How the NSA is Using Cell Phone Data to Drone Civilians (In Pakistan)

[The Straight Story]

In late 2001, a National Security Agency analyst was asked to do something unusual. Instead of locating a target's cell phone to eavesdrop on his conversation, the analyst was asked for the phone's location in real-time. It was apparently the beginning of the NSA's role in the CIA's drone operations that, a new report compiled by Pakistan suggests, had killed nearly 200 civilians by 2009.

The details of that first NSA-supported strike appear in a new story from The Washington Post. A Navy SEAL, standing in a trailer that was once home to the CIA's child care program, asked the analyst where the NSA's target was located.

“We just want you to find the phone!” the SEAL urged. No one cared about the conversation it might be transmitting. …

The NSA collector in Georgia took what was then considered a gigantic leap — from using the nation’s most sophisticated spy technology to record the words of presidents, kings and dictators to using it to kill a single man in a terrorist group.

This, The Post suggests, spurred the NSA's rapid expansion in the last decade, building and expanding its facilities around the world. Meanwhile, the technology used by the agency to track targets also expanded. The Post:

By September 2004, a new NSA technique enabled the agency to find cellphones even when they were turned off. JSOC troops called this “The Find,” and it gave them thousands of new targets, including members of a burgeoning al-Qaeda-sponsored insurgency in Iraq, according to members of the unit.

At the same time, the NSA developed a new computer linkup called the Real Time Regional Gateway into which the military and intelligence officers could feed every bit of data or seized documents and get back a phone number or list of potential targets. It also allowed commanders to see, on a screen, every type of surveillance available in a given territory.

This appears to be a different tool than Boundless Informant, the graphical interface of the NSA's PRISM data collection revealed in the leaks from Edward Snowden. But that 2004 innovation may explain Snowden's insistence that visitors stash their cell phones in his fridge when visiting.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/07/how-nsa-using-cell-phone-data-drone-civilians-pakistan/67436/

[ProSense]

1. Interesting

The article is about targeting terrorist in Pakistan, but it's already being mischaracterized as "killing Americans on U.S. soil."

Also, the information is about a program that predated PRISM.

This from the OP link is also interesting:

<...>

A report just leaked from the Pakistani government is a bit more specific. Acquired by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, it offers that country's assessment of the civilian casualty risk.

Drawn from field reports by local officials in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the document lists over 70 drone strikes between 2006 and late 2009, alongside a small number of other incidents such as alleged Nato attacks and strikes by unspecified forces.

Of 746 people listed as killed in the drone strikes, at least 147 of the dead are clearly stated by the leaked report to be civilian victims. Some 94 of these are said to be children.

That figure is slightly lower than the comprehensive data compiled by the New America Foundation, which puts the total for that time period in the range of 190 — with scores more listed as "unidentified." Last fall, Columbia University's Human Rights Institute tried to assess the accuracy of reports on civilian and militant casualties, finding that "estimates are incomplete and may significantly undercount the extent of reported civilian deaths." The number released by Pakistan, it's worth noting, also include fewer strikes than reported by the New America Foundation.

<...>

Wonder what accounts for the discrepancy in the numbers?

[polly7]

2. K&R nt.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. So they admit they WERE actually eavesdropping on calls

and I have heard nothing to prove they have stopped doing so.

Tie this post in with THIS post:
Exclusive: Leaked Pakistani report confirms high civilian death toll in CIA drone strikes
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023312863

and it is clear we need to be rattling our Congress member's cages.

Fortunately, even Ala. Republican Congress members are against this, if only for Tea Party wound bite opportunities.