The US National Security Agency (NSA) has been gathering nearly 200 million text messages a day from around the world, gathering data on people’s travel plans, contacts and credit card transactions, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported on Thursday.
Code-named “Dishfire,” the NSA program collects “pretty much everything it can,” the Guardian said, citing a joint investigation with the UK’s Channel 4 News based on material from fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The paper said the documents also showed that the Government Communications Headquarters, the British spy agency, had used the NSA database to search the metadata of “untargeted and unwarranted” communications of people in the UK.
It added that communications from US phone numbers were removed or “minimized” from the database, while numbers from other countries, including the UK, were kept.
Citing a 2011 NSA presentation subtitled “SMS Text Messages: A Goldmine to Exploit,” the Guardian said the program collected 194 million text messages a day on average in April that year.
“The NSA has made extensive use of its vast text message database to extract information on people’s travel plans, contact books, financial transactions and more — including of individuals under no suspicion of illegal activity,” the report said.
US President Barack Obama was yesterday to announce reforms to NSA eavesdropping programs, prompted by disclosures from Snowden.
Questions about US government spying on civilians and foreign officials burst into the open in June last year, when Snowden leaked secrets about mass collection of telephone data and other secret eavesdropping programs to newspapers before fleeing to Hong Kong and then to Moscow.
Asked about the Guardian article, the NSA said: “As we have previously stated, the implication that NSA’s collection is arbitrary and unconstrained is false.”
The agency’s activities “are focused and specifically deployed against — and only against — valid foreign intelligence targets in response to intelligence requirements,” the NSA said in a statement.
“Because some SMS data of US persons may at times be incidentally collected in NSA’s lawful foreign intelligence mission, privacy protections for US persons exist across the entire process concerning the use, handling, retention, and dissemination of SMS data in DISHFIRE,” the agency said.
“In addition, NSA actively works to remove extraneous data, to include that of innocent foreign citizens, as early as possible in the process,” it said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese