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Global surveillance refers to the practice ofglobalizedmass surveillance on entire populations across national borders.[1] Although its existence was first revealed in the 1970s and led legislators to attempt to curb domestic spying by theNational Security Agency (NSA), it did not receive sustained public attention until the existence ofECHELON was revealed in the 1980s and confirmed in the 1990s.[2] In 2013 it gained substantial worldwide media attention due to theglobal surveillance disclosure byEdward Snowden.[3]
In 1972 NSA analystPerry Fellwock (under the pseudonym "Winslow Peck") introduced the readers ofRamparts magazine to the NSA and theUKUSA Agreement.[4] In 1976, a separate article inTime Out magazine revealed the existence of theGCHQ.[5]
In 1982James Bamford's book about the NSA,The Puzzle Palace, was first published. Bamford's second book,Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, was published two decades later.
In 1988 theECHELON network was revealed byMargaret Newsham, aLockheed employee. Newsham told a member of the U.S. Congress that telephone calls ofStrom Thurmond, aRepublican U.S. senator, were being collected by the NSA. Congressional investigators determined that "targeting of U.S. political figures would not occur by accident. But was designed into the system from the start."[6]
By the late 1990sECHELON was reportedly capable of monitoring up to 90% of all internet traffic.[7] According to theBBC in May 2001, however, "The US Government still refused to admit that Echelon even exists."[7]
In the aftermath of theSeptember 11 attacks,William Binney, along with colleaguesJ. Kirke Wiebe andEdward Loomis and in cooperation with House stafferDiane Roark, asked the U.S. Defense Department to investigate the NSA for allegedly wasting "millions and millions of dollars" onTrailblazer, a system intended to analyze data carried on communications networks such as the Internet. Binney was also publicly critical of the NSA for spying on U.S. citizens after theSeptember 11, 2001 attacks.[8] Binney claimed that the NSA had failed to uncover the 9/11 plot despite its massive interception of data.[9]
In 2001, after the September 11 attacks,MI5 started collecting bulk telephone communications data in the United Kingdom (i.e. what telephone numbers called each other and when) and authorized theHome Secretary under theTelecommunications Act 1984 instead of theRegulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which would have brought independent oversight and regulation. This was kept secret until announced by the then Home Secretary in 2015.[10][11][12]
On December 16, 2005,The New York Times published a report under the headline "Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts," which was co-written byEric Lichtblau and thePulitzer Prize-winning journalistJames Risen. According toThe Times, the article's date of publication was delayed for a year (past the next presidential election cycle) because of alleged national security concerns.[13]Russ Tice was later revealed as a major source.
In 2006, further details of the NSA's domestic surveillance of U.S. citizens was provided byUSA Today. The newspaper released a report on May 11, 2006 detailing the NSA's "massive database" of phone records collected from "tens of millions" of U.S. citizens. According toUSA Today, these phone records were provided by several telecom companies such asAT&T,Verizon, andBellSouth.[15] AT&T technicianMark Klein was later revealed as major source, specifically of rooms at network control centers on the internet backbone intercepting and recording all traffic passing through. In 2008 the security analystBabak Pasdar revealed the existence of the so-called "Quantico circuit" that he and his team had set up in 2003. The circuit provided the U.S. federal government with abackdoor into the network of an unnamed wireless provider, which was later independently identified asVerizon.[16]
In 2007, formerQwest CEOJoseph Nacchio alleged in court and provided supporting documentation that in February 2001 (nearly 7 months prior to theSeptember 11 attacks) that the NSA proposed in a meeting to conduct blanket phone spying. He considered the spying to be illegal and refused to cooperate, and claims that the company was punished by being denied lucrative contracts.[17]
In 2011 details of themass surveillance industry were released byWikiLeaks. According toJulian Assange, "We are in a world now where not only is it theoretically possible to record nearly all telecommunications traffic out of a country, all telephone calls, but where there is aninternational industry selling the devices now to do it."[18]
Taken together, the revelations have brought to light a global surveillance system that cast off many of its historical restraints after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Secret legal authorities empowered the NSA to sweep in the telephone, Internet and location records of whole populations.
The SIGINT community was defined by a TOP SECRET treaty signed in 1947. It was called the UKUSA treaty. The National Security Agency signed for the U.S. and became what's called First Party to the Treaty.
GCHQ's cover was first blown in 1976 by an article, The Eavesdroppers, published by the London magazine, Time Out.
The Congressional officials were first told of the Thurmond interception by a former employee of the Lockheed Space and Missiles Corporation, Margaret Newsham, who now lives in Sunnyvale, California.