NSA Creates Google-Like Search Engine to Help Other Agencies Access Collected Phone, Email Records | Democracy Now!
Thanks to a super-duper NSA search engine,
nearly two dozen other government agencies can search through 850
billion secret records of your phone calls, emails and Internet chats.
The Intercept made this graphic to help you get your mind around that number. Also, watch our interview with reporter Ryan Gallagher.
A new report by The Intercept news site reveals the National Security
Agency is secretly providing troves of data to nearly two dozen
government agencies using a "Google-like" search engine. Documents from
Edward Snowden provide proof that for years the NSA has made data directly available to domestic law enforcement agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI.
The search tool, known as ICReach, contains information on both
foreigners and millions of U.S. citizens who have not been accused of
wrongdoing. It is designed to share more than 850 billion records — that
is more than twice the number of stars in the Milky Way. We speak with
Ryan Gallagher, The Intercept reporter who broke the story. We also ask
Gallagher about his report on how the U.S. military has banned all
employees from reading The Intercept and has begun blocking the website
on work computers, purportedly because it has published classified
material. "That kind of policy in the age of Manning, in the age of
Snowden, just is totally archaic, and it doesn’t fit the modern world,"
Gallagher says. "You can have a situation where an intelligence analyst
in the government with a top-secret security clearance is in a position
that they can’t read public news reports."
