America accused of spying on millions of emails
Pastor Dale Morgan
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*America accused of spying on millions of emails*
guardian.co.uk
Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
American intelligence agencies have been accused of spying on the emails
of millions of Americans, including those of former president Bill Clinton.
In the latest in a series of intelligence scandals to hit Washington,
details of a secretive email surveillance scheme are beginning to come
to light - with fresh allegations reported in the New York Times.
The Times quotes one anonymous NSA analyst who claims that electronic
messages sent to and from American citizens, and says that the former
president - whose wife is now the country's secretary of state - was
among those targeted by the sweep.
The database system, called Pinwale, is used by America's National
Security Agency to intercept and examine huge volumes of email passing
through American telecommunications networks.
The NSA has confirmed that Pinwale exists, although it will not comment
on the latest allegations or give further details on how the system
operates.
The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has been
investigating the unauthorised surveillance claims for several years,
reacted to the news of Pinwale system by suggesting that nothing illegal
had taken place.
The news is just the latest in a long series of revelations about the
extent to which America's security agencies are keeping track of
ordinary people, including the controversy over warrantless wiretaps.
However Californian Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, said she had
previously investigated Pinwale and believed it did not violate the law.
"We asked the questions. We were assured it was not correct," Feinstein
told a Judiciary Committee hearing. "I've gone over this chapter and
verse. I do not believe that any content is reviewed in this program."
That stance is a sharp contrast with four years ago, when Feinstein told
the Senate said that she had a "very heavy heart" after learning that
intelligence services had acted in contravention of laws that she had
helped pass.
In 2005 it emerged that President Bush had bypassed the usual process of
court approval for wiretaps, encouraging NSA officials to conduct
wiretaps at his command.
Accused of abusing his powers, Bush later claimed it was his
"constitutional responsibility" - but while Congress strongly objected,
the controversy ended last year with a compromise that effectively
approved his actions and gave immunity to American telecoms companies
for their role in aiding the NSA.
"Ordinary Americans' most private emails have been and still are being
intercepted in bulk and then stored in secret NSA databases, without
probable cause," said Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the campaign group
Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The organisation, which is suing the government over the illegal
interception of communications, said systems like Pinwale were exactly
what it intended to stop.
"One of the remedies we're asking for in that case is the destruction of
the domestic communications and records that the NSA has been illegally
hoarding in databases like Pinwale."
While some of the most high-profile episodes of covert government
surveillance have taken place in America, it is far from alone in
monitoring the activities of its citizens.
Indeed, the prevalence of internet communication has encouraged
governments and intelligence agencies around the world to focus. In the
last week China has been forced to drop plans to make it mandatory to
install surveillance software on every PC in the country, while the
Iranian authorities have clamped down on internet communications in the
wake of its disputed elections.
The UK government, meanwhile, intends to create a series of databases
keeping track of every phone call, email and text message in Britain.
Earlier this year eavesdropping agency GCHQ denied that it is building
its own equivalent to Pinwale, after reports that the agency had already
been allocated £1bn to build a system to monitor all internet use in the UK.
The news in America, however, comes just weeks after President Obama
said he would create a new office for cybersecurity - closely linked to
the NSA - while vowing not to endanger people's privacy.
"Our pursuit of cybersecurity will not - I repeat, will not include-
monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic," he said. "We
will preserve and protect the personal privacy and civil liberties that
we cherish as Americans."