There's an article published Yesterday in the WSJ entitled "Foreign Stakes
Shield Two Phone Firms from Sweep". It's currently paywalled, but here's the
link:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324049504578543800240266368.html
Here's the important bit:
The National Security Agency's controversial data program, which seeks to
stockpile records on all calls made in the U.S., doesn't collect information
directly from T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless, in part because of their
foreign ownership ties, people familiar with the matter said.
The blind spot for U.S. intelligence is relatively small, according to a U.S.
official. Officials believe they can still capture information, or metadata, on
99% of U.S. phone traffic because nearly all calls eventually travel over
networks owned by U.S. companies that work with the NSA.
The title of this article is misleading. This article does not say the NSA
does not have access to Verizon Wireless customer call data. It just says they
don't get it DIRECTLY from Verizon Wireless. They have other ways of going
about getting this data, but that isn't what The Wall Street Journal wants you
to be focusing on here. Verizon could request the information from Verizon
Wireless, and then pass it onto the NSA, or they could just use any number of
SIGINT technologies they have available to pull the information directly from
cell towers (obviously this takes more effort and suffers issues when scaling)
If you're inclined to disregard this argument consider that the Director of
National Intelligence has already lied about it in front of congress. If US
government officials are willing to lie about it under oath on television,
they're more than happy to play games of semantics with journalists in hopes
that one or more of them will run with stories like this one, making it seem
like the NSA isn't doing what it's doing.
Jason Gulledge
@ramdac / twitter
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