{"id":51424,"date":"2013-07-18T21:09:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T20:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/documents-show-undersea-cable-firms-provide-surveillance-access-to-us-secret-state\/51424\/"},"modified":"2013-07-18T21:09:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T20:09:40","slug":"documents-show-undersea-cable-firms-provide-surveillance-access-to-us-secret-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/documents-show-undersea-cable-firms-provide-surveillance-access-to-us-secret-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Documents Show Undersea Cable Firms Provide Surveillance Access to US Secret State"},"content":{"rendered":"

Documents published last week by the Australian web site\u00a0Crikey<\/a>\u00a0revealed that the US government \u201ccompelled Telstra and Hong Kong-based PCCW to give it access to their undersea cables for spying on communications traffic entering and leaving the US.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The significance of the disclosure is obvious; today, more than 99 percent of the world\u2019s internet and telephone traffic is now carried by undersea fiber optic cables. An interactive\u00a0submarine cable map<\/a>\u00a0published by the\u00a0Global Bandwidth Research Service<\/a>\u00a0is illustrative in this regard.<\/p>\n

Since the late 1960s as part of its ECHELON spy project, the United States has been tapping undersea cables to extract communications and signals intelligence. In fact, projects such as\u00a0Operation Ivy Bells<\/a>, a joint Navy-NSA secret intelligence program directed against the former Soviet Union was designed to do just that.<\/p>\n

Prefiguring the Bush administration\u2019s\u00a0warrantless wiretapping scandal<\/a>\u00a0which broke in 2005, the\u00a0Associated Press<\/a><\/em>\u00a0reported that a $3.2 billion Navy Seawolf class submarine, a 453-foot behemoth called the USS Jimmy Carter, \u201chas a special capability: it is able to tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on the communications passing through them.\u201d<\/p>\n

A year later, AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein told\u00a0Wired Magazine<\/a><\/em>that NSA was tapping directly into the world\u2019s internet backbone, and was doing so from domestic listening posts the telecommunications\u2019 giant jointly built with the agency at corporate switching stations.<\/p>\n

Whatever submarine operations NSA still carry out with the US Navy and \u201cFive Eyes\u201d surveillance partners (Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the US), access to information flowing through undersea cables mean that the US government is well-positioned to scoop-up virtually all global communications.<\/p>\n

Since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden began spilling the beans last month, it should be clear that the American government\u2019s capabilities in amassing unprecedented volumes of information from cable traffic, also potentially hands the US and their corporate collaborators a treasure trove of sensitive economic secrets from competitors.<\/p>\n

Economic Espionage<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reporting by Australian journalists confirm information published July 6 by\u00a0The Washington Post<\/a><\/em>. There we learned that overseas submarine cable companies doing business in the United States must maintain \u201can internal corporate cell of American citizens with government clearances,\u201d a cadre of personnel whose job is to ensure that \u201cwhen US government agencies seek access to the massive amounts of data flowing through their networks, the companies have systems in place to provide it securely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inked just weeks after the 9\/11 provocation, the 23-page Telstradocument<\/a>\u00a0specifies that access to undersea cable traffic by the FBI and \u201cany US governmental authorities entitled to effect Electronic Surveillance,\u201d is an explicit condition for doing business in the United States.<\/p>\n

Similar\u00a0agreements<\/a>\u00a0were signed between 1999 and 2011 with telecommunication companies, satellite firms, submarine cable operators and the US government and were published earlier this month by the\u00a0Public Intelligence<\/a>\u00a0web site.<\/p>\n

It has long been known that the Australian secret state agency, the Defence Security Directorate (DSD), is a key participant in US global surveillance projects. Classified NSA maps provided by Snowden and subsequently published by Brazil\u2019s\u00a0O Globo<\/a><\/em>newspaper, revealed the locations of dozens of US and allied signals intelligence sites worldwide. DSD currently operates four military installations involved in a top secret NSA program called X-Keyscore.<\/p>\n

Snowden described X-Keyscore and other programs to\u00a0Der Spiegel<\/a><\/em>\u00a0as \u201cthe intelligence community\u2019s first \u2018full-take\u2019 Internet buffer that doesn\u2019t care about content type . . . \u2018Full take\u2019 means it doesn\u2019t miss anything, and ingests the entirety of each circuit\u2019s capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0The Sydney Morning Herald<\/a><\/em>, along with the \u201cUS Australian Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap near Alice Springs,\u201d three other DSD facilities, \u201cthe Shoal Bay Receiving Station near Darwin, the Australian Defence Satellite Communications Facility at Geraldton and the naval communications station HMAS Harman outside Canberra,\u201d were identified as X-Keyscore \u201ccontributors.\u201d The paper also reported that \u201ca new state-of-the-art data storage facility at HMAS Harman to support the Australian signals directorate and other Australian intelligence agencies\u201d is currently under construction.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Herald<\/em>\u00a0described the project as \u201can intelligence collection program\u201d that \u201cprocesses all signals before they are shunted off to various \u2018production lines\u2019 that deal with specific issues and the exploitation of different data types for analysis\u2014variously code-named Nucleon (voice), Pinwale (video), Mainway (call records) and Marina (internet records). US intelligence expert William Arkin describes X-Keyscore as a \u2018national Intelligence collection mission system\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two of the Australian bases illustrated on the X-Keyscore map sit adjacent to major undersea cable sites transiting the Pacific and Indian Oceans.<\/p>\n

Cozy arrangements with Telstra and other firms however, hardly represent mere passive acceptance of terms and conditions laid out by the US government. On the contrary, these, and dozens of other agreements which have come to light, are emblematic of decades-long US corporate-state \u201cpublic-private partnerships.\u201d<\/p>\n

As\u00a0Bloomberg<\/a><\/em>\u00a0reported last month, \u201cthousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with US national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a two-way street, Bloomberg noted. Firms providing \u201cUS intelligence organizations with additional data, such as equipment specifications\u201d use it \u201cto help infiltrate computers of its adversaries.\u201d In return, \u201ccompanies are given quick warnings about threats that could affect their bottom line.\u201d Such sensitive data can also be used to undermine the position of their foreign competitors.<\/p>\n

We now know, based on documents provided by Snowden, that the \u201cinfiltration\u201d of computer networks by US secret state agencies are useful not only for filching military secrets and mass spying but also for economic and industrial espionage.<\/p>\n

That point was driven home more than a decade ago in a\u00a0paper<\/a>prepared by journalist Duncan Campbell for the European Parliament.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the end of the 1990s,\u201d Campbell wrote, \u201cthe US administration claimed that intelligence activity against foreign companies had gained the US nearly $150 billion in exports.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough US intelligence officials and spokespeople have admitted using Comint [communications intelligence] against European companies . . . documents show that the CIA has been directly involved in obtaining competitor intelligence for business purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time the\u00a0Telstra<\/a>\u00a0pact was signed, the Australian telecommunications and internet giant was \u201c50.1% owned\u201d by the Australian government.\u00a0Reach Global Services<\/a>, is described in the document as \u201ca joint venture indirectly owned 50% by Telstra\u201d and \u201c50% owned\u201d by Hong Kong\u2019s Pacific Century CyberWorks Limited (PCCW<\/a>).<\/p>\n

With controlling interest in more than 40 undersea fiber optic cables, and with landing rights in global markets that include Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, North America and Europe, the joint venture was then the largest commercial telecommunications carrier in Asia with some 82,000 kilometers of undersea cables. Reach also operates international satellite systems that cover two-third\u2019s of the planet\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

Such assets would be prime targets of \u201cFive Eyes\u201d spy agencies under terms of the UKUSA Communications Intelligence Agreement.<\/p>\n

Telstra and PCCW restructured their partnership in 2011, with the Australian firm now controlling the lion\u2019s share of an undersea cable network that stretches \u201cmore than 364,000 kilometres and connects more than 240 markets worldwide,\u201d theSouth Morning China Post<\/a><\/em>\u00a0reported. Inevitably, the restructuring will afford the US government an even greater opportunity for spying.<\/p>\n

Network security agreements hammered out among undersea cable firms and the US government have profound implications for global commerce. Their geopolitical significance hasn\u2019t been lost on America\u2019s closet \u201callies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a><\/em>\u00a0revealed last month that the US is \u201cspying on the European Union mission in New York and its embassy in Washington.\u201d In addition to the EU mission, target lists include \u201cthe French, Italian and Greek embassies, as well as a number of other American allies, including Japan, Mexico, South Korea, India and Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

That list has since been supplemented by further disclosures.<\/p>\n

Snowden told the\u00a0South China Morning Post<\/a><\/em>\u00a0that NSA hacked into the \u201ccomputers at the Hong Kong headquarters of Pacnet, which owns one of the most extensive fibre optic submarine cable networks in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, the firm signed major deals with the Chinese mainland\u2019s \u201ctop mobile phone companies\u201d and \u201cowns more than 46,000 kilometres of fibre-optic cables.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the paper, Pacnet \u201ccables connect its regional data centres across the Asia-Pacific region, including Hong Kong, the mainland, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. It also has offices in the US.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0South Morning China Post<\/em>\u00a0also disclosed that Tsinghua University, \u201cChina\u2019s premier seat of learning\u201d has sustained extensive attacks on the school\u2019s \u201cnetwork backbones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Available documents based on Snowden disclosures and other sources seem to suggest that President Obama\u2019s militaristic \u201cpivot to Asia\u201d is also an aggressive campaign to steal commercial and trade secrets from US imperialism\u2019s Asian rivals.<\/p>\n

Whether or not these revelations will effect negotiations over the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a NAFTA-style \u201cfree trade\u201d agreement between the US and ten Pacific Rim nations, including Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru and Singapore\u2014all prime US-UK targets of PRISM, TEMPORA and X-Keyscore\u2014remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

\u2018Legal\u2019 License to Spy<\/strong><\/p>\n

If we have learned anything since Snowden\u2019s revelations began surfacing last month, it is that the US secret state relies on a body of \u201csecret laws\u201d overseen by a Star Chamber-like FISA court described in the polite language\u00a0The New York Times<\/a><\/em>\u00a0as a \u201cparallel Supreme Court,\u201d to do its dirty work.<\/p>\n

Along with leaked NSA documents, published agreements between telecommunications firms, internet service providers and the US government should demolish the fiction that blanket surveillance is \u201clegal,\u201d \u201climited in scope\u201d or chiefly concerned with fighting \u201ccrime\u201d and \u201cterrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proclaiming that \u201cUS communications systems are essential to the ability of the US government to fulfill its responsibilities to the public to preserve the national security of the United States, to enforce the laws, and to maintain the safety of the public,\u201d the Telstra summary posted by\u00a0Crikey<\/em>\u00a0should dispel any illusions on that score.<\/p>\n

On the contrary, the agreement reveals the existence of a vast surveillance web linking private companies to the government\u2019s relentless drive, as\u00a0The Washington Post<\/a><\/em>\u00a0explained, to \u201ccollect it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u00e2\u2014\u008f All customer billing data to be stored for two years;
\u00e2\u2014\u008f Ability to provide to agencies any stored telecommunications or internet communications and comply with preservation requests;
\u00e2\u2014\u008f Ability to provide any stored metadata, billing data or subscriber information about US customers;
\u00e2\u2014\u008f They are not to comply with any foreign privacy laws that might lead to mandatory destruction of stored data;
\u00e2\u2014\u008f Plans and infrastructure to demonstrate other states cannot spy on US customers;
\u00e2\u2014\u008f They are not to comply with information requests from other countries without DoJ permission;
\u00e2\u2014\u008f A requirement to:<\/p>\n

. . . designate points of contact within the United States with the authority and responsibility for accepting and overseeing the carrying out of Lawful US Process to conduct Electronic Surveillance of or relating to Domestic Communications carried by or through Domestic Communications Infrastructure; or relating to customers or subscribers of Domestic Communications Companies. The points of contact shall be assigned to Domestic Communications Companies security office(s) in the United States, shall be available twenty-four (24) hours per day, seven (7) days per week and shall be responsible for accepting service and maintaining the security of Classified Information and any Lawful US Process for Electronic Surveillance . . . The Points of contact shall be resident US citizens who are eligible for US security clearances.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other words, an \u201cinternal corporate cell of American citizens,\u201d charged with providing confidential customer data to the secret state, as\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0first reported.<\/p>\n

Additional demands include:<\/p>\n

\n

\u00e2\u2014\u008f A requirement to keep such surveillance confidential, and to use US citizens \u201cwho meet high standards of trustworthiness for maintaining the confidentiality of Sensitive Information\u201d to handle requests;
\u00e2\u2014\u008f A right for the FBI and the DoJ to conduct inspection visits of the companies\u2019 infrastructure and offices; and
\u00e2\u2014\u008f An annual compliance report, to be protected from Freedom of Information requests.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is not a one-off as the other 27 Agreements published by Public Intelligence readily attest.<\/p>\n

For example, the 31-page 2011\u00a0Agreement<\/a>\u00a0between the US government and\u00a0Level 3 Communications<\/a>, which operates in North America, Europe, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific, which acquired Global Crossing from from the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa and Singapore Technologies Telemedia (the focus of\u00a0The Washington Post\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0July 6 report), was expanded beyond the FBI and Department of Justice to include the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, NSA\u2019s \u201cparent\u201d agency.<\/p>\n

As with the 2001 Telstra agreement, \u201cAccess\u201d to Level 3\u00e2\u20ac\u00b2s systems by governmental entities is defined as \u201cthe ability to physically or logically undertake any of the following actions: (a) read, divert, or otherwise obtain non-public information or technology from or about software, hardware, a system or a network; (b) add, edit or alter information or technology stored on or by software, hardware, a system or a network; and (c) alter the physical or logical state of software, hardware, a system or a network (e.g., turning it on or off, changing configuration, removing or adding components or connections).\u201d<\/p>\n

NSA, the principle US spy agency charged with obtaining, storing and analyzing COMINT\/SIGINT \u201cproducts, i.e., user data, has been handed virtually unlimited access to information flowing through Level 3 fiber optic cables as it enters the US.<\/p>\n

This includes what is described as \u201cDomestic Communications,\u201d content, not simply the metadata, of any phone call or email that transit Level 3 systems: \u201c\u2018Domestic Communications\u2019 means: (a) Wire Communications or Electronic Communications (whether stored or not) from one US location to another US location; and (b) the US portion of a Wire Communication or Electronic Communication (whether stored or not) that originates or terminates in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

So much for President Obama\u2019s mendacious claim that \u201cnobody is listening to your phone calls\u201d!<\/p>\n

Access to the entirety of customer records and communications is clearly spelled out in the section entitled \u201cElectronic Surveillance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Note: the \u201cUSC.\u201d provisions refer to (18) the Stored Communications Act which compels disclosure to the government of stored wire, electronic and transactional data; a provision that greatly weakened the Fourth Amendment right to privacy. 50 USC outlines the role of War and National Defense in the United States Code and includes \u201cforeign intelligence,\u201d \u201celectronic surveillance authorization without court order,\u201d \u201cinternal security,\u201d including the \u201ccontrol of subversive activities\u201d and the \u201cexercise of emergency powers and authorities\u201d by the Executive Branch.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018Electronic Surveillance,\u2019 for the purposes of this Agreement, includes: (a) the interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications as defined in 18 U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a7 2510(1), (2), (4) and (12), respectively, and electronic surveillance as defined in 50 U.S.C. \u00a7 1801(f); (b) Access to stored wire or electronic communications, as referred to in 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 2701 et seq.; (c) acquisition of dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information through pen register or trap and trace devices or other devices or features capable of acquiring such information pursuant to law as defined in 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 3121 et seq. and 50 U.S.C. \u00a7 1841 et seq.; (d) acquisition of location-related information concerning a service subscriber or facility; (e) preservation of any of the above information pursuant to 18 U.S.C.\u00a7 2703(f); and (f) Access to, or acquisition, interception, or preservation of, wire, oral, or electronic communications or information as described in (a) through (e) above and comparable state laws.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Level 3 is further enjoined from disclosing what is described as \u201cSensitive Information,\u201d that is, \u201cinformation that is not Classified Information regarding: (a) the persons or facilities that are the subjects of Lawful US Process; (b) the identity of the Government Authority or Government Authorities serving such Lawful US Process; (c) the location or identity of the line, circuit, transmission path, or other facilities or equipment used to conduct Electronic Surveillance; (d) the means of carrying out Electronic Surveillance.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words,\u00a0we<\/em>\u00a0do the spying;\u00a0you<\/em>\u00a0hand over it over and keep your mouths shut.<\/p>\n

The electronic driftnet thrown over global communications is expedited by\u00a0direct access<\/em>\u00a0to Level 3\u00e2\u20ac\u00b2s equipment by the US government.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018Principal Equipment\u2019 means the primary electronic components of a submarine cable system, to include the hardware used at the NOC(s) [Network Operations Center], landing station(s) and the cable itself, such as servers, repeaters, submarine line terminal equipment (SLTE), system supervisory equipment (SSE), power feed equipment (PFE), tilt and shape equalizer units (TEQ\/SEQ), optical distribution frames (ODF), and synchronous optical network (SONET), synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH), wave division multiplexing (WDM), dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM), coarse wave division multiplexing (CWDM) or optical carrier network (OCx) equipment, as applicable.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Who oversees the set-up? On paper it appears that Level 3 control their operations. However, the Agreement specifies that the firm must utilize \u201cprimary US NOCs for any Domestic Communications Infrastructure\u201d and it \u201cshall be maintained and remain within the United States and US territories, to be operated by Level 3, exclusively using Screened Personnel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who signs off on \u201cscreened personnel\u201d? Why the US government of course, which raises the suspicion that corporate employees are little more than spook assets.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s where it gets interesting. \u201cLevel 3 may nonetheless use the United Kingdom NOC for routine day-to-day management of any of the Cable Systems as such management is in existence as of the Effective Date.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why might that be the case, pray tell?<\/p>\n

Could it be that fiber optic cables transiting the UK are\u00a0already<\/em>lovingly scrutinized by NSA\u2019s kissin\u2019 cousins across the pond? GCHQ, as\u00a0The Guardian<\/a><\/em>\u00a0disclosed, is merrily ingesting \u201cvast quantities of global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories and calls, and shares them\u201d with the American agency.<\/p>\n

Therefore, since UK undersea cable traffic is already under close \u201cmanagement\u201d via the British agency\u2019s TEMPORA program, described as having the \u201c\u2018biggest internet access\u2019 of any member of the Five Eyes electronic eavesdropping alliance,\u201d it makes sense that Level 3 is allowed to \u201cuse the United Kingdom NOC\u201d as a hub for its \u201cDomestic Communications Infrastructure\u201d!<\/p>\n

In conclusion, these publicly available documents provide additional confirmation of how major corporations are empowering the US surveillance octopus.<\/p>\n

By entering into devil\u2019s pacts with the world\u2019s \u201csole superpower,\u201d giant telcos and internet firms view the destruction of privacy rights as just another item on the balance sheet, a necessary cost of doing business in America.<\/p>\n

And business is\u00a0very<\/em>\u00a0good.<\/p>\n

Republished with permission from: Global Research<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Documents published last week by the Australian web site\u00a0Crikey\u00a0revealed that the US government \u201ccompelled Telstra and Hong Kong-based PCCW to give it access to their undersea cables for spying on communications traffic entering and leaving the US.\u201d The significance of the disclosure is obvious; today, more than 99 percent of the world\u2019s internet and telephone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-51424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}