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NSA develops Boundless Informant to track global intelligence: Report
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/308007.html
Sun Jun 9, 2013 2:44PM
The color scheme ranges from green (least subjected to surveillance)
through yellow and orange to red (most surveillance).
The United States National Security Agency has developed a powerful
tool for recording and categorizing intelligence it secretly collects
from countries across the globe.
Top-secret documents about the spy agency's global surveillance, a
copy of which was obtained by The Guardian, reveals that the tool,
called `Boundless Informant,' details and even maps by country the
information the NSA collects from computer and telephone networks.
"The tool allows users to select a country on a map and view the
metadata volume and select details about the collections against that
country," an NSA factsheet on the program explained, the newspaper
reported on Saturday.
The documents showed that the NSA, over a period of 30 days in March,
collected a whooping trove of 97 billion pieces of intelligence from
computer networks around the world. Of those, 3 billion came from the
United States itself.
The top countries in terms of intelligence gathered from are Iran with
more than 14 billion pieces of data collected; Pakistan with 13.5
billion; Jordan with 12.7 billion; Egypt with 7.6 billion and India
with 6.3 billion.
According to one document, the spying tool is designed to give NSA
officials answers to such questions as, "What type of coverage do we
have on country X" in "near real-time by asking the SIGINT [signals
intelligence] infrastructure."
Other documents cited by The Guardian allegedly show that the NSA
breaks down the collected data, and even collects IP addresses. The
NSA denied the claims.
"NSA has consistently reported -- including to Congress -- that we do
not have the ability to determine with certainty the identity or
location of all communicants within a given communication. That
remains the case," the NSA said in a statement.
The revelation about the NSA's global surveillance program comes on
the heels of two other major leaks about the spy agency's data mining
of phone call and Internet records of millions of American citizens.
On Friday, President Barrack Obama defended the government's vast data
gathering program, describing it as a necessary tool to ward off
terrorist attacks.
Obama said that while U.S. citizens are free to complain about the
`big brother'-style surveillance, providing security is worth the
"modest encroachments on privacy."
Meanwhile, the new revelations have caused the White House and
Congress to blame each other over how much responsibility each has for
the data mining program.
While the Obama administration seeks to shift part of the blame on
Congress for the surveillance program, lawmakers are not eager to
accept it. Several quickly denied they had been kept apprised of the
NSA's intrusive measures.
The Justice Department and the FBI are likely to open a criminal
investigation into the latest leaks of classified documents, law
enforcement and security officials said.
AGB/HJ
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/308007.html
Sun Jun 9, 2013 2:44PM
The color scheme ranges from green (least subjected to surveillance)
through yellow and orange to red (most surveillance).
The United States National Security Agency has developed a powerful
tool for recording and categorizing intelligence it secretly collects
from countries across the globe.
Top-secret documents about the spy agency's global surveillance, a
copy of which was obtained by The Guardian, reveals that the tool,
called `Boundless Informant,' details and even maps by country the
information the NSA collects from computer and telephone networks.
"The tool allows users to select a country on a map and view the
metadata volume and select details about the collections against that
country," an NSA factsheet on the program explained, the newspaper
reported on Saturday.
The documents showed that the NSA, over a period of 30 days in March,
collected a whooping trove of 97 billion pieces of intelligence from
computer networks around the world. Of those, 3 billion came from the
United States itself.
The top countries in terms of intelligence gathered from are Iran with
more than 14 billion pieces of data collected; Pakistan with 13.5
billion; Jordan with 12.7 billion; Egypt with 7.6 billion and India
with 6.3 billion.
According to one document, the spying tool is designed to give NSA
officials answers to such questions as, "What type of coverage do we
have on country X" in "near real-time by asking the SIGINT [signals
intelligence] infrastructure."
Other documents cited by The Guardian allegedly show that the NSA
breaks down the collected data, and even collects IP addresses. The
NSA denied the claims.
"NSA has consistently reported -- including to Congress -- that we do
not have the ability to determine with certainty the identity or
location of all communicants within a given communication. That
remains the case," the NSA said in a statement.
The revelation about the NSA's global surveillance program comes on
the heels of two other major leaks about the spy agency's data mining
of phone call and Internet records of millions of American citizens.
On Friday, President Barrack Obama defended the government's vast data
gathering program, describing it as a necessary tool to ward off
terrorist attacks.
Obama said that while U.S. citizens are free to complain about the
`big brother'-style surveillance, providing security is worth the
"modest encroachments on privacy."
Meanwhile, the new revelations have caused the White House and
Congress to blame each other over how much responsibility each has for
the data mining program.
While the Obama administration seeks to shift part of the blame on
Congress for the surveillance program, lawmakers are not eager to
accept it. Several quickly denied they had been kept apprised of the
NSA's intrusive measures.
The Justice Department and the FBI are likely to open a criminal
investigation into the latest leaks of classified documents, law
enforcement and security officials said.
AGB/HJ
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress