Pentagon watchdog 'not aware' of NSA bulk phone data collection

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/18/pentagon-watchdog-nsa-bulk-phone-collection

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The Pentagon’s intelligence watchdog said he was “not aware” of the National Security Agency’s bulk domestic phone records collection programs before the Guardian exposed it in June, nor does his office have investigations open into the controversial surveillance.

The admission by Anthony C Thomas, the deputy Defense Department inspector general for intelligence and special program assessments – who has oversight responsibilities on the National Security Agency – comes despite months of public assurances that the NSA’s vast surveillance activities are thoroughly overseen, including by the Pentagon inspector general.

Soon after Thomas discussed his oversight over intelligence with reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday, the Washington Post published a story, based on Edward Snowden’s disclosures, reporting that the NSA can harvest every telephone call made in an unnamed foreign country and store them for up to a month.

Thomas, an Air Force and intelligence veteran who became deputy inspector general in March 2013, said he “can’t quantify” the amount of oversight he performs on the NSA.

“The bulk of that is in reviews that we have done, and in the collaborative work that we have done with the NSA IG,” Thomas said.

“From my own personal knowledge, those programs, in and of themselves, I was not personally aware,” Thomas said.

Thomas said that through access to forums set up with the various defense-related intelligence inspectors general, which include the NSA, “I see their plans” for reviews and investigations over the course of a given year.

“That doesn’t mean that the DOD IG is saying: ‘well, if you look at that, we won’t look at that.’ Certainly not, but it’s more of an ongoing relationship … a constant discussion,” Thomas said, although he does not currently have plans to investigate NSA bulk surveillance.

“If the NSA IG is looking into something and we feel that their reporting, their investigation is ongoing, we’ll wait to see what they find or what they don’t find, and that may dictate something that we may do. In the course of a planning process, we may get a hotline [call], or we may get some complaint that may dictate an action that we may or not take,” Thomas said.

Specifically on bulk NSA surveillance, Thomas said he was “waiting to see the information that the NSA IG brings forward with the investigations that are going on, and what we often do not want to do is conflict.”

NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines would not comment on any investigations or reviews by the surveillance agency’s office of the inspector general.

“The NSA OIG does not comment on investigations or reviews that it has opened. The Office does have a division dedicated to intelligence oversight, and it does have reporting obligations to the Congress and the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board,” Vines said.

A spokesman for the director of national intelligence, Shawn Turner, declined to comment.

Nearly ten months since the Guardian and the Washington Post began reporting on the NSA’s vast bulk collection capabilities, NSA and its allies typically portray the intelligence agencies’ internal inspectors general as a critical check against abuse.

Outgoing NSA director Keith Alexander specifically mentioned the Pentagon inspector general during an October appearance before the House intelligence committee. “The DNI has an inspector general and a general counsel that also oversees what we’re doing,” he said. “The Department of Defense has a general counsel and an inspector general that oversees what we’re doing. And the Department of Justice, their national security division, oversees what we’re doing and works with us in the court and the White House.”

Shortly after Thomas’s discussion, the Washington Post revealed a previously undisclosed program, called Mystic, to intercept what it said were “100%” of voice calls made in a foreign country, alongside a retrieval tool, codenamed Retro, that provides intelligence analysts access to an unprecedented amount of phone conversations.

The programs, the Post reported, operate on a “rolling” basis, purging recordings of calls after 30 days to allow new ones into the system. Officials cited by the Post likened Mystic and Retro to a “time machine,” passing millions of “cuts” of conversations within the unnamed country on to NSA data storage, a technique described as necessary to help NSA develop new intelligence leads.

A previously secret budget document for fiscal 2013 hints at an effort to “add an additional target country to the portfolio.” It is unclear whether any other country has had its telephone conversations intercepted in their entirety.

According to the Post, Mystic began in 2009, with “related projects” coming on-line against the unnamed first country in 2011. The NSA and its partner intelligence agencies have a history of beginning ambitious technological projects on small scales to prove an untested concept can work and subsequently expanding the reach of those technical efforts. According to the Post, Mystic’s capabilities currently cover at least five countries.

Mystic is the first disclosed NSA program capable of collecting a foreign country’s entire telecommunications content. While phone calls are a far older technology than emails, they are relatively ephemeral, making retroactive access to them on an industrial scale far-reaching in its privacy implications.

Zeke Johnson of Amnesty International’s American chapter said that the NSA was making George Orwell look “unimaginative” by comparison.

“By its very nature, the dragnet collection of communications content violates the right to privacy enshrined in international law. The use of surveillance, anywhere, must be necessary and proportionate to a legitimate aim, and the least intrusive means of achieving that aim,” Johnson said in a statement.

President Obama stated in his January speech on surveillance that the time had come to consider an expanded respect for the privacy rights of foreigners, although it is unclear what concrete restrictions on surveillance will emerge from that consideration.

At the Pentagon on Tuesday, deputy inspector general Thomas said that he would have taken Snowden seriously had the NSA whistleblower contacted his office.

“If Edward Snowden had called our hotline, there would have been a robust look at his allegations,” Thomas said.

A briefing prepared by Thomas’ office referred to an investigation of “substantiated allegations of unauthorized intelligence collection activities,” but Thomas declined to specify what those activities concerned.