NSA controls global Internet traffic via private fiber-optic cables
Deals brokered between federal agents and foreign corporations have allowed the United States government to easily intercept and interpret a vast swath of communication data sent around the world, new documents reveal.
In a National Security Agency slideshow obtained by The Washington Post and attributed to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, the US government encouraged analysts to tap into an array of underwater, fiber-optic cables that serve as conduits for around 99 percent of the world’s Internet and phone traffic. ■ The report, published by the Post’s Craig Timberg and Ellen Nakashima, explains how NSA slides leaked by Snowden reveal yet another surveillance program undertaken as an alleged counterterrorism measure but at the cost of putting the privacy of millions, if not billions, of people at risk. ■ According to that report, the US government sent a team of attorneys from a number of alphabet soup agencies — including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security — to oversee post-9/11 efforts that would ensure most intelligence sent throughout the world could be collected by American agents. ■ “Among their jobs, documents show, was ensuring that surveillance requests got fulfilled quickly and confidentially,” the journalists wrote. ■ That much, the Post alleges, was accomplished by maintaining “an internal corporate cell of American citizens with government clearances” within the ranks of the foreign companies that control the fiber-optic cables carrying most telecommunications data around the world. One of those entities was Asia’s Global Crossing, and the US moved quickly to infiltrate its roster of employees shortly after 9/11. ■ The Post writes that the “Network Security Agreement” signed between Global Crossing and the US in 2003 was one of the first major contractors giving the US the power to tap into these major telecom pipes, and in the decade since countless others have been authorized. In that instance and others, federal attorneys cooperating under the name “Team Telecom” compelled foreign owners of these cables to comply with American requests for information.