Google and Yahoo furious over
reports that NSA secretly intercepts data links
Leaked files suggest NSA can
collect information 'at will' by intercepting cables that connect Google and
Yahoo's data hubs
Google and Yahoo, two of the world's biggest tech
companies, reacted angrily to a report on Wednesday that the National Security Agency has secretly
intercepted the main communication links that carry their users' data around
the world.
Citing documents obtained from
former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with officials, the
Washington Post claimed the agency could collect information "at
will" from among hundreds of millions of user accounts.
The documents suggest that the
NSA, in partnership with its British counterpart GCHQ, is copying large amounts
of data as it flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information between
the worldwide data centers of the Silicon Valley
giants.
The story is likely to put further
strain on the already difficult relations between the tech firms and
Washington. The internet giants are furious about the damage done to their
reputation in the wake of Snowden's revelations.
In a statement, Google's chief
legal officer, David Drummond, said the company was "outraged" by the
latest revelations.
"We have long been concerned
about the possibility of this kind of snooping, which is why we have continued
to extend encryption across more and more Google services and links, especially
the links in the slide," he said.
"We do not provide any
government, including the US
government, with access to our systems. We are outraged at the lengths to which
the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber
networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform."
Yahoo said: "We have strict
controls in place to protect the security of our data centers, and we have not
given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government
agency."
According to a top-secret document
cited by the Post dated 9 January 2013, millions of records a day are sent from
Yahoo and Google internal networks to NSA data warehouses at the agency's
headquarters in Fort Meade,
Maryland. The types of
information sent ranged from "metadata", indicating who sent or
received emails, the subject line and where and when, to content such as text,
audio and video.
The Post's documents state that in
the preceding 30 days, field collectors had processed and sent on 181,280,466
new records.
Internet firms go to great lengths
to protect their data. But the NSA documents published by the Post appear to
boast about their ability to circumvent those protections. In one presentation
slide on "Google Cloud Exploitation," published by the Post, an
artist has added a smiley face, in apparent celebration of the NSA's victory
over Google security systems.
The latest disclosures may shed
new light on a reference in a GCHQ document, first reported in September by the
Guardian, the New York Times and ProPublica. As part of its efforts with the
NSA to defeat internet encryption, GCHQ, the 2012 document said, was working on
developing ways into the major webmail providers, including Google and Yahoo.
It added that "work has predominantly been focused this quarter on Google
due to new access opportunities being developed".
In its report, the Post suggested
the intercept project was codenamed Muscular, but the Guardian understands from
other documents provided by Snowden that the term instead refers to the system
that enables the initial processing of information gathered from NSA or GCHQ
cable taps.
The data outputted from Muscular
is then forwarded to NSA or GCHQ databases, or systems such as the XKeyscore
search tool, previously reported by the Guardian.
The Post said the program allowed
the NSA to circumvent the legal restrictions that prevent it from accessing the
data of people who live in the United
States, and that it fell instead under an
executive order, signed by the president, that authorised foreign intelligence
operations.
In response, the NSA specifically
denied that it used the presidential order to circumvent the restrictions on
domestic spying, though the agency said nothing about the rest of the story.
The NSA statement said, in full:
"NSA has multiple authorities that it uses to accomplish its mission,
which is centered on defending the nation. The Washington Post's assertion that
we use Executive Order 12333 collection to get around the limitations imposed
by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and FAA 702 is not true.
"The assertion that we
collect vast quantities of US persons' data from this type of collection is
also not true. NSA applies attorney general-approved processes to protect the
privacy of US persons – minimizing the likelihood of their information in our
targeting, collection, processing, exploitation, retention, and dissemination.
"NSA is a foreign
intelligence agency. And we're focused on discovering and developing
intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets only."
A GCHQ spokesman said: "We
are aware of the story but we don't have any comment."
The NSA statement was much more
narrowly drawn than the initial response by the agency's director, General
Keith Alexander. At a Washington
conference on Wednesday as the Post story broke, Alexander issued an immediate
denial, but was not specifically asked to address allegations that NSA
intercepted data transiting between the companies' data centers.
Relations between the tech
companies and the government are already strained over the Snowden revelations.
Speaking at a tech conference in September, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg
said the government had done a "bad job" of balancing people's
privacy. "Frankly, I think the government blew it," he said.
Google will have its first turn
before a legislative panel to confront surveillance questions next month.
Senators Al Franken and Dean Heller, who are backing a bill to compel the
government to provide more transparency about bulk surveillance, announced
Wednesday that the Internet giant will send a representative to a Senate
hearing they will hold on 13 November.
Yahoo
Joanne K.
Bradford was the SVP for Yahoo! Inc.,
and a VP for the Microsoft Corporation.
Note: Michael J. Wolf
is a director at Yahoo! Inc., and
was a senior director at McKinsey &
Company.
Sylvia
Mathews Burwell was an associate at McKinsey
& Company, and the president, global development for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
William H. Gates
III is a co-chair for the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, and a co-founder & chairman for the Microsoft Corporation.
Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation was a funder for the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Brookings Institution (think tank)
George
Soros is the chairman for the Foundation
to Promote Open Society.
Sheryl K.
Sandberg was a trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), a VP for Google
Inc., a management consultant for McKinsey
& Company, and is the COO & director for Facebook.
Google.org
is a philanthropic arm for Google Inc.
Shona
L. Brown is the SVP for Google.org,
was the SVP for Google Inc., and the
VP for McKinsey & Company.
Patrick Pichette
is the SVP & CFO for Google Inc.,
and was a partner at McKinsey &
Company,
Susan
E. Rice was a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), a management consultant for McKinsey & Company, and is the White House national security
adviser for the Barack Obama
administration.
Diana
Farrell was the deputy assistant to the president on economic policy for
the Barack Obama administration, and
is a director at McKinsey & Company.
Nancy
Killefer was the nominee for chief performance officer for the Barack Obama administration, and is a senior
director for McKinsey & Company.
Anthony W. Miller
is the deputy education secretary for the Barack
Obama administration, and was a partner at McKinsey & Company.
Donald
H. Gips was the director of presidential personnel for the Barack Obama administration, and a
consultant for McKinsey & Company.
Lael
Brainard is the treasury under secretary for the Barack Obama administration, was a consultant for McKinsey & Company, and the VP
& director for the Brookings
Institution (think tank).
Dominic Barton is
the global managing director for McKinsey
& Company, and a trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank).
D. Ronald Daniel
is a director at McKinsey & Company,
and was an honorary trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank).
Martin N. Baily
was a principal at McKinsey &
Company, and a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution (think tank).
Cyrus F.
Freidheim Jr. is an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), and a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Robert S. Osborne
is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago,
and the EVP & general counsel for Booz
Allen Hamilton.
Edward Snowden was
an employee at Booz Allen Hamilton,
and leaked information about the National
Security Agency (NSA).
National
Security Agency (NSA) was a
grant recipient for the Microsoft
Corporation.
Joanne K.
Bradford was a VP for the Microsoft
Corporation, and the SVP for Yahoo!
Inc.
Booz
& Company is a spinoff company for Booz
Allen Hamilton.
David
G. Knott was a senior partner at Booz
& Company, and is a director at McKinsey
& Company.
Chelsea V. Clinton
was an employee at McKinsey &
Company, is William J. Clinton
& Hillary Rodham Clinton’s daughter,
a board member for the Clinton Global
Initiative, a member of the Council
on Foreign Relations (think tank), and the vice chair for the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton
Foundation.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
George
Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (think tank), and the chairman for the
Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the New America Foundation, the Committee
for Economic Development, the Aspen Institute (think tank), the Sundance Institute, the International Rescue Committee, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(think tank), the Millennium Promise,
and the Hudson Institute (think tank).
George
Polk is a managing partner at Soros
Climate Fund Management LLC, and was a senior adviser on climate change for McKinsey & Company.
Roger W.
Ferguson Jr. was a partner at McKinsey
& Company, and a director at the New
America Foundation.
Eric E. Schmidt is the chairman of the New
America
Foundation, the chairman for Google
Inc., was a funder for the New America Foundation, and
a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Google Quietly Removes Censorship Warning Feature For
Search Users In China
(Updated)
Posted Jan 4, 2013 by Natasha Lomas
Leonard T.
Mendonca is a director at the New
America Foundation, a director at McKinsey
& Company, and a co-chairman for the Committee for Economic Development.
Donald C. Waite
III is a director emeritus at McKinsey
& Company, and was a trustee at the Committee for Economic Development.
Donna
S. Morea was a trustee at the Committee
for Economic Development, and the CGI
Group Inc.
CGI Group Inc.
was the Obamacare contractor that
developed Healthcare.gov web site.
James
M. Manyika is a trustee at the Aspen
Institute (think tank), and a partner at McKinsey & Company.
James S.
Crown is a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and a member
of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Lester Crown
is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, and was a lifetime
trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank).
Geoffrey K. Sands
is a trustee at the Sundance Institute,
and the chief media partner for McKinsey
& Company.
F. William
Barnett is an overseer at the International
Rescue Committee, and was a director at McKinsey & Company.
William W. Bradley
is a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace (think tank), and was an outside adviser for McKinsey & Company.
Rajat
K. Gupta was a director at the Millennium
Promise, and a senior partner at McKinsey
& Company.
Bill
Matassoni is a trustee at the Hudson
Institute (think tank), and was a
partner at McKinsey & Company.
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