Snowden Ungkap AS Sadap Miliaran Ponsel di Seluruh Dunia
Snowden Revealed, NSA Tracking Billions of Cellphones Around World
Editor : Ismail Gani
Translator : Novita Cahyadi
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Washington (B2B) - Dewan Keamanan Nasional (NSA) mengumpulkan miliaran rekaman pembicaraan telepon seluler (ponsel) dari berbagai lokasi di seluruh dunia, seperti dilaporkan The Washington Post mengutip dokumen intelijen yang dibocorkan Edward Snowden.
Informasi ini ditambahkan pada database raksasa yang memperlihatkan lokasi-lokasi bagi setidaknya ratusan juta ponsel di seluruh dunia. Ini adalah pengungkapan mengagetkan yang menunjukkan bahwa NSA telah menciptakan perangkat mata-mata massal, sambung the Post seperti dilansir Yahoo News.
Miliaran data percakapan ponsel itu diraup dengan menyadap kabel-kabel yang menghubungkan jejaring ponsel --baik milik warga AS maupun asing-- di seluruh dunia, tulis the Post.
Menurut dokumen bocor itu, data mengenai lokasi itu ditarik atas bantuan dua perusahaan yang tak disebutkan namanya.
Informasi dari ponsel warga AS yang bepergian ke seluruh dunia juga membentuk bagian dari database itu.
The Post melaporkan, begitu ponsel menyiarkan lokasinya kendati tidak ada panggilan telepon atau pesan teks terkirim, para analis NSA bisa menggunakan teknik matematis untuk menyisirnya melalui data lokasi dan menjejak pola pergerakan sepanjang waktu dari sasaran yang diburu.
Menurut laporan bocor itu, metode analitik yang digunakan NSA untuk menggeser data lokasi dikenal dengan CO-TRAVELER.
Kendati bagian terbesar pengguna ponsel tak ada kaitannya dengan sepak terjang NSA, lembaga intelijen ini tetap mengumpulkan data-data itu untuk melacak target-target intelijen dan jaringannya.
NSA menegaskan tidak berniat melacak data lokasi warga AS, tapi akhirnya menerima rincian-rincian yang menunjukkan di mana perangkat mobile domestik berada, tulis the Post.
Para pejabat AS berkata pada the Post bahwa program yang mengumpulkan data geo-lokasi itu adalah legal dan ditujukan hanya demi mengumpulkan data intelijen mengenai militan asing atau ´target-target´ lain yang mengancam Amerika Serikat.
"Volume informasi yang mengalir ke dan dari program ini mempercepat kemampuan kita dalam mencerna, memproses dan menyimpan data," demikian bunyi laporan NSA Mei 2012 seperti dikutip dokumen bocor yang disiarkan the Post itu.
"Kemampuan NSA dalam melacak lokasi itu mengejutkan, berdasarkan dokumen-dokumen Snowden, dan mengindikasikan bahwa lembaga ini mampu membuat upaya-upaya keamanan komunikasi sama sekali sia-sia," lapor the Post dalam artikel yang ditulis Barton Gellman dan Ashkan Soltani tersebut.
Skala program itu akan kian menguatkan keperihatinan kelompok pembela hak-hak sipil karena pemata-mataan elektronik oleh NSA ini menjadi ancaman serius terhadap hak-hak privasi di AS dan dunia.
"Adalah mengagetkan mendapati program pelacakan lokasi dalam skala ini bisa diterapkan tanpa melalui debat publik, terutama karena sejumlah warga Amerika dicatat pergerakan-pergerakannya oleh pemerintah," kata Catherine Crump, pengacara pada Uni Kebebasan Sipil Amerika (ACLU).
Greg Nojeim, direktur Center for Democracy and Technology, menyeru Kongres mengendalikan program pengawasan intelijen oleh NSA ini.
"Jelas bahwa catatan lokasi paling pribadi dari orang-orang tak berdosa, termasuk warga negara Amerika, telah dikumpulkan dan dianalisis dengan cara-cara tak terbayangkan dan dalam skala yang massif," kata Nojeim.
Washington - The National Security Agency is collecting billions of records on the location of mobile phones around the world, The Washington Post reported, citing documents from US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.
The information is added to a gigantic database that shows the locations of "at least hundreds of millions of cell phones" worldwide, a stunning revelation that suggests the eavesdropping agency has created a mass surveillance tool, according to the Post report.
The report comes six months since the first bombshell leaks from Snowden, a former information technology subcontractor for the NSA who says he spilled secrets to spark public debate on the agency´s widespread surveillance activities.
Snowden faces espionage charges but has fled to Russia, where he has been granted asylum.
Of the NSA surveillance programs revealed to date, including spying on foreign leaders and the collection of Internet "meta-data," the geo-location project appears to represent the agency´s largest in scale and scope.
The data is scooped up by tapping into cables that link mobile phone networks -- both American and foreign -- across the globe, the Post said. The location data is pulled in with the help of two unnamed corporate firms, according to leaked documents.
Information from the cell phones of Americans traveling abroad also forms part of the database.
As mobile phones broadcast their locations even when there is no call made or text sent, NSA analysts are able to use mathematical techniques to comb through location data and track patterns of movement over time for a given suspect, it said.
The analytic methods used by the agency to sift through location data are known as CO-TRAVELER, according to the report.
Although the vast majority of mobile phone users are of no interest to the spy agency, the NSA gathers the bulk data to try to track known "intelligence targets" and their unknown associates, the paper said.
The NSA insists it does not intentionally track the location data of Americans, but it ends up receiving details that show the whereabouts of domestic mobile devices "incidentally," wrote the Post, which also quoted intelligence officials.
US officials told the Post that the programs that collect geo-location data are legal and designed only to gather intelligence about foreign militants or other "targets" deemed a threat to the United States.
The volume of information flowing in from the program is "outpacing our ability to ingest, process and store" data, according to a May 2012 internal NSA briefing leaked to the Post.
"The NSA´s capabilities to track location are staggering, based on the Snowden documents, and indicate that the agency is able to render most efforts at communications security effectively futile," said the Post article written by Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani.
The scale of the program will reinforce long-running concerns raised by civil liberties groups that the NSA´s electronic spying poses a serious threat to privacy rights in the United States and abroad.
"It is staggering that a location-tracking program on this scale could be implemented without any public debate, particularly given the substantial number of Americans having their movements recorded by the government," said Catherine Crump, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.
Greg Nojeim, a director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, called for Congress "to finally act to rein in NSA surveillance."
"It´s clear the very personal location records of innocent people, including American citizens, are being collected and analyzed in previously unimaginable ways and on a massive scale," it said.
