NSA studies social connections using email, call data

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency has been mining for several years its massive collections of email and phone call data to create extensive graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can include associates, travel companions and their locations, according to The New York Times.

The social graphing began in 2010 after the NSA lifted restrictions on the practice, according to an internal January 2011 memorandum, the Times reported online Saturday. It based its article on documents obtained by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with officials.

The graphing, or contact chaining, is conducted using details about phone calls and e-mails, known as “metadata,” but does not involve the communications’ content, according to the documents cited by the Times. It is supposed to be done for foreign intelligence purposes only, the documents state, but that category is extremely broad and may include everything from data about terrorism and drug smuggling to foreign diplomats and economic talks.

The revelation is the latest in a string of disclosures that began in June, when The Washington Post and the British newspaper the Guardian broke stories, based on Snowden’s documents about the NSA’s PRISM program, which collects digital communications from U.S. Internet companies, and about the collection of call-detail records from U.S. phone companies.

Snowden’s disclosures and the subsequent declassification of records by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Jr. and the nation’s secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court have sparked widespread concern over the scope of the NSA’s surveillance and whether it appropriately balances Americans’ privacy rights with national security.

The NSA did not provide an immediate response to the Times article.

“This report confirms what whistleblowers have been saying for years: The NSA has been monitoring virtually every aspect of Americans’ lives – their communications, their associations, even their locations,” said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Senior government officials, including the NSA’s director, Gen. Keith Alexander, have repeatedly asserted that the NSA’s surveillance programs are lawful and have been authorized by the surveillance court, Congress or both.

But according to the Times, the decision to lift the restriction on analyzing Americans’ communications was made in secret, without review by the intelligence court, which oversees the government’s wiretap applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The policy shift was intended to help the agency “discover and track” links between intelligence targets overseas and people in the United States, the 2011 memo said.

According to documents the Times cited, the NSA can augment the data with material from public, commercial and other sources, including bank codes, Facebook profiles, airline passenger manifests and GPS location information.

NSA officials declined to tell the Times how many Americans have been caught up in the data mining, and the documents do not reveal that.

Because of concerns about intruding on Americans’ privacy, the computer analysis of such data had previously been permitted only for foreigners, the Times reported.

But as of 2010, the NSA was authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of every email address, phone number or other identifier, the 2011 memo stated.

The social graphs do not make use of the huge database of collected phone call records that Snowden revealed in June, the “bulk records” program, the Times reported.

The newspaper said the documents do not specify which databases were being mined.

An NSA spokeswoman told the Times that the legal justification for the policy was a 1979 Supreme Court ruling that Americans had no legitimate expectation of privacy in numbers dialed because that information is conveyed to a third party – the phone company. Based on that ruling, the Justice Department and the Pentagon in 2008 decided it was permissible to create contact chains using Americans’ metadata, such as phone numbers dialed, the Times reported.

The ACLU’s Jaffer called the government’s reasoning “outlandish,” saying that the 1979 ruling involved “surveillance of one person rather than everyone.”

William Binney, a former NSA technical director turned whistleblower, has long warned of the NSA’s mining of data to create social graphs. He alleged that it started in the second week of October 2001, in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that it took place on a massive scale.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

A firefighter stands in silence before a panel bearing the names of L. John Regelbrugge and Kris Regelbrugge during the ten-year remembrance of the Oso landslide on Friday, March 22, 2024, at the Oso Landslide Memorial in Oso, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘Flood of emotions’ as Oso Landslide Memorial opens on 10th anniversary

Friends, family and first responders held a moment of silence at 10:37 a.m. at the new 2-acre memorial off Highway 530.

Julie Petersen poses for a photo with images of her sister Christina Jefferds and Jefferds’ grand daughter Sanoah Violet Huestis next to a memorial for Sanoah at her home on March 20, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. Peterson wears her sister’s favorite color and one of her bangles. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
‘It just all came down’: An oral history of the Oso mudslide

Ten years later, The Daily Herald spoke with dozens of people — first responders, family, survivors — touched by the deadliest slide in U.S. history.

Victims of the Oso mudslide on March 22, 2014. (Courtesy photos)
Remembering the 43 lives lost in the Oso mudslide

The slide wiped out a neighborhood along Highway 530 in 2014. “Even though you feel like you’re alone in your grief, you’re really not.”

Director Lucia Schmit, right, and Deputy Director Dara Salmon inside the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
How Oso slide changed local emergency response ‘on virtually every level’

“In a decade, we have just really, really advanced,” through hard-earned lessons applied to the pandemic, floods and opioids.

Ron and Gail Thompson at their home on Monday, March 4, 2024 in Oso, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
In shadow of scarred Oso hillside, mudslide’s wounds still feel fresh

Locals reflected on living with grief and finding meaning in the wake of a catastrophe “nothing like you can ever imagine” in 2014.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, left, introduces Xichitl Torres Small, center, Undersecretary for Rural Development with the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a talk at Thomas Family Farms on Monday, April 3, 2023, in Snohomish, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Under new federal program, Washingtonians can file taxes for free

At a press conference Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene called the Direct File program safe, easy and secure.

Former Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy Jeremie Zeller appears in court for sentencing on multiple counts of misdemeanor theft Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at Snohomish County Superior Court in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ex-sheriff’s deputy sentenced to 1 week of jail time for hardware theft

Jeremie Zeller, 47, stole merchandise from Home Depot in south Everett, where he worked overtime as a security guard.

Everett
11 months later, Lake Stevens man charged in fatal Casino Road shooting

Malik Fulson is accused of shooting Joseph Haderlie to death in the parking lot at the Crystal Springs Apartments last April.

T.J. Peters testifies during the murder trial of Alan Dean at the Snohomish County Courthouse on Tuesday, March 26, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Bothell cold case trial now in jury’s hands

In court this week, the ex-boyfriend of Melissa Lee denied any role in her death. The defendant, Alan Dean, didn’t testify.

A speed camera facing west along 220th Street Southwest on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
New Washington law will allow traffic cams on more city, county roads

The move, led by a Snohomish County Democrat, comes as roadway deaths in the state have hit historic highs.

Mrs. Hildenbrand runs through a spelling exercise with her first grade class on the classroom’s Boxlight interactive display board funded by a pervious tech levy on Tuesday, March 19, 2024 in Marysville, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lakewood School District’s new levy pitch: This time, it won’t raise taxes

After two levies failed, the district went back to the drawing board, with one levy that would increase taxes and another that would not.

Alex Hanson looks over sections of the Herald and sets the ink on Wednesday, March 30, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Black Press, publisher of Everett’s Daily Herald, is sold

The new owners include two Canadian private investment firms and a media company based in the southern United States.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.