Report: NSA collecting intel from Google, Yahoo
Leaked files detail project aimed at data lines overseas
WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting Internet data — almost certainly including American email traffic — as it transits to Google and Yahoo servers abroad, according to the latest disclosures from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The documents, reported by The Washington Post, describe a project code-named MUSCULAR, a cooperative effort with the NSA’s British counterpart, GCHQ. Even though NSA has been obtaining data from Google and Yahoo with court orders through the previously disclosed PRISM program, the new documents show the agency also has been taking it without permission abroad, outside the oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The latest disclosure is likely to fuel new calls in Congress and elsewhere to investigate and rein in NSA surveillance.
One internal top-secret NSA document, labeled “Google Cloud Exploitation,” included a sketch illustrating how Google data moves around the world, complete with a smiley face.
Joshua Foust, a former defense intelligence official who has defended NSA surveillance, said on Twitter that the latest disclosure raises questions about how the NSA could spy on U.S. companies.
Google, Yahoo and other Internet firms maintain data centers around the world through which user data flows, irrespective of customers’ nationalities.
U.S. joins suit
WASHINGTON— The Obama administration on Wednesday accused the largest private firm that conducts security-clearance background checks for the federal government of failing to perform quality-control reviews in its investigations of potential government workers.
The Justice Department has intervened in a civil lawsuit against USIS, the company that conducted background checks of both Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, and Aaron Alexis, who killed 12 people in a rampage at the Washington Navy Yard.
Asked Wednesday about the Post story in a public appearance, the NSA’s director, Gen. Keith Alexander, said he was unaware of it, according to Politico — adding the NSA is “not authorized” to access companies’ data centers and instead must “go through a court process” to obtain such content.
The leaked NSA docu- An NSA slide shows a sketch where the “Public Internet” meets the internal “Google Cloud” where user data flows. ments, however, do not say NSA accessed data centers. They say NSA collected the data, including entire copies of Yahoo email accounts, as it was sent over fiber-optic lines between company data centers. Previously, not all such data transmissions were encrypted, or sent in code. In the wake of recent NSA disclosures, Google is moving to encrypt its traffic. Yahoo has not announced plans to do so.
In a statement, NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines said, “The assertion that we collect vast quantities of U.S. persons’ data from this type of collection is not true.”
White House officials and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA, declined to confirm, deny or explain why the agency infiltrates Google and Yahoo networks overseas, the Post reported.
Google told the Post that “we are not aware of this activity.”
A Yahoo spokeswoman told the Post: “We have strict controls in place to protect the security of our data centers.”