Federal officials at the National Security Agency (NSA) collected almost 200 million text messages a day, according to a report based on material provided by former agency contractor Edward Snowden.
The Guardian reported on Thursday that the spy agency’s collection of information from phones around the world in a program known as Dishfire allowed it to extract credit card, location and contact data about people without a warrant.
In a 2011 top-secret NSA document, the agency called SMS text messages a “goldmine to exploit.” A similar document referred to content about text messages combined with automatic alerts for international network roaming or missed calls as “analytic gems.”
After the texts and other content were collected, an NSA program called Prefer conducted automatic analyses of the millions of messages to dig up details about people’s travel plans, financial transactions and other data.
The United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters has also accessed the database of information obtained through the collection effort to search the communications of people in the U.K.
Information about texts and other messages retrieved from American phones were deleted from the records database, The Guardian reported.
The report comes just a day before President Obama is scheduled to outline which measures he supports to reform the NSA.
Obama is expected to propose a series of changes to the spy agency's surveillance efforts in a speech at the Justice Department on Friday. He will likely call for increased privacy protections for foreign citizens, among other provisions.
But the president is also expected to give Congress the ultimate say on some of the more controversial surveillance efforts, such as the collection of information about almost all Americans’ phone calls.
The Guardian report was part of a joint investigation with the UK's Channel 4 News.
据英国《卫报》1月16日报道，爱德华•斯诺登提供的文件显示，美国国家安全局（NSA）每天截取大约2亿条短信，从中搜集地点、联系人和信用卡等细节信息。
NSA搜集行为并非针对某一团体，而是广泛截取短信。英国政府通信总部（GCHQ）也因此获利，擅自调查英国民众通信。据英国广播公司报道，NSA官方表示“合法收集了短信数据，有关NSA武断、放肆收集信息的暗示是错误的。”GCHQ也表示“严格按照法律和政策框架行事”。
美国总统奥巴马已经参考了评估团对监控项目的报告，将于1月17日发表讲话，宣布改革措施。奥巴马16日已经把讲话的主要内容告知给英国首相卡梅伦。有知情人士透露，奥巴马不大可能大力改革NSA，而是会撒手不管，把担子交给国会和法庭。
本次曝光的NSA监控项目名叫“碟火”（Dishfire），至少从2012年起投入使用。“碟火”能够从手机中获取未接来电、所在位置、旅行提示等信息；另外，包括银行提示，付款信息和电子名片也尽在监控之下。
“碟火”并非针对性地监控可疑的个人或集团，而是广泛搜集大众信息。GCHQ的文件显示，“碟火”在搜集情报基本上是“能搜就搜”。但NSA发言人瓦因斯曾说：“NSA根据情报需求，专门特别针对——并且只针对——外国情报目标。”
