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49-475: In the wake of the 2013 surveillance disclosures , members of the House considered a reform amendment that would limit bulk data collection. Conyers described his reactions to the disclosures as saying "It was shocking and disappointing that we went this far. I'm not happy about it." The proposal was to amend the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act . According to Amash, the amendment: Notable opposition to

98-558: A DA-Notice . In November 2013, a criminal investigation of the disclosure was undertaken by Britain's Metropolitan Police Service . In December 2013, The Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said: "We have published I think 26 documents so far out of the 58,000 we've seen." The extent to which the media reports responsibly informed the public is disputed. In January 2014, Obama said that "the sensational way in which these disclosures have come out has often shed more heat than light" and critics such as Sean Wilentz have noted that many of

147-535: A Pulitzer Prize –winning journalist who led The Washington Post ' s coverage of Snowden's disclosures, summarized the leaks as follows: Taken together, the revelations have brought to light a global surveillance system that cast off many of its historical restraints after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 . Secret legal authorities empowered the NSA to sweep in the telephone, Internet and location records of whole populations. The disclosure revealed specific details of

196-540: A " team sport ". The CIA 's National Counterterrorism Center is allowed to examine federal government files for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect U.S. citizens of wrongdoing. Previously the NTC was barred to do so, unless a person was a terror suspect or related to an investigation. Snowden also confirmed that Stuxnet was cooperatively developed by the United States and Israel. In

245-562: A 30-day period ending in March 2013. Out of all 97 billion sets of information, about 3 billion data sets originated from U.S. computer networks and around 500 million metadata records were collected from German networks. In August 2013, it was revealed that the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) of Germany transfers massive amounts of metadata records to the NSA. Der Spiegel disclosed that out of all 27 member states of

294-475: A former director of GCHQ , described Snowden's disclosure as the "most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever". Snowden obtained the documents while working for Booz Allen Hamilton , one of the largest contractors for defense and intelligence in the United States. The initial simultaneous publication in June 2013 by The Washington Post and The Guardian continued throughout 2013. A small portion of

343-512: A former director of GCHQ, described Snowden's disclosure as the "most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever". In April 2012, NSA contractor Edward Snowden began downloading documents. That year, Snowden had made his first contact with journalist Glenn Greenwald , then employed by The Guardian , and he contacted documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras in January 2013. In May 2013, Snowden went on temporary leave from his position at

392-452: A report unrelated to Edward Snowden, the French newspaper Le Monde revealed that France's DGSE was also undertaking mass surveillance, which it described as "illegal and outside any serious control". Documents leaked by Edward Snowden that were seen by Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and Norddeutscher Rundfunk revealed that several telecom operators have played a key role in helping

441-593: A surveillance network that has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic. U.S. Law-enforcement agencies use tools used by computer hackers to gather information on suspects. An internal NSA audit from May 2012 identified 2776 incidents i.e. violations of the rules or court orders for surveillance of Americans and foreign targets in the U.S. in the period from April 2011 through March 2012, while U.S. officials stressed that any mistakes are not intentional. Algemene Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst Too Many Requests If you report this error to

490-577: Is also in a partnership with British, American and Singaporean intelligence agencies to tap undersea fibre optic telecommunications cables that link Asia, the Middle East and Europe and carry much of Australia's international phone and internet traffic. The U.S. runs a top-secret surveillance program known as the Special Collection Service (SCS), which is based in over 80 U.S. consulates and embassies worldwide. The NSA hacked

539-494: Is used by the NSA and the other is used by NATO forces in Afghanistan . The two programs are "not identical". The Guardian revealed further details of the NSA's XKeyscore tool, which allows government analysts to search through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals without prior authorization. Microsoft "developed a surveillance capability to deal" with

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588-547: The Guardian ' s defence and intelligence correspondent Ewen MacAskill would fly to Hong Kong to meet Snowden. On June 5, in the first media report based on the leaked material, The Guardian exposed a top secret court order showing that the NSA had collected phone records from over 120 million Verizon subscribers . Under the order, the numbers of both parties on a call, as well as the location data, unique identifiers, time of call, and duration of call were handed over to

637-758: The United Nations Headquarters in New York. During specific episodes within a four-year period, the NSA hacked several Chinese mobile-phone companies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Tsinghua University in Beijing, and the Asian fiber-optic network operator Pacnet . Only Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK are explicitly exempted from NSA attacks, whose main target in

686-594: The 1970s, NSA analyst Perry Fellwock (under the pseudonym "Winslow Peck") revealed the existence of the UKUSA Agreement , which forms the basis of the ECHELON network, whose existence was revealed in 1988 by Lockheed employee Margaret Newsham. Months before the September 11 attacks and during its aftermath, further details of the global surveillance apparatus were provided by various individuals such as

735-575: The 2010s, international media reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly relate to top secret documents leaked by ex- NSA contractor Edward Snowden . The documents consist of intelligence files relating to the U.S. and other Five Eyes countries. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published, with further selected documents released to various news outlets through

784-528: The BND turned over copies of two systems named Mira4 and Veras, reported to exceed the NSA's SIGINT capabilities in certain areas. Every day, massive amounts of metadata records are collected by the BND and transferred to the NSA via the Bad Aibling Station near Munich , Germany. In December 2012 alone, the BND handed over 500 million metadata records to the NSA. In a document dated January 2013,

833-889: The British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) tap into worldwide fiber-optic communications . The telecom operators are: Each of them were assigned a particular area of the international fiber-optic network for which they were individually responsible. The following networks have been infiltrated by GCHQ: TAT-14 (EU-UK-US), Atlantic Crossing 1 (EU-UK-US), Circe South (France-UK), Circe North (Netherlands-UK), Flag Atlantic-1 , Flag Europa-Asia , SEA-ME-WE 3 (Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe), SEA-ME-WE 4 (Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe), Solas (Ireland-UK), UK-France 3, UK-Netherlands 14, ULYSSES (EU-UK), Yellow (UK-US) and Pan European Crossing (EU-UK). Telecommunication companies who participated were "forced" to do so and had "no choice in

882-526: The European Union is Germany. A method of bugging encrypted fax machines used at an EU embassy is codenamed Dropmire . During the 2009 G-20 London summit , the British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) intercepted the communications of foreign diplomats. In addition, GCHQ has been intercepting and storing mass quantities of fiber-optic traffic via Tempora . Two principal components of Tempora are called " Mastering

931-486: The European Union, Germany is the most targeted due to the NSA's systematic monitoring and storage of Germany's telephone and Internet connection data. According to the magazine the NSA stores data from around half a billion communications connections in Germany each month. This data includes telephone calls, emails, mobile-phone text messages and chat transcripts. The NSA gained massive amounts of information captured from

980-503: The FBI, which turned over the records to the NSA. According to The Wall Street Journal , the Verizon order is part of a controversial data program, which seeks to stockpile records on all calls made in the U.S., but does not collect information directly from T-Mobile US and Verizon Wireless , in part because of their foreign ownership ties. On June 6, 2013, the second media disclosure,

1029-432: The House of Representatives. The measure was "narrowly defeated" by a vote of 217 to 205. The vote was noticed for its unusual split, described as "one of the most unusual votes taken in the House in a long time." It garnered both bi-partisan support and bi-partisan opposition: 94 Republicans and 111 Democrats voted for the amendment. It was opposed by 134 Republicans and 83 Democrats. House leaders from both parties opposed

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1078-534: The Internet " (MTI) and " Global Telecoms Exploitation ". The data is preserved for three days while metadata is kept for thirty days. Data collected by GCHQ under Tempora is shared with the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States. From 2001 to 2011, the NSA collected vast amounts of metadata records detailing the email and internet usage of Americans via Stellar Wind , which

1127-482: The NSA acknowledged the efforts of the BND to undermine privacy laws : The BND has been working to influence the German government to relax interpretation of the privacy laws to provide greater opportunities of intelligence sharing. According to an NSA document dated April 2013, Germany has now become the NSA's "most prolific partner". Under a section of a separate document leaked by Snowden titled "Success Stories",

1176-630: The NSA acknowledged the efforts of the German government to expand the BND's international data sharing with partners: The German government modifies its interpretation of the G-10 privacy law ... to afford the BND more flexibility in sharing protected information with foreign partners. In addition, the German government was well aware of the PRISM surveillance program long before Edward Snowden made details public. According to Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert , there are two separate PRISM programs – one

1225-595: The NSA is responsible for these partnerships, which, according to Snowden, are organized such that foreign governments can "insulate their political leaders" from public outrage in the event that these global surveillance partnerships are leaked. In an interview published by Der Spiegel , Snowden accused the NSA of being "in bed together with the Germans". The NSA granted the German intelligence agencies BND (foreign intelligence) and BfV (domestic intelligence) access to its controversial XKeyscore system. In return,

1274-657: The NSA with data from its cable collection , under a secret agreement signed in 1954 for bilateral cooperation on surveillance. Other security and intelligence agencies involved in the practice of global surveillance include those in Australia ( ASD ), Britain ( GCHQ ), Canada ( CSE ), Denmark ( PET ), France ( DGSE ), Germany ( BND ), Italy ( AISE ), the Netherlands ( AIVD ), Norway ( NIS ), Spain ( CNI ), Switzerland ( NDB ), Singapore ( SID ) as well as Israel ( ISNU ), which receives raw, unfiltered data of U.S. citizens from

1323-736: The NSA's close cooperation with U.S. federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in addition to the agency's previously undisclosed financial payments to numerous commercial partners and telecommunications companies, as well as its previously undisclosed relationships with international partners such as Britain, France, Germany, and its secret treaties with foreign governments that were recently established for sharing intercepted data of each other's citizens. The disclosures were made public over

1372-463: The NSA, citing the pretext of receiving treatment for his epilepsy . Toward the end of May, he traveled to Hong Kong. Greenwald, Poitras and The Guardian 's defence and intelligence correspondent Ewen MacAskill flew to Hong Kong to meet Snowden. After the U.S.-based editor of The Guardian , Janine Gibson , held several meetings in New York City, she decided that Greenwald, Poitras and

1421-604: The NSA. On June 14, 2013, United States prosecutors charged Edward Snowden with espionage and theft of government property . In late July 2013, he was granted a one-year temporary asylum by the Russian government, contributing to a deterioration of Russia–United States relations . Toward the end of October 2013, the British Prime Minister David Cameron warned The Guardian not to publish any more leaks, or it will receive

1470-514: The Snowden documents do not concern domestic surveillance. The US & British Defense establishment weigh the strategic harm in the period following the disclosures more heavily than their civic public benefit. In its first assessment of these disclosures, the Pentagon concluded that Snowden committed the biggest "theft" of U.S. secrets in the history of the United States . Sir David Omand ,

1519-633: The United Nations' video conferencing system in Summer 2012 in violation of a UN agreement. The NSA is not just intercepting the communications of Americans who are in direct contact with foreigners targeted overseas, but also searching the contents of vast amounts of e-mail and text communications into and out of the country by Americans who mention information about foreigners under surveillance. It also spied on Al Jazeera and gained access to its internal communications systems. The NSA has built

Amash–Conyers Amendment - Misplaced Pages Continue

1568-552: The amendment came from Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), the senior leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, and from the administration of President Barack Obama . The Obama administration statement criticized the amendment for being a "blunt approach", saying "We urge the House to reject the Amash amendment and instead move forward with an approach that appropriately takes into account

1617-515: The amendment. The Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Intelligence Committee released a joint statement opposing the amendment, arguing it would have "eliminated a crucial counterterrorism tool". 12 members (6 Republicans and 6 Democrats) did not vote on the amendment. An analysis indicated that those who voted against the amendment received 122% more in campaign contributions from defense contractors than those who voted in favor. Roll Call 2013 surveillance disclosures During

1666-503: The capability to surveil undersea fiber-optic cables which deliver e-mails, Web pages, other electronic communications and phone calls from one continent to another at the speed of light. According to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo , the NSA spied on millions of emails and calls of Brazilian citizens, while Australia and New Zealand have been involved in the joint operation of the NSA's global analytical system XKeyscore . Among

1715-600: The course of several months since June 2013, by the press in several nations from the trove leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden, who obtained the trove while working for Booz Allen Hamilton . George Brandis , the Attorney-General of Australia , asserted that Snowden's disclosure is the "most serious setback for Western intelligence since the Second World War ." As of December 2013 , global surveillance programs include: The NSA

1764-528: The entire European internet traffic. GCHQ is collecting all data transmitted to and from the United Kingdom and Northern Europe via the undersea fibre optic telecommunications cable SEA-ME-WE 3 . The Security and Intelligence Division (SID) of Singapore co-operates with Australia in accessing and sharing communications carried by the SEA-ME-WE-3 cable. The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD)

1813-704: The estimated full cache of documents was later published by other media outlets worldwide, most notably The New York Times (United States), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation , the Australian Broadcasting Corporation , Der Spiegel (Germany), O Globo (Brazil), Le Monde (France), L'espresso (Italy), NRC Handelsblad (the Netherlands), Dagbladet (Norway), El País (Spain), and Sveriges Television (Sweden). Barton Gellman ,

1862-420: The former MI5 official David Shayler and the journalist James Bamford , who were followed by: In the aftermath of Snowden's revelations, The Pentagon concluded that Snowden committed the biggest theft of U.S. secrets in the history of the United States . In Australia, the coalition government described the leaks as the most damaging blow dealt to Australian intelligence in history. Sir David Omand ,

1911-421: The interception of encrypted chats on Outlook.com , within five months after the service went into testing. NSA had access to Outlook.com emails because "Prism collects this data prior to encryption." In addition, Microsoft worked with the FBI to enable the NSA to gain access to its cloud storage service SkyDrive . An internal NSA document dating from August 3, 2012, described the PRISM surveillance program as

1960-465: The matter". Some of the companies were subsequently paid by GCHQ for their participation in the infiltration of the cables. According to the SZ, GCHQ has access to the majority of internet and telephone communications flowing throughout Europe, can listen to phone calls, read emails and text messages, see which websites internet users from all around the world are visiting. It can also retain and analyse nearly

2009-833: The monitored data traffic in Europe. For example, in December 2012, the NSA gathered on an average day metadata from some 15 million telephone connections and 10 million Internet datasets. The NSA also monitored the European Commission in Brussels and monitored EU diplomatic Facilities in Washington and at the United Nations by placing bugs in offices as well as infiltrating computer networks. The U.S. government made as part of its UPSTREAM data collection program deals with companies to ensure that it had access to and hence

Amash–Conyers Amendment - Misplaced Pages Continue

2058-733: The necessary security clearance. Although the exact size of Snowden's disclosure remains unknown, the following estimates have been put up by various government officials: As a contractor of the NSA, Snowden was granted access to U.S. government documents along with top secret documents of several allied governments, via the exclusive Five Eyes network. Snowden claims that he currently does not physically possess any of these documents, having surrendered all copies to journalists he met in Hong Kong . According to his lawyer, Snowden has pledged not to release any documents while in Russia, leaving

2107-407: The need for a reasoned review of what tools can best secure the nation." General Keith Alexander , the director of the NSA, gave an "emergency" four-hour briefing for House members in which he "implored legislators that preventing his agency from collecting the phone records on millions of Americans would have dire consequences for national security." On July 24, 2013, the amendment was considered by

2156-582: The numerous allied facilities contributing to XKeyscore are four installations in Australia and one in New Zealand: O Globo released an NSA document titled " Primary FORNSAT Collection Operations ", which revealed the specific locations and codenames of the FORNSAT intercept stations in 2002. According to Edward Snowden, the NSA has established secret intelligence partnerships with many Western governments . The Foreign Affairs Directorate (FAD) of

2205-535: The responsibility for further disclosures solely to journalists. As of 2014, the following news outlets have accessed some of the documents provided by Snowden: Australian Broadcasting Corporation , Canadian Broadcasting Corporation , Channel 4 , Der Spiegel , El País , El Mundo , L'espresso , Le Monde , NBC , NRC Handelsblad , Dagbladet , O Globo , South China Morning Post , Süddeutsche Zeitung , Sveriges Television , The Guardian , The New York Times , and The Washington Post . In

2254-522: The revelation of the PRISM surveillance program (which collects the e-mail, voice, text and video chats of foreigners and an unknown number of Americans from Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Apple and other tech giants), was published simultaneously by The Guardian and The Washington Post . Der Spiegel revealed NSA spying on multiple diplomatic missions of the European Union and

2303-678: The year. These media reports disclosed several secret treaties signed by members of the UKUSA community in their efforts to implement global surveillance . For example, Der Spiegel revealed how the German Federal Intelligence Service ( German : Bundesnachrichtendienst ; BND) transfers "massive amounts of intercepted data to the NSA", while Swedish Television revealed the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) provided

2352-461: Was also getting data directly from telecommunications companies code-named Artifice (Verizon), Lithium (AT&T), Serenade, SteelKnight, and X. The real identities of the companies behind these code names were not included in the Snowden document dump because they were protected as Exceptionally Controlled Information which prevents wide circulation even to those (like Snowden) who otherwise have

2401-497: Was later terminated due to operational and resource constraints. It was subsequently replaced by newer surveillance programs such as ShellTrumpet, which " processed its one trillionth metadata record " by the end of December 2012. The NSA follows specific procedures to target non-U.S. persons and to minimize data collection from U.S. persons. These court-approved policies allow the NSA to: According to Boundless Informant , over 97 billion pieces of intelligence were collected over

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