28 Jan 2014 – <\/i>New information made public by Edward Snowden reveals that the governments of the United States and United Kingdom are trawling data from cellphone \u201capps\u201d to accumulate dossiers on the \u201cpolitical alignments\u201d of millions of smartphone users worldwide.<\/p>\n
According to a 2012 internal UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) document, the National Security Agency (NSA) and GCHQ have been accumulating and storing hundreds of millions of user \u201ccookies\u201d \u2014the digital footprints left on a cellphone or computer each time a user visits a web site\u2014in order to accumulate detailed personal information about users\u2019 private lives.<\/p>\n
This confirms that the main purpose of the programs is not to protect the population from \u201cterrorism,\u201d but to facilitate the state repression of working class opposition to widening social inequality and social counterrevolution. The programs do not primarily target \u201cterrorists,\u201d but workers, intellectuals, and students.<\/p>\n
The collection of data regarding the \u201cpolitical alignment\u201d of cellphone users also suggests that the governments of the US and UK are keeping lists of those whose \u201cpolitical alignments\u201d are of concern to the government. Previous revelations have shown how the NSA and GCHQ \u201cflag\u201d certain \u201csuspects\u201d for additional surveillance: the most recent revelation indicates that suspects are \u201cflagged\u201d at least in part based on their \u201cpolitical alignment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The legal rationale behind this process points to a growing movement to criminalize political thought in the US and UK.<\/p>\n
If, as the revelations indicate, determining a user\u2019s \u201cpolitical alignment\u201d is a primary goal of this program, then it is also likely a factor in determining whether the government has a \u201creasonable, articulable suspicion\u201d that the user is a \u201cterrorist suspect.\u201d If this is the case, the web sites a user visits may raise the government\u2019s level of suspicion that the user is engaged in criminal activity, and may thereby provide the government with the pseudo-legal pretext required to unlock the content of all his or her phone calls, emails, text messages, etc.<\/p>\n
Such a rationale would amount to a flagrant violation of both the First and Fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Not only does the Fourth Amendment protect against \u201cunreasonable searches and seizures,\u201d but the First Amendment also proscribes the government from monitoring individuals based on their political beliefs. The elimination of such a fundamental democratic right would be a dangerous step towards the imposition of a police state dictatorship.<\/p>\n
The new report also details the depth of the mobile-app spying operation.<\/p>\n
A 2009 \u201cbrute-force\u201d analysis test performed by the NSA and GCHQ of what the New York Times<\/i> describes as a \u201ctiny sliver of their cellphone databases\u201d revealed that in one month, the NSA collected cellphone data of 8,615,650 cellphone users. Data from the GCHQ test revealed that in three months, the British had spied on 24,760,289 users. Expanded to a full year, this data shows that in 2009, the NSA collected data from over 103,000,000 users, while GCHQ collected data from over 99,000,000 users: and this coming from only a \u201ctiny sliver\u201d of a month\u2019s data!<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are gathered in bulk, and are currently our single largest type of events,\u201d one leaked document reads.<\/p>\n
The program\u2014referred to in one NSA document as \u201cGolden Nugget!\u201d\u2014also allows the governments to receive a log of users\u2019 Google Maps application use. Such information allows the intelligence apparatus to track the exact whereabouts of surveillance victims worldwide. One chart from an internal NSA slideshow asks: \u201cWhere was my target when they did this?\u201d and \u201cWhere is my target going?\u201d<\/p>\n
An NSA report from 2007 bragged that so much geo-data could be gathered that the intelligence agencies would \u201cbe able to clone Google\u2019s database\u201d of all searches for directions made via Google Maps.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt effectively means that anyone using Google Maps on a smartphone is working in support of a GCHQ system,\u201d a 2008 GCHQ report noted.<\/p>\n
Additional presentation material leaked by Snowden shows that in 2010 the NSA explained that its \u201cperfect scenario\u201d was to \u201ctarget uploading photo to a social media site taken with a mobile device.\u201d The same slide asks, \u201cWhat can we get?\u201d The answer, according to the same presentation, includes the photographs of the user, buddy lists, emails, phone contacts, and \u201ca host of other social networking data as well as location.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agencies also use information provided by mobile apps to paint a clear picture of the victim\u2019s current location, sexual orientation, marital status, income, ethnicity, education level, and number of children.<\/p>\n
GCHQ has an internal code-name system for grading their ability to snoop on a particular cellphone user. The codes are based on the television show \u201cThe Smurfs.\u201d If the agencies can tap the phone\u2019s microphone to listen to conversations, the codename \u201cNosey Smurf\u201d is employed. If the agencies can track the precise location of the user as he or she moves, the codename \u201cTracker Smurf\u201d is used. The ability to track a phone that is powered off is named \u201cDreamy Smurf,\u201d and the ability to hide the spy software is coded \u201cParanoid Smurf.\u201d<\/p>\n
That the intelligence agencies have cheekily nicknamed codes in an Orwellian surveillance program after animated characters from a children\u2019s show is a telling indication of the contempt with which the ruling class views the democratic rights of the population of the world.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the agencies have been tracking and storing data from a series of cellphone game applications, including the popular \u201cAngry Birds\u201d game, which has been downloaded over 1.7 billion times.<\/p>\n
The tracking of data from online games like \u201cAngry Birds\u201d further reveals that these programs are not intended to protect the population from \u201cterrorism.\u201d It would be indefensible for the NSA and GCHQ to explain that they suspected to glean information about looming Al Qaeda plots from a mindless cellphone game.<\/p>\n
Yet this is precisely how the NSA has attempted to justify these programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe communications of people who are not valid foreign intelligence targets are not of interest to the National Security Agency,\u201d an agency spokeswoman said. \u201cAny implication that NSA\u2019s foreign intelligence collection is focused on the smartphone or social media communications of everyday Americans is not true. Moreover, NSA does not profile everyday Americans as it carries out its foreign intelligence mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an added indication of its anti-democratic character, the US government is therefore employing the technique of the \u201cBig Lie\u201d by denying what has just been proven true.<\/p>\n
In reality, the revelations have further exposed President Barack Obama\u2019s January 17 speech as a celebration of lies.<\/p>\n
The president told the nation that the spying programs do \u201cnot involve the NSA examining the phone records of ordinary Americans.\u201d He also said that the US \u201cis not abusing authorities to listen to your private phone calls or read your emails,\u201d and that \u201cthe United States is not spying on ordinary people who don\u2019t threaten our national security.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added in reference to the \u201cfolks\u201d at the NSA that \u201cnothing I have learned [about the programs] indicated that our intelligence community has sought to violate the law or is cavalier about the civil liberties of their fellow citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the evidence is mounting that the governments of the US and UK are compiling information regarding the \u201cpolitical alignments\u201d of hundreds of millions across the globe. All those responsible for carrying out such a facially anti-democratic campaign\u2014including President Obama, David Cameron, their aides, and the leaders of the security apparatus\u2014must face criminal charges and immediate removal from office.<\/p>\n