The US National Security Agency has subverted an international
agreement in order to save and examine the phone, internet, and other
communication records of UK citizens not suspected of any wrongdoing, according
to a new report.
The Guardian report is based on a
2007 NSA memo revealing that the shadowy agency specifically sought to “unmask” the personal data that British residents wanted to
keep private. Where American and British lawmakers have repeatedly claimed that
the far-reaching clandestine programs first revealed in June were designed to
combat terrorism, Wednesday’s leak makes those claims problematic and point to a
loose interpretation of what data can be collected to that end.
It indicates that the NSA was
previously forced to remove the cell phone numbers, fax numbers, emails, and IP
addresses caught in its clandestine efforts. Those restrictions loosened in 2007
after an agreement between the US and UK no longer required the agency to “minimize” its data records.
The records are also being made available to US intelligence
and military agencies other than the NSA.
The documents were published in a collaborative effort by the
Guardian and Channel 4 News in Britain. It is the latest report assembled from
classified documents released to the press by former NSA contractor Edward
Snowden, who has fled the US and is now living under temporary asylum in Russia.
His disclosures have sparked international anger, with US allies condemning the
surveillance.
Personal information belonging to UK residents were
“incidentally collected” by the dragnet, indicating the individuals in question
were not thought to have committed any crime, much less terrorism, nor were they
the actual targets of the surveillance.
NSA leaders have admitted that
intelligence analysts will collect information within “three
hops” from the surveillance target, meaning they investigate the
communications of a friend of a friend of a friend from that person. If starting
its focus on one Facebook user this strategy, according to research conducted by
the Guardian, could yield information for more than five million people.
The memo in question shows the
NSA has been using the data collected from the UK for so-called “pattern of life” or “contact-chaining”
inquiries, which are connected to the “three hops”
examinations.
The link between the Americans and the British intelligence
agencies constitutes the main partnership of the “Five Eyes” data-sharing
alliance. Also involved are Canada, Australia, and New Zealand; however it seems
to have always been an understanding that the nations will not collect
information on the public of any other.
The NSA document describes the
Five Eyes agreement as one that “has evolved to include a
common understanding that both governments will not target each other’s
citizens/persons.”
Yet a separate NSA memo from 2005 outlines a proposed
classified procedure that would give the agency access to another Five Eye
nation, even when that partner has explicitly denied the US access.
This document, as viewed by the
Guardian, plainly states to intelligence analysts that the targeted Five Eye
nation must not be able to identify an American surveillance effort or the
procedure that would allow it. A stipulation in the document notes that
government “reserved the right” to monitor other Five Eyes’ citizens “when it is in the best interests of each nation.”
“Therefore,” it continues, “under certain
circumstances, it may be advisable and allowable to target second party persons
and secondary party communications systems unilaterally, when it is in the best
interests of the US and necessary for US national security.”
