Verizon court order: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Americans daily

6. Juni 2013, The Guardian

Ex­clu­si­ve: Top se­cret court or­der re­qui­ring Ve­ri­zon to hand over all call da­ta shows sca­le of do­mestic sur­veil­lan­ce un­der Oba­ma

The Na­tio­nal Se­cu­ri­ty Agen­cy is cur­rent­ly collec­ting the te­le­pho­ne re­cor­ds of mil­li­ons of US cust­o­m­ers of Ve­ri­zon, one of Ame­ri­ca's lar­gest tel­e­coms pro­vi­ders, un­der a top se­cret court or­der is­sued in April.

The or­der, a co­py of which has be­en ob­tai­ned by the Guar­di­an, re­qui­res Ve­ri­zon on an "on­go­ing, dai­ly ba­sis" to gi­ve the NSA in­for­ma­ti­on on all te­le­pho­ne calls in its sys­tems, both wi­t­hin the US and bet­ween the US and other coun­tries.

The do­cu­ment shows for the first time that un­der the Oba­ma ad­mi­nis­tra­ti­on the com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on re­cor­ds of mil­li­ons of US ci­ti­zens are being collec­ted in­dis­cri­mi­na­te­ly and in bulk - re­gard­less of whe­ther they are sus­pec­ted of any wrong­do­ing.

The se­cret For­eign In­tel­li­gence Sur­veil­lan­ce Court (Fi­sa) gran­ted the or­der to the FBI on April 25, gi­ving the go­vern­ment un­li­mi­ted aut­ho­ri­ty to ob­tain the da­ta for a spe­ci­fied three-month pe­ri­od en­ding on Ju­ly 19.

Un­der the terms of the blan­ket or­der, the num­bers of both par­ties on a call are han­ded over, as is lo­ca­ti­on da­ta, call du­ra­ti­on, uni­que iden­ti­fiers, and the time and du­ra­ti­on of all calls. The con­tents of the con­ver­sa­ti­on its­elf are not co­ve­r­ed.

The dis­clo­sure is li­kely to reig­ni­te long­stan­ding de­ba­tes in the US over the pro­per extent of the go­vern­ment's do­mestic spy­ing powers.

Un­der the Bush ad­mi­nis­tra­ti­on, of­fi­ci­als in se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies had dis­clo­sed to re­por­ters the lar­ge-sca­le collec­tion of call re­cor­ds da­ta by the NSA, but this is the first time si­gni­fi­cant and top-se­cret do­cu­ments ha­ve re­vea­led the con­ti­nua­ti­on of the prac­tice on a mas­si­ve sca­le un­der Pre­si­dent Oba­ma.

The un­li­mi­ted na­tu­re of the re­cor­ds being han­ded over to the NSA is ex­tre­me­ly unusu­al. Fi­sa court or­ders ty­pi­cal­ly di­rect the pro­duc­tion of re­cor­ds per­tai­ning to a spe­ci­fic na­med tar­get who is sus­pec­ted of being an agent of a ter­ro­rist group or for­eign sta­te, or a fi­ni­te set of in­di­vi­dual­ly na­med tar­gets.

The Guar­di­an ap­proa­ched the Na­tio­nal Se­cu­ri­ty Agen­cy, the Whi­te Hou­se and the De­part­ment of Jus­ti­ce for com­ment in ad­van­ce of pu­bli­ca­ti­on on Wed­nes­day. All de­cli­ned. The agen­cies we­re al­so of­fe­red the op­por­tu­ni­ty to rai­se spe­ci­fic se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns re­gar­ding the pu­bli­ca­ti­on of the court or­der.

The court or­der ex­press­ly bars Ve­ri­zon from dis­clo­sing to the pu­blic eit­her the exis­tence of the FBI's re­quest for its cust­o­m­ers' re­cor­ds, or the court or­der its­elf.

"We de­cli­ne com­ment," said Ed Mc­F­ad­den, a Wa­shing­ton-ba­sed Ve­ri­zon spo­kes­man.

The or­der, si­gned by Judge Ro­ger Vin­son, com­pels Ve­ri­zon to pro­du­ce to the NSA elec­tro­nic co­pies of "all call de­tail re­cor­ds or 'te­le­pho­ny me­ta­da­ta' crea­ted by Ve­ri­zon for com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons bet­ween the United Sta­tes and ab­road" or "whol­ly wi­t­hin the United Sta­tes, in­clu­ding lo­cal te­le­pho­ne calls".

The or­der di­rects Ve­ri­zon to "con­ti­nue pro­duc­tion on an on­go­ing dai­ly ba­sis the­re­af­ter for the du­ra­ti­on of this or­der". It spe­ci­fies that the re­cor­ds to be pro­du­ced in­clu­de "ses­si­on iden­ti­fy­ing in­for­ma­ti­on", such as "ori­gi­na­ting and ter­mi­na­ting num­ber", the du­ra­ti­on of each call, te­le­pho­ne cal­ling card num­bers, trunk iden­ti­fiers, In­ter­na­tio­nal Mo­bi­le Sub­scri­ber Iden­ti­ty (IM­SI) num­ber, and "com­pre­hen­si­ve com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on rou­ting in­for­ma­ti­on".

The in­for­ma­ti­on is clas­sed as "me­ta­da­ta", or tran­sac­tio­nal in­for­ma­ti­on, ra­ther than com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, and so does not re­qui­re in­di­vi­du­al war­rants to ac­cess. The do­cu­ment al­so spe­ci­fies that such "me­ta­da­ta" is not li­mi­ted to the afo­re­men­tio­ned items. A 2005 court ru­ling jud­ged that cell site lo­ca­ti­on da­ta - the nea­rest cell tower a pho­ne was con­nec­ted to - was al­so tran­sac­tio­nal da­ta, and so could po­ten­ti­al­ly fall un­der the scope of the or­der.

Whi­le the or­der its­elf does not in­clu­de eit­her the con­tents of mes­sa­ges or the per­so­nal in­for­ma­ti­on of the sub­scri­ber of any par­ti­cu­lar cell num­ber, its collec­tion would al­low the NSA to build ea­si­ly a com­pre­hen­si­ve pic­tu­re of who any in­di­vi­du­al con­tac­ted, how and when, and pos­si­bly from whe­re, re­tro­s­pec­tive­ly.

It is not known whe­ther Ve­ri­zon is the on­ly cell-pho­ne pro­vi­der to be tar­ge­ted with such an or­der, alt­hough pre­vious re­porting has sug­gested the NSA has collec­ted cell re­cor­ds from all ma­jor mo­bi­le net­works. It is al­so un­cle­ar from the lea­k­ed do­cu­ment whe­ther the three-month or­der was a one-off, or the la­test in a se­ries of si­mi­lar or­ders.

The court or­der ap­pears to ex­plain the nu­merous cryp­tic pu­blic warnings by two US se­na­tors, Ron Wy­den and Mark Udall, about the scope of the Oba­ma ad­mi­nis­tra­ti­on's sur­veil­lan­ce ac­tivi­ties.

For rough­ly two ye­ars, the two De­mo­crats ha­ve be­en stri­dent­ly ad­vi­sing the pu­blic that the US go­vern­ment is re­ly­ing on "se­cret le­gal in­ter­pre­ta­ti­ons" to claim sur­veil­lan­ce powers so broad that the Ame­ri­can pu­blic would be "stun­ned" to learn of the kind of do­mestic spy­ing being con­duc­ted.

Be­cau­se tho­se ac­tivi­ties are clas­si­fied, the se­na­tors, both mem­bers of the Se­na­te in­tel­li­gence com­mit­tee, ha­ve be­en preven­ted from spe­ci­fy­ing which do­mestic sur­veil­lan­ce pro­grams they find so alar­ming. But the in­for­ma­ti­on they ha­ve be­en able to dis­clo­se in their pu­blic warnings per­fect­ly tracks both the spe­ci­fic law ci­ted by the April 25 court or­der as well as the vast scope of re­cord-gathe­ring it aut­ho­ri­zed.

Ju­li­an San­chez, a sur­veil­lan­ce ex­pert with the Ca­to In­sti­tu­te, ex­plai­ned: "We've cer­tain­ly se­en the go­vern­ment in­cre­a­sin­gly strain the bounds of 're­le­van­ce' to collect lar­ge num­bers of re­cor­ds at on­ce - ever­yo­ne at one or two de­grees of se­pa­ra­ti­on from a tar­get - but va­cu­uming all me­ta­da­ta up in­dis­cri­mi­na­te­ly would be an ex­tra­or­di­na­ry re­pu­dia­ti­on of any pre­tence of cons­traint or par­ti­cu­la­ri­zed sus­pi­ci­on." The April or­der re­quested by the FBI and NSA does pre­cise­ly that.

The law on which the or­der ex­pli­cit­ly re­li­es is the so-cal­led "busi­ness re­cor­ds" pro­vi­si­on of the Pa­tri­ot Act, 50 USC sec­tion 1861. That is the pro­vi­si­on which Wy­den and Udall ha­ve re­pea­ted­ly ci­ted when warning the pu­blic of what they be­lie­ve is the Oba­ma ad­mi­nis­tra­ti­on's ex­tre­me in­ter­pre­ta­ti­on of the law to en­ga­ge in ex­ces­si­ve do­mestic sur­veil­lan­ce.

In a let­ter to at­tor­ney ge­ne­ral Eric Hol­der last ye­ar, they argued that "the­re is now a si­gni­fi­cant gap bet­ween what most Ame­ri­cans think the law al­lows and what the go­vern­ment se­cret­ly claims the law al­lows."

"We be­lie­ve," they wro­te, "that most Ame­ri­cans would be stun­ned to learn the de­tails of how the­se se­cret court opi­ni­ons ha­ve in­ter­pre­ted" the "busi­ness re­cor­ds" pro­vi­si­on of the Pa­tri­ot Act.

Pri­va­cy ad­vo­ca­tes ha­ve long war­ned that al­lo­wing the go­vern­ment to collect and store un­li­mi­ted "me­ta­da­ta" is a high­ly in­va­si­ve form of sur­veil­lan­ce of ci­ti­zens' com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons ac­tivi­ties. Tho­se re­cor­ds enable the go­vern­ment to know the iden­ti­ty of every per­son with whom an in­di­vi­du­al com­mu­ni­ca­tes elec­tro­ni­cal­ly, how long they spo­ke, and their lo­ca­ti­on at the time of the com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on.

Such me­ta­da­ta is what the US go­vern­ment has long at­temp­ted to ob­tain in or­der to dis­co­ver an in­di­vi­du­al's net­work of as­so­cia­ti­ons and com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on pat­terns. The re­quest for the bulk collec­tion of all Ve­ri­zon do­mestic te­le­pho­ne re­cor­ds in­di­ca­tes that the agen­cy is con­ti­nuing so­me ver­si­on of the da­ta-mi­ning pro­gram be­gun by the Bush ad­mi­nis­tra­ti­on in the im­me­dia­te af­ter­math of the 9/11 at­tack.

The NSA, as part of a pro­gram se­cret­ly aut­ho­ri­zed by Pre­si­dent Bush on 4 Oc­to­ber 2001, im­ple­men­ted a bulk collec­tion pro­gram of do­mestic te­le­pho­ne, in­ter­net and email re­cor­ds. A fu­ro­re erup­ted in 2006 when USA To­day re­por­ted that the NSA had "be­en se­cret­ly collec­ting the pho­ne call re­cor­ds of tens of mil­li­ons of Ame­ri­cans, using da­ta pro­vi­ded by AT&T, Ve­ri­zon and Bell­South" and was "using the da­ta to ana­ly­ze cal­ling pat­terns in an ef­fort to de­tect ter­ro­rist ac­tivi­ty." Un­til now, the­re has be­en no in­di­ca­ti­on that the Oba­ma ad­mi­nis­tra­ti­on im­ple­men­ted a si­mi­lar pro­gram.

The­se re­cent events re­flect how pro­found­ly the NSA's mis­si­on has trans­for­med from an agen­cy ex­clu­si­ve­ly de­vo­ted to for­eign in­tel­li­gence gathe­ring, in­to one that fo­cu­ses in­cre­a­sin­gly on do­mestic com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons. A 30-ye­ar em­ployee of the NSA, Wil­li­am Bin­ney, re­si­gned from the agen­cy short­ly af­ter 9/11 in pro­test at the agen­cy's fo­cus on do­mestic ac­tivi­ties.

In the mid-1970s, Con­gress, for the first time, in­ves­ti­ga­ted the sur­veil­lan­ce ac­tivi­ties of the US go­vern­ment. Back then, the man­da­te of the NSA was that it would ne­ver di­rect its sur­veil­lan­ce ap­pa­ra­tus do­mesti­cal­ly.

At the con­clu­si­on of that in­ves­ti­ga­ti­on, Frank Church, the De­mo­cra­tic se­na­tor from Ida­ho who chai­red the in­ves­ti­ga­ti­ve com­mit­tee, war­ned: "The NSA's ca­pa­bi­li­ty at any time could be tur­ned around on the Ame­ri­can peop­le, and no Ame­ri­can would ha­ve any pri­va­cy left, such is the ca­pa­bi­li­ty to mo­ni­tor ever­y­thing: te­le­pho­ne con­ver­sa­ti­ons, te­le­grams, it doe­sn't mat­ter."