The National Security Agency (NSA) is secretly keeping an eye on Yahoo and Google’s data centers, claims Edward Snowden, former NSA contractor. The security agency’s project to intercept the communication and data links of big Internet giants has been names as MUSCULAR, which is operated jointly with UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
Yahoo and Google have denied cooperating with such a scheme, with the search giant claiming it was “outraged” by the revelation. A Washington Post report notes that NSA and GCHQ are intercepting data flow between the data centers of Yahoo and Google from undisclosed interception points.
According to a top-secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, millions of records from internal Yahoo and Google networks are sent by the NSA’s acquisitions directorate to data warehouses at the security agency’s headquarters at Fort Meade, Md. As per the report leaked by Snowden, in the preceding 30 days, around 181,280,466 new records — including “metadata, “of emails sent and received and even content such as text, audio and video were processed and sent back by the agency.
PRISM, another separate NSA program allows the agency a front-door access to Google and Yahoo user accounts through a court-approved process. A statement by NSA read that the agency is “focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets only.”
“NSA applies Attorney General-approved processes to protect the privacy of U.S. persons — minimizing the likelihood of their information in our targeting, collection, processing, exploitation, retention, and dissemination”.
David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, in a statement said that the company has been concerned about the possibility of snooping of this kind.
“We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform,” Drummond said.
Yahoo spokeswoman said “We have strict controls in place to protect the security of our data centers, and we have not given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency.”
