Echelon-Spionage der NSA holt die USA ein

--- In Europa ist es nach entsprechenden Berichten für das EU-Parlament seit langem kein Geheimnis mehr, dass die NSA über das weit gestrickte Spionagesystem Echelon die weltweite Telekommunikation via Telefon, Fax oder E-Mail belauscht und mithilfe von Stichwortabfragen durchsucht. In den USA schlagen die Informationen über den gigantischen Lauschangriff des technischen US-Geheimdienstes erst jetzt richtig Wellen, nachdem die New York Times heute berichtet, dass auch US-Bürger in großem Stil in die Fänge der Spione geraten:

he National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials. The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said. As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said. The government's collection and analysis of phone and Internet traffic have raised questions among some law enforcement and judicial officials familiar with the program. One issue of concern to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has reviewed some separate warrant applications growing out of the N.S.A.'s surveillance program, is whether the court has legal authority over calls outside the United States that happen to pass through American-based telephonic "switches," according to officials familiar with the matter. "There was a lot of discussion about the switches" in conversations with the court, a Justice Department official said, referring to the gateways through which much of the communications traffic flows. "You're talking about access to such a vast amount of communications, and the question was, How do you minimize something that's on a switch that's carrying such large volumes of traffic? The court was very, very concerned about that." Since the disclosure last week of the N.S.A.'s domestic surveillance program, President Bush and his senior aides have stressed that his executive order allowing eavesdropping without warrants was limited to the monitoring of international phone and e-mail communications involving people with known links to Al Qaeda. What has not been publicly acknowledged is that N.S.A. technicians, besides actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might point to terrorism suspects. Some officials describe the program as a large data-mining operation. ... Officials in the government and the telecommunications industry who have knowledge of parts of the program say the N.S.A. has sought to analyze communications patterns to glean clues from details like who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, and the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages. Calls to and from Afghanistan, for instance, are known to have been of particular interest to the N.S.A. since the Sept. 11 attacks, the officials said. This so-called "pattern analysis" on calls within the United States would, in many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom. ... Historically, the American intelligence community has had close relationships with many communications and computer firms and related technical industries. But the N.S.A.'s backdoor access to major telecommunications switches on American soil with the cooperation of major corporations represents a significant expansion of the agency's operational capability, according to current and former government officials.

Nur seltsam, dass die NYT Echelon nicht mit einem Wort erwähnt, obwohl sie darüber in früheren Jahren ja auch schon berichtete. Vielleicht regt sich jetzt aber trotzdem mehr Empörung über das grenzenlose Schnüffel, obwohl das Timing für den Artikel am Heiligabend für die große Aufmerksamkeitserregung ja nicht sonderlich gut ist. Mehr zum Thema u.a. in Telepolis.

<a href="http://del.icio.us/esmaggbe/geheimdienste" rel="tag">geheimdienste</a>, <a href="http://del.icio.us/esmaggbe/lauschangriff" rel="tag">lauschangriff</a>