How the NSA Keeps Tabs

I'm going to leave the politics of this topic to my co-contributor, but it's an interesting topic given current events and the convergence of technologies like telephony and the Internet. We all know (at least, anyone who was paying attention during Good Will Hunting knows) that the National Security Agency (NSA) is the largest intelligence gathering operation in the United States and probably the world. Clearly upset by the revelations of domestic eavesdropping, the ACLU put a short white paper online that explains how the NSA does it job, and how, with advances in technology and networking, the line between international espionage and domestic surveillance can become blurred.

An important result of this technology is that on the Internet, there is no longer a meaningful distinction between "domestic" and "international" routes of a communication. It was once relatively easy for the NSA, which by law is limited to "foreign intelligence," to aim its interception technologies at purely "foreign" communications. But now, an e-mail sent from London to Paris, for example, might well be routed through the west coast of the United States (when, for example, it is a busy mid-morning in Europe but the middle of the night in California) along the same path traveled by mail between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

And, naturally, the NSA needs to get to these networks.

One major new element of the NSA's spying machinery is its ability to tap directly into the major communications switches, routing stations, or access points of the telecommunications system. For example, according to the New York Times, the NSA has worked with "the leading companies" in the telecommunications industry to collect communications patterns, and has gained access "to switches that act as gateways" at "some of the main arteries for moving voice and some Internet traffic into and out of the United States."

There's even a nice map illustrating how it all works. Thanks to Bruce Schneier for the link.