Latest Snowden leak reveals NSA’s goal to continually expand surveillance abilities

 Published time: November 23, 2013 04:05                                                                            

The National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland (AFP Photo / Saul Loeb)

In a mission statement last year the US National Security Agency described how it would continue to expand its power and assert itself as the global leader in clandestine surveillance, according to a new report based on the Edward Snowden leaks.

The five-page document brought to light Friday by the New York  Times reveals the intelligence agency’s intention to   “aggressively pursue legal authorities and a policy framework  mapped more fully to the information age.” The spy agency sought  the ability to trace “anyone, anywhere, anytime,” according to  its 2012 mission statement.

Dated February 2012, the memo was written after PRISM and many of  the other programs that have since outraged the public were  implemented. It describes a four-year plan to push the NSA past  its current status and into “the golden age of SIGINT,”   code for signals intelligence.

“The interpretation and guidelines for applying our  authorities, and in some cases the authorities themselves, have  not kept pace with the complexity of the technology and target  environments, or the operational expectations levied on NSA’s  mission.”

The document, given the name “SIGINT Strategy 2012-2016,” falls  short of explaining exactly how it would go about assuming more  power, but does make clear that the so-called “culture of  compliance” would not give up any concessions. The paper  indicates NSA leaders communicated the need for more power in  order to effectively carry out its duties.

NSA officials did note their plan to subvert cyber-security  techniques so intelligence analysts are able to extract  information on “anyone, anytime, anywhere.” Using both  technical and human intelligence gathering methods, the mission  statement sought to “revolutionize” data collection by  influencing “the global commercial encryption market through  commercial relationships” with more foreign partners.

Read More: http://rt.com/usa/snowden-leak-expand-surveillance-goal-185/

Categories: Cyber Security, Intelligence Gathering

Tags: Fort Meade Maryland, Information Age, Mission statement, National Security Agency, New York Times, NSA, Signals intelligence, United States