{"id":74711,"date":"2013-09-30T19:18:59","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T18:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/new-snowden-leak-nsa-is-monitoring-the-internet-histories-of-millions-of-americans\/74711\/"},"modified":"2013-09-30T19:40:32","modified_gmt":"2013-09-30T18:40:32","slug":"new-snowden-leak-nsa-is-monitoring-the-internet-histories-of-millions-of-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/new-snowden-leak-nsa-is-monitoring-the-internet-histories-of-millions-of-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"New Snowden leak: NSA is monitoring the Internet histories of millions of Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"
The National Security Agency is collecting information on the Internet habits of millions of innocent Americans never suspected of criminal involvement, new NSA documents leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden suggest.<\/div>\n

Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported Monday that top-secret documents<\/a> included in the trove of files
\nsupplied by the NSA contractor-turned-leaker Edward Snowden
\nreveal that the US intelligence community obtains and keeps
\ninformation on American citizens accumulated off the Internet
\nwithout ever issuing a search warrant or opening an investigation
\ninto that person.<\/p>\n

The information is obtained using a program codenamed Marina, the
\ndocuments suggest, and is kept by the government for up to a full
\nyear without investigators ever having to explain why the subject
\nis being surveilled.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarina has the ability to look back on the last 365 days’
\nworth of DNI metadata seen by the Sigint collection system,
\nregardless whether or not it was tasked for collection<\/i>,\u201d
\nthe Guardian’s James Ball quotes from the documents.<\/p>\n

According to a guide for intelligence analysts supplied by Mr.
\nSnowden, \u201cThe Marina metadata application tracks a user’s
\nbrowser experience, gathers contact information\/content and
\ndevelops summaries of target<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

“This tool offers the ability to export the data in a variety
\nof formats, as well as create various charts to assist in
\npattern-of-life development<\/i>,\u201d it continues.<\/p>\n

Ball writes that the program collects \u201calmost anything<\/i>\u201d a
\nWeb user does online, \u201cfrom browsing history \u2014 such as map
\nsearches and websites visited \u2014 to account details, email
\nactivity, and even some account passwords<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only days earlier, separate disclosures<\/a> attributed to Snowden
\nrevealed that the NSA was using a massive collection of metadata
\nto create complex graphs of social connections for foreign
\nintelligence purposes, although that program had pulled in
\nintelligence about Americans as well.<\/p>\n

After the New York Times broke news of that program, a NSA
\nspokesperson said that \u201cAll data queries must include a
\nforeign intelligence justification, period<\/i>.\u201d As Snowden
\ndocuments continue to surface, however, it’s becoming clear that
\npersonal information pertaining to millions of US citizens is
\nroutinely raked in by the NSA and other agencies as the
\nintelligence community collects as much data as possible.<\/p>\n

In June, a top-secret document also attributed to Mr. Snowden
\nrevealed that the NSA was collecting the telephony metadata for
\nmillions of Americans from their telecom providers. The
\ngovernment has defended this practice by saying that the metadata
\n\u2013 rough information that does not include the content of
\ncommunications \u2013 is not protected by the US Constitution’s
\nprohibition against unlawful search and seizure.<\/p>\n

\u201cMetadata can be very revealing<\/i>,\u201d George Washington
\nUniversity law professor Orin S. Kerr told the Times this week.
\n\u201cKnowing things like the number someone just dialed or the
\nlocation of the person’s cellphone is going to allow them to
\nassemble a picture of what someone is up to. It’s the digital
\nequivalent of tailing a suspect<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Guardian’s Ball, Internet metadata picked up by
\nthe NSA is routed to the Marina database, which is kept separate
\nfrom the servers where telephony metadata is stored.<\/p>\n

Only moments after the Guardian wrote of its latest leak on
\nMonday, Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project
\nread a statement before the European Parliament’s Committee on
\nCivil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs penned by none other
\nthan Snowden himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I began my work, it was with the sole intention of
\nmaking possible the debate we see occurring here in this
\nbody<\/i>,\u201d Snowden said.<\/p>\n

Snowden, who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia after
\nbeing charged with espionage in the US, said through Raddack that
\n\u201cThe cost for one in my position of returning public knowledge
\nto public hands has been persecution and exile<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, at the White House Monday afternoon, NBC News
\ncorrespondent Chuck Todd asked Obama press secretary Jay Carney
\nto comment on the latest disclosures, but to no avail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NSA’s activities are directed against foreign
\nintelligence targets in order to protect the nation and its
\ninterests<\/i>,\u201d said Carney, adding, \u201cWe do what other nations
\ndo, and that is collect foreign intelligence<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Todd responded, \u201cThis is about Americans; this is about
\nAmericans, that are not foreign<\/i>,\u201d Carney replied by refusing
\nto acknowledge any specific intelligence tool and instead said
\nthat the agency’s foreign intelligence activities \u201care
\ndirected pursuant to procedures approved by the United States
\nattorney general and secretary of defense<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand that that’s what you have to say. And that’s a
\nstatement you have to say. But are you at all concerned<\/i>?\u201d
\nasked Todd.<\/p>\n

Copyright: RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Security Agency is collecting information on the Internet habits of millions of innocent Americans never suspected of criminal involvement, new NSA documents leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden suggest. Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported Monday that top-secret documents included in the trove of files supplied by the NSA contractor-turned-leaker Edward Snowden reveal that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,1614,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-74711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-surveillance-big-brother","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74711","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=74711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}