Google and Yahoo furious that NSA secretly intercepts data links

Google and Yahoo furious over reports that NSA secretly intercepts data links

Leaked files suggest NSA can collect information 'at will' by intercepting cables that connect Google and Yahoo's data hubs

Dominic Rushe, Spencer Ackerman and James Ball

Google and Yahoo, two of the world's biggest tech companies, reacted angrily to a report on Wednesday that the National Security Agency has secretly intercepted the main communication links that carry their users' data around the world.

Citing documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with officials, the Washington Post claimed the agency could collect information "at will" from among hundreds of millions of user accounts.

The documents suggest that the NSA, in partnership with its British counterpart GCHQ, is copying large amounts of data as it flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information between the worldwide data centers of the Silicon Valley giants.

The story is likely to put further strain on the already difficult relations between the tech firms and Washington. The internet giants are furious about the damage done to their reputation in the wake of Snowden's revelations.

In a statement, Google said it was "troubled by allegations of the government intercepting traffic between our data centers, and we are not aware of this activity".

It added: "We have long been concerned about the possibility of this kind of snooping, which is why we continue to extend encryption across more and more Google services and links."

Yahoo said: "We have strict controls in place to protect the security of our data centers, and we have not given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency."

According to a top-secret document cited by the Post dated 9 January 2013, millions of records a day are sent from Yahoo and Google internal networks to NSA data warehouses at the agency's headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. The types of information sent ranged from "metadata", indicating who sent or received emails, the subject line and where and when, to content such as text, audio and video.

The Post's documents state that in the preceding 30 days, field collectors had processed and sent on 181,280,466 new records.

Internet firms go to great lengths to protect their data. But the NSA documents published by the Post appear to boast about their ability to circumvent those protections. In one presentation slide on "Google Cloud Exploitation," published by the Post, an artist has added a smiley face, in apparent celebration of the NSA's victory over Google security systems.

In its report, the Post suggested the intercept project was codenamed Muscular, but the Guardian understands from other documents provided by Snowden that the term instead refers to the system that enables the initial processing of information gathered from NSA or GCHQ cable taps.

The data outputted from Muscular is then forwarded to NSA or GCHQ databases, or systems such as the XKeyscore search tool, previously reported by the Guardian.

The Post said the program allowed the NSA to circumvent the legal restrictions that prevent it from accessing the data of people who live in theUnited States, and that it fell instead under an executive order, signed by the president, that authorised foreign intelligence operations.

In response, the NSA specifically denied that it used the presidential order to circumvent the restrictions on domestic spying, though the agency said nothing about the rest of the story.

The NSA statement said, in full: "NSA has multiple authorities that it uses to accomplish its mission, which is centered on defending the nation. The Washington Post's assertion that we use Executive Order 12333 collection to get around the limitations imposed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and FAA 702 is not true.

"The assertion that we collect vast quantities of US persons' data from this type of collection is also not true. NSA applies attorney general-approved processes to protect the privacy of US persons – minimizing the likelihood of their information in our targeting, collection, processing, exploitation, retention, and dissemination.

"NSA is a foreign intelligence agency. And we're focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets only."

A GCHQ spokesman said: "We are aware of the story but we don't have any comment."

The NSA statement was much more narrowly drawn than the initial response by the agency's director, General Keith Alexander. At a Washington conference on Wednesday as the Post story broke, Alexander issued an immediate denial, but was not specifically asked to address allegations that NSA intercepted data transiting between the companies' data centers.

Relations between the tech companies and the government are already strained over the Snowden revelations. Speaking at a tech conference in September, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said the government had done a "bad job" of balancing people's privacy. "Frankly, I think the government blew it," he said.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/30/google-reports-nsa-secretly-intercepts-data-links