Authors for Peace
  • Home
  • The Idea
  • European Holiday! // Europäischer Feiertag!
  • Erinnerung braucht Intimität - Literatur in Südkorea
  • Verfassungsschutzbericht zur AfD (2019)
  • Manifest "Extinction Rebellion" auf Deutsch (Oktober 2019)
  • 2018
    • Contract for the Web 2018
    • Authoritarianism 2018
    • PEN America against Trump 2018
    • For our Future’s Sake - Brexit 2018
    • Gegen Nationalismus - 13-10.org 2018
    • Paradigm Shift Migration 2018
    • documented deaths of refugees 2018
    • Europäischer Feiertag im Literaturhaus Berlin 2018
    • Solidarität statt Heimat 2018
    • Cambridge Analytica 2018
    • Open Letter to Erdoğan 2018
    • Özdemirs Rede zur AfD 2018
    • Release Gui Minhai 2.2018
  • 2017
    • Europe 2017
    • Populism / Populismus 2017
    • Trump 2016 / 2017
    • CIA Surveillance tools 2017
    • Turkey / Türkei 2016 / 2017
    • #FreeDeniz 2017
    • „A Soul for Europe“ Konferenz 2017
    • Macron's Europe Speech 2017
    • An Open Letter to the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College 2017
    • Bundestagswahl 2017
    • International Congress for Democracy and Freedom 2017
    • Political Murder Liu Xiaobo 2017
    • Anleitung Datensicherung / Guide data security 2017
    • Call for a European Public Holiday 2017
  • 2016
    • Refugees / Flüchtlinge 2016
    • China Press Freedom 2016
    • Pressefreiheit / Freedom of the Press 2016
    • Aleppo 2016
    • Brexit 2016
    • Friedenspreis an Emcke 2016
    • A poem by Ashraf Fayadh - World Poetry Day 2016
    • Flüchtlingspolitik: Österreichische Künstler protestieren 2016
    • Saudi Court overturns Ashraf Fayadh's death sentence 2016
    • wir machen das 2016
    • Worldwide Reading in support of Ashraf Fayadh 2016
    • Jews & Arabs Kiss 2016
  • 2015
    • Nein zu Pegida 2015
    • Charlie Hebdo 1/2015
    • A MESSAGE FROM PARIS by Ian McEwan / 2015
    • Aufruf für eine menschliche Flüchtlingspolitik (11.11.2015)
    • News Blog >
      • "hautbahnhof" 2015
      • Surveillance Blog
      • Snowden's Germany Files / Snowdens Deutschland-Dateien
      • David Miranda's unlawful detention
      • Russian laws choking free speech must be repealed now
      • The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance
      • Art Spiegelman on Surveillance
      • Stop Surveillance
      • Hacking Online Polls
      • Demo "Freiheit statt Angst"
  • "We Refugees" by Hannah Arendt
  • Free Liu Xiaobo 10/2014
  • Reset the Net 6/2014
  • Writers Against Mass Surveillance - Other Languages
    • Die Demokratie verteidigen im digitalen Zeitalter
    • Writers against mass surveillance
    • POUR UNE DÉFENSE DE LA DEMOCRATIE À L'ÈRE NUMÉRIQUE
    • En defensa de la democracia en la era digital
    • LOTTIAMO CONTRO I SISTEMI DI SORVEGLIANZA
    • Oproep tot democratie in het digitale tijdperk
    • Ett upprop för demokrati i den digitala tidsåldern
    • Til forsvar for demokratiet i en digital æra
    • Uppropet för demokrati i en digital tid
    • Í þágu lýðræðis á tölvuöld
    • فراخوان نویسندگان جهان: تحت نظر گرفتن سرقت &#
    • Dijital Çağda Bir Demokrasi Savunması
    • Η ΒΑΣΗ ΓΙΑ ΤΗ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ ΣΤΗΝ ΨΗΦΙΑΚΗ ΕΠΟΧΗ
    • Hentikan Pengintaian Masal
  • Worldwide Reading for Snowden
  • Snowden Interview
  • The NSA Archive
  • Snowden Interview by The Guardian
  • Snowdens Deutschland-Akten
  • NSA - "America, No You Can't" / September 2013
  • NSA - Brief an Bundeskanzlerin Merkel + Letter to Chancellor Merkel / August 2013
  • BETWEEN LINES – An Hour of Beauty // Zwischen Zeilen - Eine Stunde Schönheit
  • Release Li Bifeng / June 2013
  • 製造敵人是危險的 ——我們呼籲中國政府釋放李必豐 簽名發起人:艾未&
  • One Billion Rising February 2013
  • Reading for Pussy Riot December 2012
  • Liu Xiabo: I Have No Enemies - December 2012
  • Gangnam Style for Ai Weiwei - November 2012
  • APPEL DE STRASBOURG / STRASBOURG APPEAL / STRASSBURGER APPELL - October 2012
  • Free our Sisters - Pussy Riot September 2012
  • Aufruf Shahin Najafi - Juni 2012
  • Reading against Assad, for democracy in Syria - April 2012
  • Lesung gegen Assad, für Demokratie in Syrien - April 2012
  • نداء من سمر يزبك، كاتبة سورية، إلى جميع الك
  • Petition - Release Liu Xiaobo December 2012
  • Liu Xiabo we stand with you - March 2012
  • Liu Xiabo March 2012 Worldwide Reading
  • Liu Xiabo März 2012 Weltweite Lesung
  • Appeal Liu Xiaobo 2011
    • Signatories
  • Aufruf Liu Xiaobo 2011
    • Unterzeichner
    • Herta Müller zu Liu Xiaobo
  • 9/11 – Ten Years On
  • 9/11 - Zehn Jahre später
  • International Women’s Day 2011
  • Peace Day Event 2010
    • The Authors
    • Reading Schedule
  • Important Speeches - Wichtige Reden
    • Joachim Gauck: Einbürgerungsfeier anlässlich 65 Jahre Grundgesetz, 22. Mai 2014
    • Steinmeier: "Remembering the Holocaust: Fighting Antisemitism" (January 2020)
  • The Life You Can Save - Always
  • Contact

Do NSA's Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists?

1/19/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
  • By
  • Peter Bergen,
  • David Sterman,
  • Emily Schneider,
  • Bailey Cahall,
  • First published: New America Foundation
January 13, 2014 |
  • New America Foundation
On June 5, 2013, the Guardian broke the first story in what would become a flood of revelations regarding the extent and nature of the NSA’s surveillance programs.  Facing an uproar over the threat such programs posed to privacy, the Obama administration scrambled to defend them as legal and essential to U.S. national security and counterterrorism. Two weeks after the first leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden were published, President Obama defended the NSA surveillance programs during a visit to Berlin, saying: “We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information not just in the United States, but, in some cases, threats here in Germany. So lives have been saved.”  Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, testified before Congress that: “the information gathered from these programs provided the U.S. government with critical leads to help prevent over 50 potential terrorist events in more than 20 countries around the world.”  Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on the House floor in July that “54 times [the NSA programs] stopped and thwarted terrorist attacks both here and in Europe – saving real lives.”   However, our review of the government’s claims about the role that NSA “bulk” surveillance of phone and email communications records has had in keeping the United States safe from terrorism shows that these claims are overblown and even misleading.  An in-depth analysis of 225 individuals recruited by al-Qaeda or a like-minded group or inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology, and charged in the United States with an act of terrorism since 9/11, demonstrates that traditional investigative methods, such as the use of informants, tips from local communities, and targeted intelligence operations, provided the initial impetus for investigations in the majority of cases, while the contribution of NSA’s bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal. Indeed, the controversial bulk collection of American telephone metadata, which includes the telephone numbers that originate and receive calls, as well as the time and date of those calls but not their content, under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, appears to have played an identifiable role in initiating, at most, 1.8 percent of these cases. NSA programs involving the surveillance of non-U.S. persons outside of the United States under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act played a role in 4.4 percent of the terrorism cases we examined, and NSA surveillance under an unidentified authority played a role in 1.3 percent of the cases we examined.  Regular FISA warrants not issued in connection with Section 215 or Section 702, which are the traditional means for investigating foreign persons, were used in at least 48 (21 percent) of the cases we looked at, although it’s unclear whether these warrants played an initiating role or were used at a later point in the investigation. (Click on the link to go to a database of all 225 individuals, complete with additional details about them and the government’s investigations of these cases: http://natsec.newamerica.net/nsa/analysis). Surveillance of American phone metadata has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism and only the most marginal of impacts on preventing terrorist-related activity, such as fundraising for a terrorist group. Furthermore, our examination of the role of the database of U.S. citizens’ telephone metadata in the single plot the government uses to justify the importance of the program – that of Basaaly Moalin, a San Diego cabdriver who in 2007 and 2008 provided $8,500 to al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia – calls into question the necessity of the Section 215 bulk collection program.  According to the government, the database of American phone metadata allows intelligence authorities to quickly circumvent the traditional burden of proof associated with criminal warrants, thus allowing them to “connect the dots” faster and prevent future 9/11-scale attacks. Yet in the Moalin case, after using the NSA’s phone database to link a number in Somalia to Moalin, the FBI waited two months to begin an investigation and wiretap his phone. Although it’s unclear why there was a delay between the NSA tip and the FBI wiretapping, court documents show there was a two-month period in which the FBI was not monitoring Moalin’s calls, despite official statements that the bureau had Moalin’s phone number and had identified him. ,  This undercuts the government’s theory that the database of Americans’ telephone metadata is necessary to expedite the investigative process, since it clearly didn’t expedite the process in the single case the government uses to extol its virtues.  Additionally, a careful review of three of the key terrorism cases the government has cited to defend NSA bulk surveillance programs reveals that government officials have exaggerated the role of the NSA in the cases against David Coleman Headley and Najibullah Zazi, and the significance of the threat posed by a notional plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.  In 28 percent of the cases we reviewed, court records and public reporting do not identify which specific methods initiated the investigation. These cases, involving 62 individuals, may have been initiated by an undercover informant, an undercover officer, a family member tip, other traditional law enforcement methods, CIA- or FBI-generated intelligence, NSA surveillance of some kind, or any number of other methods. In 23 of these 62 cases (37 percent), an informant was used. However, we were unable to determine whether the informant initiated the investigation or was used after the investigation was initiated as a result of the use of some other investigative means. Some of these cases may also be too recent to have developed a public record large enough to identify which investigative tools were used. We have also identified three additional plots that the government has not publicly claimed as NSA successes, but in which court records and public reporting suggest the NSA had a role. However, it is not clear whether any of those three cases involved bulk surveillance programs. Finally, the overall problem for U.S. counterterrorism officials is not that they need vaster amounts of information from the bulk surveillance programs, but that they don’t sufficiently understand or widely share the information they already possess that was derived from conventional law enforcement and intelligence techniques. This was true for two of the 9/11 hijackers who were known to be in the United States before the attacks on New York and Washington, as well as with the case of Chicago resident David Coleman Headley, who helped plan the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and it is the unfortunate pattern we have also seen in several other significant terrorism cases. 

Click here to read the full report.

bergen_naf_nsa_surveillance_1_0_0.pdf
File Size: 723 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

0 Comments

    Archives

    June 2016
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    March 2012
    July 2011
    March 2011
    December 2010
    October 2010

    Categories

    All
    Arundhati Roy
    China
    Claes Nobel
    Code Pink
    Elfriede Jelinek
    Herta Müller
    India
    John M. Coetzee
    Lisa Savage
    Liu Xiaobo
    Mario Vargas Llosa
    Pacifica Radio
    Peter Raue
    Press Freedom Index
    Reporters Without Borders

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.