patino confirmed that his country was processing an asylum request from Edward Snowden.
Quito was in contact with Moscow who could “make the decision it feels is most convenient in accordance with its laws and politics and in accordance with the international laws and norms that could be applied to this case”, he said.
When asked whether he knew of Edward Snowden’s current location he declined to answer.
“We will consider the position of the US government and we will take a decision in due course,” he said, saying Ecuador put the protection of human rights “above any other interest”.
The US and Ecuador have a joint extradition treaty, but it is not applicable to “crimes or offences of a political character”.
Edward Snowden is being supported by the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, which said on Sunday that he was heading to Ecuador accompanied by some of its diplomats and legal advisers.
Ecuador is already giving political asylum at its London embassy to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange – which he denies.
On Monday, Julian Assange said Edward Snowden was “healthy and safe”, and travelling to Ecuador “via a safe path through Russia and other states”.
He said Edward Snowden had left Hong Kong on a refugee document of passage issued by Ecuador, and was not carrying any NSA secrets with him.
Edward Snowden’s leaks have led to revelations that the US is systematically seizing vast amounts of phone and web data under an NSA programme known as PRISM.
He earlier said he had decided to speak out after observing “a continuing litany of lies” from senior officials to Congress.
US officials have defended the practice of gathering telephone and internet data from private users around the world.
They say PRISM cannot be used to intentionally target any Americans or anyone in the US, and that it is supervised by judges.
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Edward Snowden is set to fly from Moscow to Ecuador where he will seek asylum, WikiLeaks has revealed.
Whistleblower Edward Snowden, 30, flew into the Russian capital just after 5 p.m. local time on Sunday after fleeing Hong Kong, where he had been hiding out since leaking explosive details of the U.S. government’s widespread surveillance programs.
Unable to leave Moscow’s Sheremtyevo airport without a Russian visa, the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor is reportedly booked into a $15-an-hour capsule hotel on the airport premises where he will stay before he flies out to Ecuador tomorrow via a “safe route” – presumably Cuba.
In a statement on Sunday afternoon, WikiLeaks said Edward Snowden was bound for Ecuador – a country which has been harboring the anti-secrecy agency’s founder Julian Assange for the past year – “for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from WikiLeaks”.
At around 8:40 p.m. Moscow time, Ecuador’sf oreign minister, Ricardo Patiño Aroca, tweeted that Edward Snowden had officially requested asylum from the South American country.
WikiLeaks said the request will be formally processed once Edward Snowden touches down in Ecuador.
It is not clear if Edward Snowden has arrived at the Vozdushny Express hotel, located in Terminal E, where The Guardian reported that he was booked in. Guests must pay by the hour, however a minimum stay is four hours. On its website, the hotel describes its rooms as resembling “cabins of (a) cruise liner” rather than “capsules”. It is not clear when on Monday Snowden is due to fly to Ecuador – presumably the capital, Quito.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that Edward Snowden’s passport has been revoked by the U.S. though he should still be able to travel to a country that wants to take him, CBS News reported.
A revoked passport, however, may complicate travel to a third country – namely Cuba, which is where he is believed to be passing through en route to Ecuador.
State Department Jen Psaki said in a statement: “As is routine and consistent with US regulations, persons with felony arrest warrants are subject to having their passport revoked. Such a revocation does not affect citizenship status.
“Persons wanted on felony charges, such as Mr. Snowden, should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States. Because of the Privacy Act, we cannot comment on Mr. Snowden’s passport specifically.”
Edward Snowden is set to fly from Moscow to Ecuador where he will seek asylum
Edward Snowden is not expected to leave the airport in Moscow so his immigration status shouldn’t be a concern in Russia.
An Aeroflot source earlier told Interfax: “He has arrived. He cannot leave the terminal, since he doesn’t have a Russian visa.”
Ecuador’s ambassador to Russia, Patricio Chavez, along with crowds of journalists, was waiting to meet with Edward Snowden inside Sheremtyevo airport after his Aeroflot flight from Hong Kong to Moscow landed. Two diplomatic cars from the Ecuador embassy were photographed in the car park.
It was earlier reported that Edward Snowden would fly to Havana, Cuba tomorrow and then on to Caracas in Venezuela, though Ecuador perhaps makes more sense as a safe haven given the country has been harboring WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in its London embassy for more than a year.
The White House said President Barack Obama has been briefed on Sunday’s developments, which could prove embarrassing for the government.
After news spread of the whistleblower’s departure from Hong Kong, U.S. politicians began again labeling Edward Snowden a “traitor” and demanding the Obama administration chase him to the ends of the earth.
“I think it is important for the American people to realize that this guy is a traitor, a defector, he’s not a hero,” Republican congressman for New York Peter King said on Fox News on Sunday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Republican senator for South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, told the same station: “I hope we’ll chase him to the ends of the earth, bring him to justice and let the Russians know there will be consequences if they harbor this guy.”
WikiLeaks said in the statement Edward Snowden requested its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety.
“The WikiLeaks legal team and I are interested in preserving Mr. Snowden’s rights and protecting him as a person,” Former Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, legal director of Wikileaks and lawyer for Assange, said in a statement on Sunday.
“What is being done to Mr. Snowden and to Mr. Julian Assange – for making or facilitating disclosures in the public interest – is an assault against the people.”
WikiLeaks already helped Edward Snowden flee Hong Kong. He caught Aeroflot flight SU213 from Hong Kong to Moscow on Sunday morning.
WikiLeaks said in an earlier statement that its legal advisers had been on the plane to Moscow with Edward Snowden and they would help ‘secure his safety’ at his ‘final destination’.
In tweets from its official account, Wikileaks said: “WikiLeaks has assisted Mr. Snowden’s political asylum in a democratic country, travel papers and safe exit from Hong Kong.
“Mr. Snowden is currently over Russian airspace accompanied by WikiLeaks legal advisors.”
The site has confirmed British journalist and legal researcher Sarah Harrison was with Edward Snowden on the flight, adding she was “courageously” assisting him “in his passage to safety”.
The Hong Kong government confirmed he had left the country “on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel”.
Edward Snowden got an Aeroflot flight from Chep Lap Kok airport at 11.04 a.m. Sunday (Hong Kong time) and landed at Moscow’s Shermetyevo International Airport at 5.15 p.m.
A Moscow-based agent for the airline said Edward Snowden was traveling on a one-way ticket and had one person with him, the New York Times reported.
The U.S. Department of Justice said it had been informed Edward Snowden had left Hong Kong.
“We will continue to discuss this matter with Hong Kong and pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel,” spokesman, Nanda Chitre, told CBS News.
The Hong Kong government said in a statement that it had told the US about the whistleblower’s departure.
The U.S. government Saturday warned Hong Kong not to drag its feet over extraditing Edward Snowden after he was charged with theft, espionage and theft of government property.
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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is trying to arrange a deal that would see US surveillance programme leaker Edward Snowden granted asylum in Iceland.
Julian Assange said he had been in touch with lawyers for Edward Snowden, who fled to Hong Kong before the scandal broke.
Iceland’s PM said “informal discussions” had been held with an intermediary of ex-CIA contractor Edward Snowden.
But Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson said Edward Snowden would need to be in Iceland to apply for asylum.
Edward Snowden, 29, who most recently worked as a contract computer technician for the National Security Agency (NSA), the US electronic spying agency, has vowed to fight any extradition attempts by the US.
The US has yet to file a formal request for his extradition from the Chinese territory.
The leaks, published in a series of articles this month in The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers, revealed that US agencies had systematically gathered vast amounts of phone and web data.
“We are in touch with Mr. Snowden’s legal team and have been, are involved, in the process of brokering his asylum in Iceland,” said Julian Assange in a conference call from the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he himself is fighting extradition to Sweden.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is trying to broker a deal that would see Edward Snowden granted asylum in Iceland
On Monday, Edward Snowden said US officials had destroyed any possibility of a fair trial by labeling him a traitor.
“The US government, just as they did with other whistleblowers, immediately and predictably destroyed any possibility of a fair trial at home, openly declaring me guilty of treason,” he wrote in a live online chat.
Former Vice-President Dick Cheney and two influential members of the US Congress have accused Edward Snowden of betraying his country.
Edward Snowden’s father has also urged his son not to commit “treason”, using a US TV interview this week to urge him to come home and “face justice”.
NSA Director General Keith Alexander told Congress on Wednesday that surveillance programmes leaked by Edward Snowden had helped thwart 50 attacks since 2001.
Plans to attack the New York Stock Exchange were among 10 plots targeting the US that had been stopped, Keith Alexander told the intelligence committee of the House of Representatives, adding that the snooping operations were critical.
Julian Assange walked into the Ecuadorean embassy in London on 19 June 2012 when his appeal against extradition to Sweden for questioning on accusations of sex crimes was turned down.
He has always denied the accusations, and said on Wednesday he would stay in the embassy even if they were dropped, as he still feared being sent to the US for releasing secret documents.
Wikileaks made headlines around the world in 2010 after it released more than 250,000 leaked US diplomatic cables.
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Apple has decided to publish details of data requests from the US authorities.
Apple is the latest tech firm to disclose the US government requests and said it received demands for information linked to between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices between December 2012 and the end of May 2013.
It said the demands included “national security matters” among other information. Microsoft and Facebook published similar numbers last week.
But Google and Twitter have said that such disclosures are not helpful.
“We have always believed that it’s important to differentiate between different types of government requests,” said a statement by Google published on Saturday.
“Lumping the two categories together would be a step back for users.”
A tweet from Twitter’s legal director, Benjamin Lee, added: “We agree… it’s important to be able to publish numbers of national security requests – including FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] disclosures – separately.”
Apple has decided to publish details of data requests from the US authorities
Tech firms have been under pressure to disclose information about data passed to the National Security Agency (NSA) since The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers revealed the existence of PRISM – a programme giving the NSA access to user data held on the servers of tech firms including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, and Apple.
The NSA later confirmed the existence of the surveillance scheme as well as a separate phone records programme which it said had helped it thwart terrorist plots in the US and more than 20 other countries.
However, privacy activists and some politicians have raised concerns that the efforts went beyond what was intended under powers granted by the Patriot Act following the 11 September 2001 terror attacks.
Following the revelations, several of the tech firms involved said they had asked the US government to allow them to disclose information which would help them address concern about the scale of information that had been handed over.
On Friday, Facebook and Microsoft announced they had been given permission to reveal the number of data requests from US officials in aggregate, and Apple has now followed with its own statement.
“We first heard of the government’s <<PRISM>> program when news organizations asked us about it on June 6,” it said.
“We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer content must get a court order.”
Facebook added that between 1 December 2012 and 31 May 2013 it received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from US law enforcement for customer data, involving between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices. It did not say with how many it had complied.
It said the “common form of request” came from police who were investigating crimes such as robberies, trying to find missing children and patients with Alzheimer’s disease, or hoping to prevent suicides.
It noted that it would not have been able to decode encrypted conversations which took place over its iMessage or Facetime chat software on behalf of the authorities, nor did it store “identifiable” data related to Apple Map searches or requests made to its voice-controlled Siri service.
“Regardless of the circumstances, our legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities,” it added.
It was revealed that Yahoo’s top lawyers had a courtroom showdown with the National Security Agency after it had demanded information on certain foreign users without a warrant, but the tech giant lost and was forced to hand over the data.
Court documents obtained by the New York Times show that Yahoo had initially refused to join the PRISM spying program, insisting that the broad national security requests seeking users’ personal information were unconstitutional.
However, the secret court operating under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) sided with the NSA and forced Yahoo’s hand.
Information about Yahoo’s legal battle against the NSA first emerged in a heavily redacted court order, but the name of the company involved had not been released until now.
It was claimed that besides Yahoo, a number of major Silicon Valley companies became part of PRISM, among them Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, YouTube, Skype, AOL and the lesser known Internet company PalTalk, which has hosted a lot of traffic during the Arab Spring and the on-going Syrian civil war.
However, only Facebook and Google have been shown to have worked toward creating “online rooms” in which to share data with the government.
Information about the classified program was leaked last week by NSA systems administrator Edward Snowden, 29, who smuggled the files concerning PRISM on a thumb drive.
Yahoo fought against NSA’s warrantless spying program but lost and was forced by secret court to join PRISM
In 2008, Yahoo argued that NSA’s requests seeking to obtain its users’ private data violated their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures, but the judges on the FISA court disagreed with the company’s assessment, calling their concerns “overblown”, the Times reported.
“Notwithstanding the parade of horrible trotted out by the petitioner, it has presented no evidence of any actual harm, any egregious risk of error, or any broad potential for abuse,” the court said, adding that the government’s “efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts”.
Yahoo’s defeat in court reportedly left other top players in the industry more reluctant to challenge the NSA on surveillance request.
So far, Yahoo, Google and Facebook have all denied their involvement in PRISM.
“Yahoo! has not joined any program in which we volunteer to share user data with the U.S. government,” Yahoo General Counsel Ron Bell wrote in a Tumblr post Saturday.
“We do not voluntarily disclose user information. The only disclosures that occur are in response to specific demands.”
In the wake of the unwarranted spying scandal, a number of top Silicon Valley companies, among them Facebook, Google and Microsoft, have asked the government to overturn a gag order allowing them to publicly disclose national security requests.
Google Inc was the first to go public with its demand for greater transparency, releasing an open letter asking the U.S. Department of Justice for permission to disclose the number and scope of data requests each receives from security agencies, including confidential FISA requests.
Microsoft Corp and Facebook Inc soon followed with similarly worded statements in support of Google.
Last year, the US government issued more than 1,850 FISA requests and 15,000 National Security Letters, which refers to requests filed by the FBI to collect information about Americans.
Between 2008 and 2012, only two of more than 8,500 FISA requests were rejected by the secret court, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a non-profit research group.
Facebook revealed today that it received 9,000-10,000 requests for user data from US government entities in the second half of 2012.
The social-network said the requests, relating to between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts, covered issues from local crime to national security.
Microsoft meanwhile said it received 6,000 and 7,000 requests for data from between 31,000 and 32,000 accounts.
Leaks by former computer technician Edward Snowden suggest the US electronic surveillance programme is far larger than was known.
Internet companies – including Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Apple and Microsoft – were reported last week to have granted the National Security Agency (NSA) “direct access” to their servers under a data collection programme called PRISM.
The firms denied the accusations, saying they gave no such access but did comply with lawful requests.
Several also called on the government to grant them permission to release data about the number of classified orders they received.
In an effort to reassure its users, Facebook lawyer Ted Ullyot wrote on the company’s blog that following discussions with the relevant authorities it could for the first time report all US national security-related requests for data.
“As of today, the government will only authorize us to communicate about these numbers in aggregate, and as a range,” he said.
Facebook revealed it received 9,000-10,000 requests for user data from US government entities in the second half of 2012
For the six months ending 31 December 2012, the total number of user-data requests Facebook received was between 9,000 and 10,000, relating to between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts.
“These requests run the gamut – from things like a local sheriff trying to find a missing child, to a federal marshal tracking a fugitive, to a police department investigating an assault, to a national security official investigating a terrorist threat,” Ted Ullyot said.
“With more than 1.1 billion monthly active users worldwide, this means that a tiny fraction of 1% of our user accounts were the subject of any kind of US state, local, or federal US government request.”
Ted Ullyot did not indicate to what extent the company had fulfilled the requests, but said Facebook had “aggressively” protected its users’ data.
“We frequently reject such requests outright, or require the government to substantially scale down its requests, or simply give the government much less data than it has requested,” he said.
Later, Microsoft also published information about the volume of national security orders during the second half of 2012, stressing that they had an impact on only “a tiny fraction of Microsoft’s global customer base”.
While praising the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation for permitting the disclosures, Microsoft Vice-President John Frank called on them to “take further steps”.
“With more time, we hope they will take further steps. Transparency alone may not be enough to restore public confidence, but it’s a great place to start,” he wrote in a statement.
Earlier this month, Edward Snowden, a former employee of defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and former CIA technical assistant, leaked details of the PRISM programme.
Edward Snowden, 29, fled the US to Hong Kong shortly before the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers published his revelations.
His whereabouts are unknown, and he has vowed to fight extradition to the US should the authorities attempt to prosecute him.
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The British government has warned airlines not to allow Edward Snowden, an ex-CIA employee who leaked secret US surveillance details, to fly to the UK, according to reports.
The Associated Press news agency reported seeing a document at a Thai airport telling carriers to stop Edward Snowden, 29, boarding any flights.
The travel alert – reported to feature a Home Office letterhead – said Edward Snowden “is highly likely to be refused entry to the UK”.
The Home Office would not comment.
According to AP, the alert was issued on Monday by the Home Office’s risk and liaison overseas network.
The document had a photograph of Edward Snowden and gave his date of birth and passport number, the news agency reported.
It said: “If this individual attempts to travel to the UK: Carriers should deny boarding.”
The British government has warned airlines not to allow Edward Snowden to fly to the UK
It went on to warn airlines they may “be liable to costs relating to the individual’s detention and removal” should they allow him to travel.
According to the Home Office website, a charge for such a situation would be £2,000 ($3,130).
Bangkok Airways, Singapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines confirmed they had received the notice, which was not supposed to be seen by the public, AP reported.
The Home Office does have the power to block people’s entry to the UK in certain circumstances, such as if it believes it is in the public interest to do so.
The powers had been used in the past, including to deny entry to extremist preachers and extremist European politicians.
Edward Snowden was last seen in Hong Kong, where he travelled ahead of the Guardian newspaper’s stories revealing the extent of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) programme to take data from US internet and telephone firms.
There is no suggestion that he has any intention of trying to travel to the UK.
Edward Snowden’s actions have divided opinion in the US, with some calling him a hero and others calling for him to be tried for treason.
FBI Director Robert Mueller says the US is taking “all necessary steps” to hold Edward Snowden responsible for exposing secret surveillance programmes.
Robert Mueller confirmed to the House judiciary committee that a criminal investigation had been launched.
Edward Snowden, 29, has admitted leaking information about National Security Agency (NSA) programmes that seize data from US internet and telephone firms.
Meanwhile, US senators briefed on the programmes have largely defended them.
Edward Snowden, who has pledged to fight any attempt to extradite him to the US, fled his home in Hawaii for Hong Kong shortly before reports of the top secret programmes were published by the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers last week.
China says it has “no information to offer” on the leaker’s whereabouts.
Edward Snowden, a former NSA contract computer technician, has admitted giving the newspapers information about NSA programmes that seize vast quantities of data from US internet and telephone companies.
In testimony on Thursday, Robert Mueller told the judiciary committee the leak caused “significant harm to our nation and to our safety”.
The FBI director, who is due to step down in September after 12 years in the job, said intelligence gathered following the leaks showed plotters were adapting to the revelations.
“One of my problems is that we’re going to… lose our ability to get their communications,” Robert Mueller said.
“We are going to be exceptionally vulnerable.”
He also stressed the phone records programme collected “no content whatsoever”.
Some committee members remained unconvinced by Robert Mueller’s defense.
Representative John Conyers, the committee’s top Democrat, said he feared the US was “on the verge of becoming a surveillance state”.
FBI Director Robert Mueller says the US is taking “all necessary steps” to hold Edward Snowden responsible for exposing secret surveillance programmes
Robert Mueller said if the programmes had been place before the 9/11 attacks, they might have uncovered the plot.
“That opportunity would have been there,” he said.
But John Conyers replied: “I am not persuaded that that makes it OK to collect every call.”
The FBI director also told lawmakers Edward Snowden was the “subject of an ongoing criminal investigation” related to the leaks but would not give details on the status of the case.
Meanwhile, senators leaving a closed-door briefing with General Keith Alexander of the NSA largely defended the programmes.
Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska insisted procedures were already in place to protect Americans from government snooping and that the revelations in the news media had mischaracterized the programmes.
“It is misunderstood that American private information, emails and phone calls are being rummaged through by the government – that is not true,” he said.
“Only when there is probable cause given with a court order of a federal judge can they go into the content of phone calls and emails in order to be able to disrupt a terrorist plot.”
Tennessee Republican Senator Bob Corker told reporters lawmakers were given “some specific and helpful information about how these programmes have helped keep Americans safe”.
Senate intelligence committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, predicted the Senate would consider legislation to curb contractors’ access to secret data.
In an interview at an undisclosed Hong Kong location published in the South China Morning Post on Wednesday, Edward Snowden said he believed there had been more than 61,000 NSA global hacking operations which targeted powerful “network backbones”.
He vowed to fight extradition to the US.
“All I can do is rely on my training and hope that world governments will refuse to be bullied by the United States into persecuting people seeking political refuge,” the paper quoted Edward Snowden as saying.
“Things are very difficult for me in all terms, but speaking truth to power is never without risk,” he said.
“It has been difficult, but I have been glad to see the global public speak out against these sorts of systemic violations of privacy.”
Who is Edward Snowden?
- Age 29, grew up in North Carolina
- Joined army reserves in 2004, discharged four months later, according to the Guardian
- First job at National Security Agency was as security guard
- Worked on IT security at the CIA
- Left CIA in 2009 for contract work at NSA for various firms including Booz Allen
- Called himself Verax, Latin for “speaking the truth”, in exchanges with the Washington Post
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The European Union is demanding assurances that Europeans are not having their rights infringed by a massive US surveillance programme.
Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding plans to raise the concerns with US Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday.
Last week a series of leaks by a former CIA worker led to claims the US had a vast surveillance network with much less oversight than previously thought.
The US insists its snooping is legal under domestic law.
The Obama administration is investigating whether the disclosures by former CIA worker Edward Snowden were a criminal offence.
Edward Snowden’s employer, defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, said on Tuesday it had fired the 29-year-old infrastructure analyst for violating its ethics code.
US officials say the snooping programme known as PRISM, revealed in last week’s leaks, is authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
It gives the US National Security Agency (NSA) the power to obtain emails and phone records relating to non-US nationals.
But details about the individuals targeted under the act remain secret, and there are concerns the NSA is overstepping its powers.
The EU is demanding assurances that Europeans are not having their rights infringed by US surveillance programme
Documents leaked to the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers claimed the US authorities had direct access to the servers of nine major US technology firms, including Apple, Facebook and Google.
Edward Snowden told the Guardian that individual operatives had the power to tap into anyone’s emails at any time.
Although the firms have denied granting such access, saying they agreed only to legal requests, US officials have admitted PRISM exists.
One of the Guardian journalists who wrote the PRISM stories, Glenn Greenwald, has promised “more significant revelations” to come.
In the US, the controversy has focused on the possibility that conversations of US citizens may inadvertently be captured.
But overseas, governments and activists point out that US law provides foreigners with no protection.
Justice Commissioner Reding tweeted: “This case shows why a clear legal framework for the protection of personal data is not a luxury but a necessity.”
Edward Snowden is believed to be in hiding a day after he reportedly checked out of a Hong Kong hotel.
In the US, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, said the American authorities were “aggressively” pursuing him.
The California Democrat also accused Edward Snowden of “an act of treason”.
The top Republican in the US House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner, labeled Edward Snowden a “traitor”.
“The disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk,” he told ABC News on Tuesday morning.
“And it’s a giant violation of the law.”
The government began wireless wiretapping after the 9/11 attacks, but the surveillance policy expanded under President Barack Obama.
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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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Edward Snowden, the former CIA contractor who has identified himself as the source of leaks about the US National Security Agency’s surveillance programmes, is believed to be holed up in a hotel in Hong Kong.
Edward Snowden, 29, told The Guardian he flew to Hong Kong on May 20, after leaking information about the NSA’s surveillance programme.
He said that he chose Hong Kong because the city has “a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent”.
Edward Snowden’s current whereabouts cannot be confirmed, and the Hong Kong government has not publicly commented on his case, although journalists are staking out various hotels in Hong Kong where they believe Snowden may be hiding.
The US says it has referred the issue to its Department of Justice as a criminal matter. Some analysts and experts believe Edward Snowden faces the strong risk of extradition to the US, if such a move is requested.
Hong Kong signed an extradition treaty with the US shortly before the territory returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
“You get extraditions several times a year from Hong Kong,” said Clive Grossman S.C, a barrister and former vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association.
Under the Fugitive Offenders (United States of America) Order, both Hong Kong and the US have agreed to extradite someone who has committed “an offence which is punishable under the laws of both Parties by imprisonment or other form of detention for more than one year… unless surrender for such offence is prohibited by the laws of the requested Party.”
Regina Ip, a legislator and Hong Kong’s former Secretary for Security, told reporters that the Hong Kong government was “obliged to comply with the terms of agreements” with the US government, including extradition treaties.
Edward Snowden, the former CIA contractor who has identified himself as the source of leaks about the NSA’s surveillance programmes, is believed to be holed up in a hotel in Hong Kong
“It’s actually in his best interest to leave Hong Kong,” she said, referring to Edward Snowden.
However, the extradition process can be a long and complicated one in sensitive cases like this, said Tim Parker, an immigration lawyer based in Hong Kong.
“There are a number of hurdles that could come up for the extraditing authority, to the advantage of Snowden,” he said.
“There is a bar under Hong Kong’s extradition law… to extradition for an offence that is of a political character, [where] the prosecution is thought not just to be the application of the criminal law, but to crush that person or to crush their dissent,” Tim Parker said.
Another potential hurdle would be any intervention from Beijing, which could block an extradition if it raised questions “going to their national security, foreign affairs, or defense,” Tim Parker said.
A handover could also be halted if Edward Snowden was believed to be in danger receiving of inhumane treatment in the US, Tim Parker added.
“If Mr. Snowden is at risk of being detained under the sort of conditions that Bradley Manning has reportedly been detained, which the UN special rapporteurs have said amounted to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment… then Hong Kong would not be allowed under its law, and could not extradite him to the US.”
A further consideration is what visa Edward Snowden used to enter Hong Kong. If his visa is due to expire soon, a formal extradition request may not be needed.
However, it would not be “legally possible” under Hong Kong law for Edward Snowden to be forcibly taken to Beijing, Tim Parker said.
“That would be a serious breach of the autonomy under Hong Kong’s One Country Two Systems arrangement. There aren’t really any known cases of that having been done off the books [either],” he added.
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Edward Snowden, a former CIA technical worker, has been identified by the UK’s Guardian newspaper as the source of leaks about US surveillance programmes.
Edward Snowden, 29, is described by the Guardian as an ex-CIA technical assistant, currently employed by defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.
The Guardian said his identity was being revealed at his own request.
The recent revelations are that US agencies gathered millions of phone records and monitored internet data.
The Guardian quotes Edward Snowden as saying he flew to Hong Kong on May 20, where he holed himself up in a hotel.
He told the paper: “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.”
Asked what he thought would happen to him, he replied: “Nothing good.”
Edward Snowden said he had gone to Hong Kong because of its “strong tradition of free speech”.
The first of the leaks came out on Wednesday night, when the Guardian reported a US secret court had ordered phone company Verizon to hand over to the National Security Agency (NSA) millions of records on telephone call “metadata”.
Edward Snowden, a former CIA technical worker, has been identified as the source of leaks about US surveillance programmes
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).
That report was followed by revelations in both the Washington Post and Guardian that 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 are used to track foreign nationals suspected of terrorism or spying. The NSA is also collecting the telephone records of American customers, but not recording the content of their calls.
On Saturday, US director of national intelligence James Clapper called the leaks “literally gut-wrenching”.
“I hope we’re able to track down whoever’s doing this, because it is extremely damaging to, and it affects the safety and security of this country,” he told NBC News on Saturday.
PRISM was reportedly established in 2007 in order to provide in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information on foreigners overseas.
The NSA has filed a criminal report with the US Justice Department over the leaks.
The content of phone conversations – what people say to each other when they are on the phone – is protected by the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, which forbids unreasonable searches.
However, information shared with a third party, such as phone companies, is not out of bounds.
That means that data about phone calls – such as their timing and duration – can be scooped up by government officials.
James Clapper’s office issued a statement on Saturday, saying all the 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 Bush and renewed last year under Barack Obama.
On Friday, Barack Obama defended the surveillance programmes as a “modest encroachment” on privacy, necessary to protect the US from terrorist attacks.
“Nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That’s not what this program is about,” he said, emphasizing that the programmes were authorized by Congress.
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Set up by President Harry S. Truman in 1953, the National Security Agency (NSA) is the eyes and ears of America across the globe, intercepting 1.7 billion emails, phone calls a day.
The NSA is a secretive body that serves the military and intelligence communities by collecting all forms of foreign communications to prevent attacks on the US.
The agency was prohibited by law from intercepting domestic communications without a warrant until George W. Bush issued a caveat in the wake of 9/11 under the controversial “terrorist surveillance program”.
Nonetheless, over the years the NSA has been engulfed in a number of wiretapping scandals.
President Harry S. Truman set up the National Security Agency in 1953
They include President Richard Nixon’s illegal wiretapping, through the NSA, of five members of his national security staff, two newsmen, and a staffer at the Department of Defense in a bid to uncover who was leaking information about his plans for the Vietnam War.
In 2005 it was revealed George W. Bush had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans calling abroad without warrants in a bid to thwart terrorism. He strenuously denied the allegations until he finally conceded he had committed an impeachable offense.
In 2009, under President Barack Obama, the US Department of Justice acknowledged the NSA had gone beyond its remit in tapping the phonelines of American citizens, including a Congressman but claimed that the acts were unintentional and had since been rectified.
Last month, it was accused of building an $1.2 billion cyber base to keep tabs on American citizens.
The state-of-the-art data centre in the Utah desert – codenamed Bumblehive – is intended to bolster online security efforts.
But former employees say it could be used to monitor people’s private emails.
The NSA branded the allegations “unfounded”, adding that it remained “unwavering” in its respect for U.S. laws and American citizens’ civil liberties, and noted that it was subject to broad oversight by all three branches of government.
President Barack Obama delivered a passionate defense on Friday of National Security Agency (NSA) programs that secretly acquire information about Americans’ phone calls, saying criticism of them is all “hype”.
“My assessment and my team’s assessment was that [the programs] help us prevent terrorist attacks and that the modest encroachments on privacy that are involved in getting phone numbers or duration [of calls] without a name attached… It was worth us doing.”
Barack Obama made the remarks at a press conference in response to revelations about two separate programs used to spy on American citizens and foreign nationals. One program involves the collection of U.S. Verizon customers phone records. The other program – dubbed PRISM – allows the government to scour the Internet usage of foreign nationals overseas who use any of nine U.S.-based internet providers such as Microsoft and Google.
“I think it’s important to understand that you can’t have 100% security and then have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience,” the president said.
“We’re going to have to make some choices as a society.”
Barack Obama said the PRISM program does not involve monitoring the email content of U.S. citizens or anyone living in the U.S., and he repeatedly stated that both programs – the phone spying and PRISM – have been approved by Congress.
“You can complain about <<big brother>> and how this is a potential program run amuck,” Barack Obama added.
“But when you actually look at the details, then I think we’ve stuck the right balance.”
Barack Obama said the programs have plenty of checks in place, including repeated authorizations by Congress and approval by the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court, to assure no abuses by the government.
“Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,” he said.
“That’s not what this program’s about.”
Barack Obama delivered a passionate defense of NSA programs that secretly acquire information about Americans’ phone calls
If U.S. citizens decide they want to axe the programs, Barack Obama “welcomes” that debate, he said. But at the same time, he expressed concern over the fact that the classified programs were leaked to the media.
“I don’t welcome leaks, because there’s a reason why these programs are classified,” the president said.
The Washington Post reported Friday that for the past six years, U.S. intelligence agencies have been extracting audio, video, photos, e-mails, documents and other information to track people’s movements and contacts.
The Silicon Valley companies involved in the PRISM program are Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Skype, AOL and the lesser known Internet company PalTalk, which has hosted a lot of traffic during the Arab Spring and the on-going Syrian civil war.
The scandal deepened after it emerged that the Silicon Valley Internet giants have been passing the acquired information on to the UK.
The Guardian reported that GCHQ, the UK’s communications intelligence agency, has had access to data collected through PRISM program since at least June 2010, and last year generated 197 intelligence reports from it.
The newspaper also first reported the phone-spying program, through which the NSA has been collecting information on Verizon customers’ phone calls, including call duration and frequency.
The revelations – which are the largest anti-terror intelligence-gathering operation since 9/11 – have placed massive pressure on Barack Obama, who is already reeling from the recent IRS scandal.
In addition to the names already on the list, the cloud-storage service Dropbox was described as “coming soon” to PRISM.
Twitter, which is known for zealously protecting its users’ privacy, is conspicuous in its absence from the list of Internet companies involved in the data-mining program.
PRISM was launched in 2007 with the blessing of special federal judges under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The Post said that several members of the U.S. Congress were made aware of the classified data-gathering program, but were sworn to secrecy.
All forms of wiretapping of U.S. citizens by the NSA requires a warrant from a three-judge court set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act passed in 1978.
But former President George W. Bush issued an executive order shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York that authorized the NSA to monitor certain phone calls without permission.
The warrantless wiretapping program remained a secret until 2005, when a whistleblower went to the press to reveal the extent of the surveillance.
And although the NSA has strenuously denied acting beyond its surveillance powers, groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have warned that the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) – a bill currently passing through Congress – could dramatically increase the amount of personal data that government agencies have legal access to.
The particulars of today’s revelation were outlined in a top-secret PowerPoint presentation for senior intelligence analysts, which ended up being leaked to The Post and UK’s The Guardian.
According to The Washington Post, the tech companies are knowingly taking part in PRISM, but The Guardian reported than all nine pleaded ignorance of the program.
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James Clapper, director of US National Intelligence, has strongly defended government surveillance programmes after revelations of phone records being collected and internet servers being tapped.
Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper said disclosure of a secret court document on phone record collection threatened “irreversible harm”.
Revelations of an alleged programme to tap into servers of nine internet firms were “reprehensible”, he said.
Internet firms deny giving government agents access to their servers.
The director of US national intelligence issued a strong-worded statement late on Thursday, after the UK’s Guardian newspaper said a secret court order had required phone company Verizon to hand over its records to the National Security Agency (NSA) on an “ongoing daily basis”.
That report was followed by revelations in both the Washington Post and Guardian that US agencies tapped directly into the servers of nine internet firms to track people in a programme known as Prism.
The reports about Prism will raise fresh questions about how far the US government should encroach on citizens’ privacy in the interests of national security.
The NSA confirmed that it had been secretly collecting millions of phone records. But James R. Clapper said the “unauthorized disclosure… threatens potentially long-lasting and irreversible harm to our ability to identify and respond to the many threats facing our nation”.
The article omitted “key information” about the use of the records “to prevent terrorist attacks and the numerous safeguards that protect privacy and civil liberties”.
He said reports about Prism contained “numerous inaccuracies”. While admitting the government collected communications from internet firms, he said the policy only targets “non-US persons”.
Prism was reportedly developed in 2007 out of a programme of domestic surveillance without warrants that was set up by President George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks.
Prism reportedly does not collect user data, but is able to pull out material that matches a set of search terms.
James Clapper, director of US National Intelligence, has strongly defended government surveillance programmes after revelations of phone records being collected and internet servers being tapped
James Clapper said the communications-collection programme was “designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-US persons located outside the United States”.
“It cannot be used to intentionally target any US citizen, any other US person, or anyone located within the United States,” he added.
James Clapper said the programme, under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, was recently reauthorized by Congress after hearings and debate.
“Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable foreign intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats,” he added.
But while US citizens were not intended to be the targets of surveillance, the Washington Post says large quantities of content from Americans are nevertheless screened in order to track or learn more about the target.
The data gathered through Prism has grown to become a major contributor to the president’s daily briefing and accounts for almost one in seven intelligence reports, it adds.
The Washington Post named the nine companies participating in the programme as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple.
Microsoft said in a statement that it only turned over customer data when given a legally binding order, and only complied with orders for specific accounts.
“If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don’t participate in it,” Microsoft said.
Meanwhile, Yahoo, Apple and Facebook said they did not give the government direct access to their servers.
In a statement, Google said: “Google does not have a <<back door>> for the government to access private user data.”
On Wednesday, it emerged that the NSA was collecting the phone records of tens of millions of Americans, after the Guardian published a secret order for the Verizon phone company to hand over its records.
A senior congressman, House intelligence committee chairman Mike Rogers, told reporters that collecting Americans’ phone records was legal, authorized by Congress and had not been abused by the Obama administration.
He also said it had prevented a “significant” attack on the US “within the past few years”, but declined to offer more information.
The order requires Verizon – one of the largest phone companies in the US – to disclose to the NSA the metadata of all calls it processes, both domestic and international, in which at least one party is in the US.
Such metadata includes telephone numbers, calling card numbers, the serial numbers of phones used and the time and duration of calls. It does not include the content of a call or the callers’ addresses or financial information.
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