Fairview (surveillance program) explained

Fairview is a secret program under which the National Security Agency cooperates with the American telecommunications company AT&T in order to collect phone, internet and e-mail data mainly of foreign countries' citizens at major cable landing stations and switching stations inside the United States. The FAIRVIEW program started in 1985, one year after the Bell breakup.[1]

In 2010, the NSA had access to these AT&T facilities:[2]

Except for the VoIP facilities, most are along U.S. borders.

In 2011, NSA spent $188.9 million on the program, which was twice as much as on its second-largest program, STORMBREW.

In 2013, whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA was harvesting the telephone metadata and text messages from over a billion subscribers in China; no precise program name was reported at the time.[3]

Several weeks later, Glenn Greenwald wrote in The Guardian about FAIRVIEW: "The NSA partners with a large US telecommunications company" that "partners with telecoms in the foreign countries, [which] then allow the US company access to those countries' telecommunications systems, and that access is then exploited to direct traffic to the NSA's repositories."[4]

Documents provided by Snowden said the NSA had collected 2.3 billion separate pieces of data from Brazilian users in January 2013.[5]

In 2013, Brazilian television showed a map of FAIRVIEW with markers all over the United States, but without a legend that explained what they stood for.

AT&T was first identified as FAIRVIEW's "key corporate partner" in 2013, by the Washington Post, quoting NSA historian Matthew Aid.[6] This was confirmed in 2015 by a joint report by ProPublica and the New York Times, based upon NSA documents that describe the company as "highly collaborative" and praise the company's "extreme willingness to help".[7]

Eight peering points

The following AT&T facilities, each broadly resembling the windowless skyscraper 33 Thomas Street in Downtown Manhattan, have been alleged to host FAIRVIEW technology for peering points:

Legal authorities

Various legal authorities authorize the collection of data under the FAIRVIEW program: FISA, which requires individual warrants from the FISA Court, section 702 FAA for when one end of the communications is foreign, and the Transit Authority for when both ends of a communication are foreign.[16]

Under the FAIRVIEW program, AT&T provided the NSA with domestic telephone metadata in bulk, which was authorized under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. First this was from landline connections, but in 2011, AT&T also started handing over cell phone metadata: 1.1 billion pieces a day.

External links

Notes and References

  1. New York Times, AT&T Helped U.S. Spy on Internet on a Vast Scale & Pro Publica, NSA Spying Relies on AT&T’s ‘Extreme Willingness to Help’, August 15, 2015.
  2. Web site: P/K . Geplaatst door . FAIRVIEW: Collecting foreign intelligence inside the US . 2023-10-13 . en.
  3. Web site: Lana Lam . Stephen Chen . June 22, 2013 . EXCLUSIVE: US spies on Chinese mobile phone companies, steals SMS data: Edward Snowden . https://web.archive.org/web/20140323084637/http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1266821/us-hacks-chinese-mobile-phone-companies-steals-sms-data-edward-snowden . March 23, 2014 . 2014-03-23 . South China Morning Post.
  4. Web site: The NSA's mass and indiscriminate spying on Brazilians . Glen Greenwald . The Guardian . July 7, 2013 . 2013-08-11 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130907154955/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/07/nsa-brazilians-globo-spying . September 7, 2013 . dead . mdy .
  5. Web site: EUA espionaram milhões de e-mails e ligações de brasileiros . Glenn Greenwald . Roberto Kaz . José Casado . O Globo . July 6, 2013 . 2014-03-23 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140125150845/http://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/eua-espionaram-milhoes-de-mails-ligacoes-de-brasileiros-8940934 . January 25, 2014 . dead . mdy .
  6. News: Emily Heil . October 22, 2013 . What's the deal with NSA's operation names? . The Washington Post . dead . 2014-03-23 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140223100101/http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/wp/2013/10/22/whats-the-deal-with-nsas-operation-names/ . February 23, 2014 . mdy.
  7. New York Times, AT&T Helped U.S. Spy on Internet on a Vast Scale & Pro Publica, NSA Spying Relies on AT&T’s ‘Extreme Willingness to Help’, August 15, 2015.
  8. https://www.eff.org/files/2019/04/25/2019-04-25_order_dckt_462_0.pdf Jewel v. NSA April 2019 ruling
  9. News: The NSA Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say). James. Bamford. Wired. March 15, 2012. December 1, 2023.
  10. AT&T Whistle-Blower's Evidence . Wired . May 17, 2006. December 1, 2023. bot: unknown . https://web.archive.org/web/20140328094710/http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70908 . March 28, 2014.
  11. Web site: NSA Multi-District Litigation . July 2011 . Electronic Frontier Foundation . December 1, 2023.
  12. Web site: Gallagher . Ryan . Moltke . Henrik . Poitras. Laura. The NSA's Spy Hub in New York, Hidden in Plain Sight . The Intercept . November 16, 2016 . December 1, 2023.
  13. Web site: NSA spy hub allegedly discovered in downtown Seattle . MyNorthwest.com . June 26, 2018 . December 1, 2023.
  14. Web site: Gallagher . Ryan . Moltke . Henrik . The NSA's Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities . The Intercept . June 25, 2018 . December 1, 2023.
  15. Web site: 10 South Canal Street in Chicago contains a building part of NSA Internet surveillance . Legally Sociable . June 27, 2018 . December 1, 2023.
  16. Web site: The Case for Reforming Section 702 of U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Law . 2023-10-13 . Council on Foreign Relations . en.

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