During the 2010s, international media reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly relate to top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents consist of intelligence files relating to the U.S. and other Five Eyes countries. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published, with further selected documents released to various news outlets throughout the year.
These media reports disclosed several secret treaties signed by members of the UKUSA community in their efforts to implement global surveillance. For example, Der Spiegel revealed how the German Federal Intelligence Service (; BND) transfers "massive amounts of intercepted data to the NSA", while Swedish Television revealed the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) provided the NSA with data from its cable collection, under a secret agreement signed in 1954 for bilateral cooperation on surveillance. Other security and intelligence agencies involved in the practice of global surveillance include those in Australia (ASD), Britain (GCHQ), Canada (CSE), Denmark (PET), France (DGSE), Germany (BND), Italy (AISE), Japan (DIH), the Netherlands (AIVD), Norway (NIS), Spain (CNI), Switzerland (NDB), Singapore (SID) as well as Israel (ISNU), which receives raw, unfiltered data of U.S. citizens from the NSA.
On June 14, 2013, United States prosecutors charged Edward Snowden with espionage and theft of government property. In late July 2013, he was granted a one-year temporary asylum by the Russian government, contributing to a deterioration of Russia–United States relations. Toward the end of October 2013, British prime minister David Cameron threatened to issue a D-Notice after The Guardian published "damaging" intelligence leaks from Snowden. In November 2013, a criminal investigation of the disclosure was undertaken by Britain's Metropolitan Police Service. In December 2013, The Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said: "We have published I think 26 documents so far out of the 58,000 we've seen."
The extent to which the media reports responsibly informed the public is disputed. In January 2014, Barack Obama, then the president of the United States, claimed that "the sensational way in which these disclosures have come out has often shed more heat than light"Transcript Of President Obama's Speech On NSA Reforms NPR January 17, 2014 and critics such as Sean Wilentz have noted that many of the Snowden documents do not concern domestic surveillance.Sean Wilentz (January 19, 2014), Would You Feel Differently About Snowden, Greenwald, and Assange If You Knew What They Really Thought? The New Republic In its first assessment of these disclosures, the Pentagon concluded that Snowden committed the biggest "theft" of U.S. secrets in the history of the United States. Sir David Omand, a former director of GCHQ, described Snowden's disclosure as the "most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever".
Background Snowden obtained the documents while working for Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the largest contractors for defense and intelligence in the United States. The initial simultaneous publication in June 2013 by The Washington Post and The Guardian continued throughout 2013. A small portion of the estimated full cache of documents was later published by other media outlets worldwide, most notably The New York Times (United States), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Der Spiegel (Germany), O Globo (Brazil), Le Monde (France), L'espresso (Italy), NRC Handelsblad (the Netherlands), Dagbladet (Norway), El País (Spain), and Sveriges Television (Sweden).
Barton Gellman, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who led The Washington Posts coverage of Snowden's disclosures, summarized the leaks as follows:
The disclosure revealed specific details of the NSA's close cooperation with U.S. federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in addition to the agency's previously undisclosed financial payments to numerous commercial partners and telecommunications companies, as well as its previously undisclosed relationships with international partners such as Britain, France, Germany, and its secret treaties with foreign governments that were recently established for sharing intercepted data of each other's citizens. The disclosures were made public over the course of several months since June 2013, by the press in several nations from the trove leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden, who obtained the trove while working for Booz Allen Hamilton.
George Brandis, the Attorney-General of Australia, claimed that Snowden's disclosure is the "most serious setback for Western intelligence since the Second World War."
Global surveillance
, global surveillance programs include: +Global surveillance programs Program International contributors and/or partners Commercial partners PRISM Australian Signals Directorate (ASD/DSD) of Australia Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) of the UK Algemene Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst (AIVD) of the Netherlands Microsoft and its subsidiaries Skype and Hotmail Facebook Apple Google and its subsidiary YouTube Yahoo PalTalk AOL XKeyscore Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) of Germany Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) of Germany National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) of Sweden Tempora National Security Agency (NSA) British Telecommunications (codenamed "Remedy") Interoute (codenamed "Streetcar") Level 3 (codenamed "Little") Global Crossing (codenamed "Pinnage") Verizon Business (codenamed "Dacron") Viatel (codenamed "Vitreous") Vodafone Cable (codenamed "Gerontic") MUSCULAR NSA Project 6 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)Stateroom DSD Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) GCHQ Special Collection Service (SCS) Lustre NSA Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE) of France
The NSA was also getting data directly from telecommunications companies code-named Artifice (Verizon), Lithium (AT&T), Serenade, SteelKnight, and X. The real identities of the companies behind these code names were not included in the Snowden document dump because they were protected as Exceptionally Controlled Information which prevents wide circulation even to those (like Snowden) who otherwise have the necessary security clearance.
Disclosures Although the exact size of Snowden's disclosure remains unknown, the following estimates have been put up by various government officials: At least 15,000 Australian intelligence files, according to Australian officials At least 58,000 British intelligence files, according to British officials About 1.7 million U.S. intelligence files, according to U.S. Department of Defense talking points
As a contractor of the NSA, Snowden was granted access to U.S. government documents along with top secret documents of several allied governments, via the exclusive Five Eyes network. Snowden claims that he currently does not physically possess any of these documents, having surrendered all copies to journalists he met in Hong Kong.
According to his lawyer, Snowden has pledged not to release any documents while in Russia, leaving the responsibility for further disclosures solely to journalists. As of 2014, the following news outlets have accessed some of the documents provided by Snowden: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Channel 4, Der Spiegel, El País, El Mundo, L'espresso, Le Monde, NBC, NRC Handelsblad, Dagbladet, O Globo, South China Morning Post, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Sveriges Television, The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
Historical context
In the 1970s, NSA analyst Perry Fellwock (under the pseudonym "Winslow Peck") revealed the existence of the UKUSA Agreement, which forms the basis of the ECHELON network, whose existence was revealed in 1988 by Lockheed employee Margaret Newsham. Months before the September 11 attacks and during its aftermath, further details of the global surveillance apparatus were provided by various individuals such as the former MI5 official David Shayler and the journalist James Bamford, who were followed by: NSA employees William Binney and Thomas Andrews Drake, who revealed that the NSA is rapidly expanding its surveillance GCHQ employee Katharine Gun, who revealed a plot to bug UN delegates shortly before the Iraq War British Cabinet Minister Clare Short, who revealed in 2004 that the UK had spied on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Justice Department lawyer Thomas Tamm, who triggered the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy after revealing that the Bush Administration had spied on U.S. citizens without court approval. Russell Tice, who was dismissed from his job as space systems specialist at the NSA, was subpoenaed before a grand jury to testify about the NSA's domestic surveillance program. Journalist Leslie Cauley of USA Today, who revealed in 2006 that the NSA is keeping a massive database of Americans' phone calls AT&T employee Mark Klein, who revealed in 2006 the existence of Room 641A of the NSA Activists Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, who revealed in 2011 the existence of the mass surveillance industry Journalist Michael Hastings, who revealed in 2012 that protestors of the Occupy Wall Street movement were kept under surveillance
In the aftermath of Snowden's revelations, The Pentagon concluded that Snowden committed the biggest theft of U.S. secrets in the history of the United States. In Australia, the coalition government described the leaks as the most damaging blow dealt to Australian intelligence in history. Sir David Omand, a former director of GCHQ, described Snowden's disclosure as the "most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever".
Timeline of disclosures
In April 2012, NSA contractor Edward Snowden began downloading documents.Mark Hosenball (August 15, 2013), Snowden downloaded NSA secrets while working for Dell, sources say Reuters That year, Snowden had made his first contact with journalist Glenn Greenwald, then employed by The Guardian, and he contacted documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras in January 2013.Peter Maass (August 18, 2013), "How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets". The New York Times
2013
May In May 2013, Snowden went on temporary leave from his position at the NSA, citing the pretext of receiving treatment for his epilepsy. He traveled from Hawaii to Hong Kong at the end of May. Greenwald, Poitras and The Guardian's defence and intelligence correspondent Ewen MacAskill flew to Hong Kong for meeting Snowden.
June After the U.S.-based editor of The Guardian, Janine Gibson, held several meetings in New York City, she decided that Greenwald, Poitras and the Guardians defence and intelligence correspondent Ewen MacAskill would fly to Hong Kong to meet Snowden. On June 5, in the first media report based on the leaked material, The Guardian exposed a top secret court order showing that the NSA had collected phone records from over 120 million Verizon subscribers. Under the order, the numbers of both parties on a call, as well as the location data, unique identifiers, time of call, and duration of call were handed over to the FBI, which turned over the records to the NSA. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Verizon order is part of a controversial data program, which seeks to stockpile records on all calls made in the U.S., but does not collect information directly from T-Mobile US and Verizon Wireless, in part because of their foreign ownership ties.