US Spy Agency New Facts of Cell Phone Records Collections

nsaThere have been many rumors around the actions of the American NSA recently and surely they will be more information revealed. Much of the information saw the light due to the Edward Snowden revelations and it is surely not the last bit. In accordance with the recent report it looks like the agency has got some mass surveillance tool at their disposal; and uses it in various ways.

This report became known to general public shortly after Snowden’s first announcement. His aim is to attract attention of the public to the NSA illegal activity. Since that time the former agency’s information technology subcontractor has been on the run.

It is only natural that he could not stay home because of the espionage charges. The information he provided was really interesting to many people and countries as the reports reveal spying on cell phones of foreign leaders and ministers as well as on common U.S. citizens as well. There have also been data collection on the internet and GPS tracking and all this is just the part of the NSA huge surveillance program.

It is believed that the agency carried out the spying operations by tapping into cables of mobile phone networks around the world. There are also two corporate firms (their names are not mentioned) that seem to be in charge of data location.

It has also become known that the agency has also collected information from the cell phones of the American citizens that travel abroad. As it appears, a mobile phone is able to broadcast the location even if not used for the direct purposes of calling or texting and it is possible to track the suspect’s movements and patters with even such small information only using some mathematical techniques.  There are also other methods and among them are such analytic ones as “CO-TRAVELER”.

The NSA has not given any confirmation of the fact that they indeed track the locations of their own citizens on their travels abroad; and from the information they provided it looks like the data received from the aforementioned mobile phones appeared at their disposal quite incidentally. It should be believed that certain geo-location data collection tools are meant for the protection of the state purposes only and by no means has their usage spread on the general public. However, the leaks from Snowden show that there is much more to the case than the agency is willing to admit.

Each and every new bit of information adds to the impression that it is a mistake for anyone to underestimate the capability of the agency and its tracking and spying possibilities. It really looks like there is no sense in any security measures when it comes to communications as there is nothing impossible for the NSA.

However, even though such powers are undoubtedly useful and beneficial when it comes to the questions of national security, the recent leaks about the usage of the program for the purposes other than these might raise (and already has) the violation of privacy rights question. All this can lead to the most serious consequences, indeed. The implementation of such a huge-scale program should always go through the public debate at the very least first – especially when the private lives of many people we are talking about.