What Was the Israeli Involvement in Collecting Communications Intel for NSA?

[Purveyor]

Were Israeli companies Verint and Narus the ones that collected information from the U.S. communications network for the National Security Agency?

The question arises amid controversy over revelations that the NSA has been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans every day, creating a database through which it can learn whether terror suspects have been in contact with people in the United States. It also was disclosed this week that the NSA has been gathering all Internet usage - audio, video, photographs, emails and searches - from nine major U.S. Internet providers, including Microsoft and Google, in hopes of detecting suspicious behavior that begins overseas.

According to an article in the American technology magazine “Wired” from April 2012, two Israeli companies – which the magazine describes as having close connections to the Israeli security community – conduct bugging and wiretapping for the NSA.

Verint, which took over its parent company Comverse Technology earlier this year, is responsible for tapping the communication lines of the American telephone giant Verizon, according to a past Verizon employee sited by James Bamford in Wired. Neither Verint nor Verizon commented on the matter.


Read more: http://forward.com/articles/178289/what-was-the-israeli-involvement-in-collecting-com/#ixzz2Vk6lbRkP

[Autumn]

1. WTF? I would like to know more about that

Our country doing this is bad enough but to have a foreign country involved is a different matter.

[leveymg]

2. The EFF lawsuit detailed the use of a NARUS diverter connected to the ATT switching node in SF

Also, NARUS and VERINT are two of the largest vendors of CALEA-compliant switching equipment installed on all US telco switching hubs.

Yes, Israeli companies have a substantial stake in US mass surveillance programs and it has been widely assumed also have their own backdoors that allow them to "take" data diverted from US networks. This has led to several under-reported intel scandals.

I wrote about this 2007 and in 2009: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5503297

[byeya]

5. I'd also like to learn more about this

[leveymg]

7. Here are some links for you to surf

The essential thesis is laid out in a brief comment at Steve Clemons site here: http://washingtonnote.com/misreading_mich/#comment-28003 Surf over to the DKos diary linked, and surf those links.

There's a lot more if you can specify more closely what interests you.

[cali]

3. it's a multinational corporation world. Is this news to you.

I think your fixation on Israel being the root of all evil and Jews in general, is more than icky.

[Purveyor]

6. "jews in general", seriously? eom

[Jesus Malverde]

4. This was first documented in the "puzzle palace"

back in 1983.

The sense was the "echelon" program was set up in a way where the NSA was not spying on Americans. They gave allies all the data and let them spy on americans.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Puzzle-Palace-Intelligence-Organization/dp/0140067485

The book is a good read.