The NSA and domestic spying

 

The NSA spies FOR us, not ON us

The NSA PRISM phone metadata collection is blasted for invading our privacy, but it prevented 54 attacks, including 13 in the U.S., and prevented an attack on the New York subway system by linking phone calls from terrorists in Pakistan with Najibullah Zazi in Colorado.

     In 2013, the NSA and FBI were linking into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple. They were able to get a hold of audio, video, photographs, emails, documents, and connection logs. But they were apparently spying FOR us, not ON us, for the info was used to track the movements of “bad guys” and the people they contact. But even though this personal mega data info is used to hunt down those who would do harm to America, many were worried that it could someday be used against the rest of us by some unscrupulous, power hungry POTUS or other high-ranking government official. A scary thought. 

     It appears this electronic spying is extensive. The Director of National Intelligence revealed that PRISM has been in operation since 2008, whereby the NSA obtains electronic communications in real-time from all nine major Internet service providers (mentioned above). In addition, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (“FISC”) found in 2011 that it accounts for 91% of the roughly 250 million Internet communications acquired each year under Section 702 of the FAA. FISC also found that PRISM “facilitates extensive, in-depth surveillance on both live communications and stored information. … It also can collect and monitor communications made entirely within the U.S., without warrants.

     A little-known side of PRISM is that the CIA can search its database for communications between U.S. persons. Hmm…I thought the CIA was unable to conduct domestic spying? Well, there are exceptions to this rule, and I bring them out in the MISSION OF VENGEANCE spy thriller. “Stacie” is CIA mole planted inside the NSA, and she uses PRISM and ECHELON to spy inside the U.S. Here’s a few snippets:

     Snippet 1: Stacey sat at her supercomputer in the bowels of the National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Meade. The parrot tie clasp flash drive arrived an hour ago. CBIF’s High-Speed Transport airlines flew it nonstop from the Dominican Republic to “The Farm”, where two armed couriers took over and delivered it to her.

     Snippet 2: Stacey was a CBIF mole placed inside the NSA to work the PRISM and ECHELON systems. Right now, her mission was to drop everything she was currently working on and crack through the password. Time for the old-fashioned way. Stacey connected the flash drive to the supercomputer’s advanced “Brute Force” program. No doubt, the Russians used a password with many numerical, upper and lowercase letters, and special characters.

     No other NSA employees were near her, as agreed upon by General Morrison and the NSA director. She often spoke to herself in her isolated cubicle. “I’ll start with eight-character combinations.” She entered the instructions into Brute Force. Moments later, it came back with the number of guesstimates it would generate: 6,634,498,321,890,647.

     “Dam! Over six quadrillion. I’m going to be here for a while.”

End of snippets

     Lastly, I had to include this video entitled: Obama on Prism, Phone Spying Controversy: "No One Is Listening To Your Phone Calls": 

Robert Morton is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and enjoys writing about the U.S. Intelligence Community. He authors the Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster series. Check out his latest spy thriller: MISSION OF VENGEANCE.