NSA’s XKeyscore Allows Warrantless Search of Anyone
The UK’s Guardian is leaking NSA docs like the Chinese Water Torture. Drip. Drip. Drip. Now comes the revelation that the NSA has a system that allows any NSA analyst to search through emails of anyone, provided that you know an email address. This validates what NSA leaker Edward Snowden revealed when he dropped the documents to the press.
From the Guardian here:
A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its “widest-reaching” system for developing intelligence from the internet.
The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian’s earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.
The files shed light on one of Snowden’s most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10.
“I, sitting at my desk,” said Snowden, could “wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email”.
There are apparently two boxes to launch the search- the first is the email address and the second one is a justification box, and I’m sure “qwertyuiiop” is an acceptable input. And FSecure’s Mikko Hypponen found a tweet from SAIC looking for expertise on this system:
XKEYSCORE Systems Engineer Job (Columbia, MD, US) http://t.co/mhSz60CpC7 #jobs #saic #career
— SAIC Staffing (@SAICjobs) June 5, 2013
I fail to see how this is top secret when SAIC tweets asking for new hires for this program. No matter, its not secret anymore, and DOD and other Federal Agencies will have firewall admins scrambling into the weekend to block sites that mention the program.
