NSA shares raw intelligence with Israel

September 13, 2013 01:21 am | Updated December 04, 2021 11:38 pm IST

The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about U.S. citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.

Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart that shows the U.S. government handed over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.

The disclosure that the NSA agreed to provide raw intelligence data to a foreign country contrasts with assurances from the Obama administration that there are rigorous safeguards to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens caught in the dragnet. The intelligence community calls this process “minimisation”, but the memorandum makes clear that the information shared with the Israelis would be in its pre-minimised state.

The deal was reached in principle in March 2009, according to the undated memorandum, which lays out the ground rules for the intelligence sharing.

The five-page memorandum, termed an agreement between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies “pertaining to the protection of US persons”, repeatedly stresses the constitutional rights of Americans to privacy and the need for Israeli intelligence staff to respect these rights.

But this is undermined by the disclosure that Israel is allowed to receive “raw Sigint” — signal intelligence. The memorandum says: “Raw Sigint includes, but is not limited to, unevaluated and unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence metadata and content.” According to the agreement, the intelligence being shared would not be filtered in advance by NSA analysts to remove U.S. communications. “NSA routinely sends ISNU [the Israeli Sigint National Unit] minimized and unminimized raw collection”, it says.

Though the memorandum is explicit in saying the material had to be handled in accordance with U.S. law, and that the Israelis agreed not to deliberately target Americans identified in the data, these rules are not backed up by legal obligations.

“This agreement is not intended to create any legally enforceable rights and shall not be construed to be either an international agreement or a legally binding instrument according to international law,” the document says.

In a statement to the Guardian , an NSA spokesperson did not deny that personal data about Americans was included in raw intelligence data shared with the Israelis. But the agency insisted that the shared intelligence complied with all rules governing privacy.

“Any US person information that is acquired as a result of NSA’s surveillance activities is handled under procedures that are designed to protect privacy rights,” the spokesperson said.

The NSA declined to answer specific questions about the agreement, including whether permission had been sought from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (Fisa) court for handing over such material.

It is not clear whether any communications involving members of U.S. Congress or the federal courts have been included in the raw data, nor is it clear how or why the NSA would be in possession of such communications. In 2009, however, the New York Times reported on “the agency’s attempt to wiretap a member of Congress, without court approval, on an overseas trip”.

The NSA is required by law to target only non-U.S. persons without an individual warrant, but it can collect the content and metadata of Americans’ emails and calls without a warrant when such communication is with a foreign target. U.S. persons are defined in surveillance legislation as U.S. citizens, permanent residents and anyone located on US soil at the time of the interception, unless it has been positively established that they are not a citizen or permanent resident.

Moreover, with much of the world’s internet traffic passing through U.S. networks, large numbers of purely domestic communications also get scooped up incidentally by the agency’s surveillance programs.

Though Israel is one of America’s closest allies, it is not one of the inner core of countries involved in surveillance sharing with the U.S. — Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. This group is collectively known as Five Eyes.

The relationship between the U.S. and Israel has been strained at times, both diplomatically and in terms of intelligence.

In the top-secret 2013 intelligence community budget request, details of which were disclosed by the Washington Post , Israel is identified alongside Iran and China as a target for US cyberattacks.

In another top secret document seen by the Guardian, dated 2008, a senior NSA official points out that Israel aggressively spies on the U.S. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2013

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