Can Phones Read Minds - 20 Magic Tricks Anyone Can Do
The latest revelation that the NSA is gathering information on almost every phone users around the world was made by the British newspaper The Guardian ahead of the Snowden leaks, which have revealed a lot more than ordinary phone calls and text messages.
In March, the NSA began to do this as part of its Global Communications Monitoring and Reporting programme. In a statement released under the Freedom of Information Act, the agency said
The NSA has obtained information by searching the internet for all phone calls, including those made to a partner in a foreign country, for up to 20 days. The activity collects data on people’s communication records that includes information related to their social media profiles and phone calls, including the names, contact information, e-mail addresses and number of the person’s telephone calls.
In a news release, the NSA said
The NSA also uses ‘non-interactive surveillance’ to capture phone phone-call data. It seeks to identify users of a telecommunications system or other communications systems that could be used by the NSA to spy on their communications.
It says it uses these methods to facilitate, disseminate, and influence the flow of information out of the NSA-funded ‘Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’ under a programme dubbed ‘Foreign Intelligence Monitoring or Research’.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
Unlike in other forms of surveillance, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) deals with US targets around the world. Its main focus is US activities that directly or indirectly carry on a national security purpose, and where the NSA gathers information from people with whom it communicates via telephone calls.
The Guardian can reveal much more about the court in the press releases above, and it says it found that its findings had not changed. And it says
Some of the issues raised here are only minor, and could not be dealt with in terms of the extent the law has changed. Nevertheless, the fact remains that if the US or UK did decide to turn to the court at a later date it would face a series of significant legal challenges - to be addressed on a large scale in the coming weeks and months.
For example, if there is legal uncertainty over the government’s decision to seek permission from the courts to seek to block internet use or to block access to the internet, it could face the potential to use the court to pursue legal action against the US or Britain.
One of the most significant provisions in the UK government’s Communications Act 2003
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