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Wednesday, March 19th, 2014

NSA Surveillance Program Reaches “Into the Past’ to Retrieve, Replay Phone Calls

Author:     BARTON GELLMAN and ASHKAN SOLTANI
Source:     The Washington Post
Publication Date:     Tuesday, March 18, 8:37 AM
 Link: NSA Surveillance Program Reaches “Into the Past’ to Retrieve, Replay Phone Calls
Stephan:   Once again we need to thank Edward Snowden for government documents spelling out just how pervasive the American police state has become. Do you wonder why people in other countries dislike us so. I cannot tell you how painful I find this at a personal level. I was 21 and working for National Geographic when I first traveled overseas on business. I had an assignment and I still remember the many courtesies extended to me. Looking back I was so naive and still thank the people who saw what I was trying to do and made it happen for me when I could never have done it on my own. They didn't know me, several were clear about that, but I was an American. That was enough. About five years ago I was in Paris and saw young people, who were clearly Americans, as they confirmed to me, sitting at a table sewing Canadian patches on their packs. "It just makes things easier," one of the young women told me. And it has gotten worse. I lived in Egypt for two years, and wouldn't even visit today.

The National Security Agency has built a surveillance system capable of recording ‘100 percent” of a foreign country’s telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place, according to people with direct knowledge of the effort and documents supplied by former contractor Edward Snowden.

A senior manager for the program compares it to a time machine – one that can replay the voices from any call without requiring that a person be identified in advance for surveillance.

This cover slide comes from a weekly briefing deck by the NSA’s Special Source Operations team, which is responsible for deploying and maintaining bulk collection methods.

This is an excerpt from a weekly briefing memo from the NSA’s Special Source Operations team that describes collection efforts and defines many agency terms.

In this excerpt from the FY13 Congressional Budget Justification, the addition of a country to MYSTIC efforts is mentioned.

Obama and changes at NSA

On Jan. 17, President Obama called for significant changes to the way the NSA collects and uses telephone records of U.S. citizens. Read a transcript of his remarks.

Report

Here is the report from the five-member Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, which contains 40-plus […]

Read the Full Article