Massive cloud networks from companies like Google and Yahoo
cache and serve up much of the data on the Internet -- and the NSA has secretly
tapped into the unencrypted links behind those company’s enormous servers,
according to a new report from the Washington Post.
By tapping into that link, the NSA can collect data at will
from hundreds of millions of user accounts, the Post reported -- including not
just foreign citizens and “metadata” but emails, videos and audio from American
citizens.
Operation MUSCULAR, a joint program of the NSA and its
British equivalent GCHQ, relies on an unnamed telecommunications provider
outside of the U.S. to offer secret access to a cable or switch through with
Google and Yahoo pass unencrypted traffic between their servers.
The massive
servers run by the company are carefully guarded and strictly audited, the
companies say; according to Google, buildings housing its servers are guarded
around the clock by trained personnel, and secured with heat-sensitive cameras,
biometric verification, and more.
Two engineers with close ties to Google exploded in
profanity when they saw a drawing of the NSA’s hack revealed by Edward Snowden;
the drawing includes a smiley face next to the point at which the agency
apparently was able to tap into the world’s data.
“I hope you publish this,” one of them said.
White House officials and the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA, declined to confirm, deny or
explain why the agency infiltrates Google and Yahoo networks overseas.
However, NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander said Wednesday
his agency doesn't access such networks servers without a court order,
according to Politco.
In a statement, Google said it was “troubled by allegations
of the government intercepting traffic between our data centers, and we are not
aware of this activity.”
“We have long been concerned about the possibility of this
kind of snooping, which is why we continue to extend encryption across more and
more Google services and links,” the company said.
At Yahoo, a spokeswoman said: “We have strict controls in
place to protect the security of our data centers, and we have not given access
to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency.”
Obama said in an interview in June "unequivocally"
that the NSA cannot and has not listened to the telephone calls nor target the
e-mails of a U.S. person
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