Privacy Roundup #0083 • June 2013
June 2013 was the month the Snowden documents broke, exposing NSA and GCHQ mass surveillance and triggering a wave of lawsuits, corporate denials and diplomatic fury.
1. NSA is collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily
The Guardian published a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order compelling Verizon to hand the NSA the call records of all its customers on an ongoing daily basis. It was the first story drawn from the cache leaked by Edward Snowden and it confirmed bulk domestic metadata collection.
2. NSA taps the servers of nine internet firms through PRISM
The Washington Post revealed PRISM, a programme through which the NSA and FBI obtained communications from Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook and five other companies. The slides described access to email, chat, photographs and stored files under FISA authority.
3. There is no universal right to be forgotten, says top EU court adviser
The Advocate General of the European Court of Justice advised that Google was not responsible for personal data appearing on the web pages it indexed. His opinion in the Spanish Costeja case held that the Data Protection Directive granted no general right to have search results erased.
4. Boundless Informant maps the NSA's global collection
A leaked tool called Boundless Informant was shown to count and visualise the agency's worldwide interception, recording 97 billion pieces of intelligence in a single month. The heat map contradicted official claims that the NSA could not say how much American data it gathered.
5. The source behind the NSA leaks reveals himself as Edward Snowden
At his own request, The Guardian named the source of the surveillance disclosures as Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old contractor with Booz Allen Hamilton. He explained from Hong Kong that he did not want to live in a world where everything people did was recorded.
6. Clapper says he gave the "least untruthful" answer to Congress
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper conceded that his March denial of bulk data collection on Americans had been the most truthful, or least untruthful, response he could give. The admission deepened concern that intelligence chiefs had misled oversight committees.
7. ACLU sues to halt the NSA call-tracking programme
The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a constitutional challenge to the bulk telephone records programme. As Verizon Business customers they argued they had the standing to sue that previous plaintiffs had lacked.
8. Google asks the Attorney General for permission to publish FISA numbers
Google's chief legal officer wrote to Eric Holder and Robert Mueller seeking the right to disclose how many national security requests the company received. He argued that transparency would reassure users without harming national security.
9. Snowden claims the NSA hacked targets in Hong Kong and China
In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Snowden said leaked documents showed United States hacking of Chinese University of Hong Kong, public officials and businesses since 2009. He put the figure at more than 61,000 hacking operations worldwide.
10. Surveillance architecture also sweeps up internet and phone metadata
The Washington Post detailed how the NSA's collection extended beyond phone records to internet metadata revealing senders, recipients and addresses. The reporting set out four interlocking programmes that together built a picture of Americans' communications.
11. GCHQ spied on delegates at the 2009 G20 summits in London
Leaked documents showed that British intelligence intercepted the communications of foreign politicians at two G20 meetings. Delegates were tricked into using prepared internet cafes and had their BlackBerry messages and phone calls monitored.
12. Apple publishes its first count of government data requests
Responding to the PRISM uproar, Apple disclosed that it had received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests for customer data over six months. The company denied giving the government direct access and called for the gag order on FISA numbers to be lifted.
13. NSA chief tells the Senate surveillance foiled dozens of plots
General Keith Alexander defended the programmes before a Senate committee, claiming they had helped disrupt more than fifty terrorist plots. He said the supporting evidence would remain classified, leaving lawmakers unable to verify the assertion in public.
14. Google files a First Amendment motion at the FISA court
Frustrated by the gag rules, Google asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for the right to publish aggregate figures on the orders it received. It was the most assertive legal step a technology firm had taken to increase transparency.
15. GCHQ taps the fibre-optic cables carrying the world's communications
Documents revealed Tempora, a GCHQ operation that attached intercept probes to transatlantic cables landing in Britain. The agency was processing hundreds of millions of telephone events a day and sharing the haul with the NSA.
16. United States charges Snowden under the Espionage Act
A criminal complaint unsealed in Virginia charged Snowden with theft of government property and two counts of disclosing national defence information. Each count carried a maximum sentence of ten years.
17. Facebook bug exposes contact details of six million users
Facebook admitted that a flaw in its contact import feature had shared the email addresses and phone numbers of about six million people. The data was inadvertently linked to other accounts when users uploaded their address books.
18. Snowden leaves Hong Kong for Moscow and seeks asylum in Ecuador
Snowden boarded a flight to Moscow with help from WikiLeaks and asked Ecuador to grant him asylum. His American passport was cancelled, leaving him stranded in the airport transit zone.
19. NSA collected American email metadata in bulk until 2011
Documents showed the agency had gathered internet metadata on Americans for more than two years under a continuation of the Bush-era Stellar Wind programme. Officials confirmed the collection but said it had ended in 2011.
20. NSA bugged European Union offices, says Der Spiegel
A report based on Snowden documents alleged the NSA had bugged EU offices in Washington and New York and tapped into a Council building in Brussels. European leaders demanded answers and warned that the disclosures could damage transatlantic relations.
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