5 Billion phone records scanned each day based on new Snowden Documents

he National Security Agency is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world, according to top-secret documents and interviews with U.S. intelligence officials, enabling the agency to track the movements of individuals — and map their relationships — in ways that would have been previously unimaginable.

The records feed a vast database that stores information about the locations of at least hundreds of millions of devices, according to the officials and the documents, which were provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. New projects created to analyze that data have provided the intelligence community with what amounts to a mass surveillance tool.

It's ok...we are only checking on those people who are bad, right? No, it is just using the thought that since it does not know who is bad we should collect it all. Kind of like passing a bill and finding out after what it is about.

This is about knowing who you are,where you go what you do and who you talk to. Folks, to me this is a modernization of Nazi Germany. The government does not need your neighbor to know what you are up to, they have your phone, tablet, video game system, computer..anything electronic.

A central feature of each of these tools is that they do not rely on knowing a particular target in advance, or even suspecting one. They operate on the full universe of data in the NSA’s FASCIA repository, which stores trillions of metadata records, of which a large but unknown fraction include locations.

The most basic analytic tools map the date, time, and location of cellphones to look for patterns or significant moments of overlap. Other tools compute speed and trajectory for large numbers of mobile devices, overlaying the electronic data on transportation maps to compute the likely travel time and determine which devices might have intersected.

To solve the problem of undetectable surveillance against CIA officers stationed overseas, one contractor designed an analytic model that would carefully record the case officer’s path and look for other mobile devices in steady proximity.

reply to post by matafuchs


We are snitching on ourselves.

No need for collaborators when every citizen is willing to do it via Facebook, PS4, Xbox one, Iphone, android.


All they needed to do was provide the rope, and we made it a noose hung from a tree for us all.

reply to post by matafuchs


Well yeah, because a cellphone is like having a monitoring or global positioning device on you at all times. Whoever it is who likes to play those games doesn't even need to have a tracking unit sewn into somebody's shirt anymore, people do it themselves.

The Snowden Papers or whatever they will end up being called are leaking out in drips, and I wonder how long the new data will be emerging. Probably releasing everything at once would have been like someone throwing money up in the air, too much going on to focus on one thing at a time, hence the slow dripping sound we hear when each is released and we await the next.

i am starting to question all of his 'documents'

are they all 100% real?
or are some made up?

reply to post by Aleister


Apparently there are 58,000 documents and only 1% has been released.

Snowden should make his own brand of popcorn

reply to post by rickm


AS soon as Putin is done reading them we can have them back...

matafuchs
reply to post by rickm

 

AS soon as Putin is done reading them we can have them back...

I don't get it. I've seen a few people here say things like this that makes no sense, as Snowden is NOT in control of what gets released and when. That's all on the Guardian, not Snowden and not Putin.

reply to post by TheSpanishArcher


It is called sarcasm to the entire event. However, this is someone who took top secret files and fled the country. So between Hong Kong and the Soviet Union he got rid of them? and how? Does this show he was a little more afraid of the Russians and their methods also? Sorry, just reading into it and not taking any of it at face value.

In an interview with The New York Times, Snowden said he handed over all the documents he had obtained to journalists during his stay in Hong Kong. The newspaper posted its story on its website Thursday.

Snowden said he did not retain copies of the documents and did not take them to Russia "because it wouldn't serve the public interest," the Times reported. He said his familiarity with China's intelligence abilities allowed him to protect the documents from Chinese spies while he was in Hong Kong.

"There's a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents," he said.

Snowden's leaks of highly classified material have resulted in numerous news stories about U.S. surveillance activities at home and abroad and sparked debate about the legality of those activities and the privacy implications for average Americans.

He is working for someone. They all are. Just like Chelsea Manning....Julian Assange....

reply to post by matafuchs


If they are all working for someone, then why are two of them in hiding and the other is imprisoned for life? Doesn't make a lot of sense. It sure hasn't worked out very well for any of them.

reply to post by TheSpanishArcher


Who has it worked out well for? I would have to say all of those who are not the US. A lot of pissed of foreign countries in a time when foreign policy is at its weakest for us. The releases by these 'whistleblowers' was not helpful to the worldview of the US and it also allowed for more control inside those agencies for the government. I would have thought the biggest red flag recently would have been Syria. In the past, if the US said they were going to do something they did. Everyone went along with it. Not so anymore and the question should be why the change.