
The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas - uptown
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/05/19/data-pirates-caribbean-nsa-recording-every-cell-phone-call-bahamas/
======
suprgeek
What is most disturbing is that NSA & DEA seem to have such a Cozy
relationship.

Given that one is a mostly domestic agency and the other is supposed to focus
primarily on Foreign Intelligence, this incestual relationship sets up many
troubling opportunities for abuse.

Absolutely needs to be stopped.

~~~
us0r
We know the DEA manufactures cases. Michele Leonhart is another Bush cancer
Obama decided to keep around. She is off the reservation and needs to be
thrown into jail. The PBS documentary also mentioned the FBI does it as well.

~~~
llamataboot
FYI: Please don't use the phrase "off the reservation", it's quite
insensitive.

[http://blog.nrcprograms.org/off-the-
reservation/](http://blog.nrcprograms.org/off-the-reservation/)

~~~
hnriot
It's called an idiom, and when interpreted literally or historically they are
offensive, like "busting our balls" for example, many many of them are
offensive if you put on your HR hat. That said, they are commonly used and in
that context are not offensive.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
According to wiktionary [1]:

1\. (literally) To leave a reservation to which one was restricted.

2\. (US, politics) To break with one's party or group, usually temporarily.

3\. (by extension) To engage in disruptive activity outside normal bounds.

Why would this term even be seen as negative in an HN context? It sounds like
every startup founder/rebellious techy would want to "go off the reservation."

[1]
[http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/go_off_the_reservation](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/go_off_the_reservation)

~~~
Natsu
The article two levels above cites that very definition, then goes on to say
it's offensive because: "Removing the physical aspect of leaving from the
equation, we are left with the ideological aspect that infers, historically,
that Native Americans have wanted to be placed on a reservation."

~~~
seanmcdirmid
If we ignore the first literal definition, which obviously doesn't apply in
this case, and focus on the second and third metaphorical definitions...they
seem like admirable behaviors. The original poster's comment about Michele
Leonhart, using the second two definitions leads me to believe that either (2)
Michele Leonhart can temporarily go across the political aisle (from
Republican to Democrat), which is admirable, or (3) Michele Leonhart is
disruptive, which is just what we need in Washington. Neither (2) nor (3) is
what the poster meant, and they definitely didn't mean (1) unless Michele
Leonhart was an Indian who literally left her reservation!

So I'm quite confused by what the intended pejorative was supposed to be.

~~~
alexqgb
Describing someone as being "off the reservation" means they need to turn
around and go back where they belongs a.s.a.p. The expression is pejorative
because it rests on the idea is that Native Americans are actually okay when
they're on reservations, and likewise, that they're out of place anywhere
else. In reality, reservations are more like prison camps without walls into
which these people been unceremoniously dumped.

If you want a brief, brutal look at what "the reservation" really means, see
this short film from Aeon called "Honor the Treaties". You'll see exactly why
the casual acceptance of reservations as places where anyone "truly" belongs
is so problematic.

[http://aeon.co/film/the-real-legacy-of-manifest-
destiny/](http://aeon.co/film/the-real-legacy-of-manifest-destiny/)

Getting back to the expression, it should be avoided for the same reason that
you'd avoid analogies to slave plantations or concentration camps that imply
these institutions were benign, defensible things. It's far better to use the
phrase "way out of line", which conveys the same meaning, but without the
unthinking disregard for genocide, theft of land, and institutionalized deceit
that underpin most reservations. For the people who live on reservations, or
are connected to those who do, the term is loaded with a lot of bitterness,
futility, alienation, and despair. Not to put too fine a point on it, but
suicide rates among young people who grow up on reservations are double what
they are anywhere else in America.

As an aside, the Navajo reservation is an interesting exception to this rule
in that it encompasses the territory on which the Navajo have lived for more
than 10,000 years, and not some crappy godforsaken piece of land to which they
were forcibly relocated. So there's a bit more pride in that case. But a
history of dismissal and segregation means there's still an unbelievable
amount of poverty. As time goes by they look more and more like wounds that
never heal.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
> Describing someone as being "off the reservation" means they need to turn
> around and go back where they belongs

I didn't get that intention from the definitions found on the interwebs. Slang
dictionary [1]:

> used to slam people who are thinking differently than what their group
> considers acceptable.

I believe what you are saying is true, its not a phrase I would use but...why
do all of these dictionaries get the phrase so wrong as to mean something
positive?

[1] [http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-
of/off-t...](http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/off-the-
reservation)

~~~
alexqgb
One of America's greater shames is the "success" with which it's managed to
erase the genocidal history of westward expansion from the collective memory.
Spend some time with Indians and you'll get a very different picture of the
post-Colubian era. For a brief primer on what was lost, see here.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-
Columbian_era](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_era)

You can also see why having circumstances reduced to a handful of godforsaken
reservations was - and remains - a profound trauma. Indeed, the fact that most
people have _no idea_ why the terms causes pain is, itself, a source of
ongoing pain since is so clearly signals how thoroughly Native suffering has
been airbrushed from American history.

------
United857
I'm guessing the other unnamed country is Afghanistan. It's a major drug
producer which would justify DEA's involvement but also has general
terrorism/national security concerns for the NSA's own interest. The word
length also is a good match for the blacked-out area.

~~~
cantrevealname
The unknown country is blacked out in two locations. Carefully measuring the
length of "Bahamas" vs. the redacted word, I found that the missing word is
1.28x longer than "Bahamas" in one case and 1.29x longer in the other. (Note
that the correct way to do this is _not_ to measure the black box, but to
measure the gap and subtract off an estimate for leading and/or trailing
whitespace.)

Then putting the list of 206 sovereign states from Wikipedia in Times Roman
(which seems to match the font used), and finding countries that are 1.28 to
1.29 times longer than "Bahamas", I get the following list of countries:

    
    
      Bangladesh
      Cape Verde
      Kazakhstan
      Kyrgyzstan
      Madagascar
      Montenegro
      San Marino
      Somaliland
      Afghanistan
      El Salvador
      Ivory Coast
      Philippines
      Saint Lucia
      Switzerland
      Transnistria
    

Looking over that list, I'd say that Afghanistan, El Salvador, and Ivory
Coast, are likely candidates because of US geopolitical interest and likely
cooperation of the country with the American DEA.

For example, although the US might be very interested in Bangladesh and
Kazakhstan, I think it's unlikely that those countries would permit the DEA to
tap their phone or cellular network even for drug interdiction.

We can also rule out the Philippines because it was already separately
mentioned when talking about the redacted country: " _targeted communications
in the Caribbean, Mexico, Kenya, the Philippines, and the unnamed country._ "

~~~
logn
You can strike all two-word countries from that list because the word was long
enough to wrap and it had a good amount of space on the prior line.
Switzerland would be another interesting one, given the amount of financial
activity there but I'm not sure what business DEA would have to make it a
priority.

~~~
samstave
My vote is on the Swiss.

~~~
dan_bk
Could come in handy with the attack on their banks.

~~~
daanlo
The Bahamas and Switzerland both have a large number of off shore bank
accounts. So there are more parrallels between them than between the Bahamas
and Afgahnistan. It could also explain why the name is not being disclosed as
the uproar in Switzerland would be huge.

But it would be kind of ironic to have bank secrecy, but then let the NSA
listen in to your citizens phone conversations.

So maybe it is Afgahnistan afterall.

~~~
Create
The communication protocols war raged in Europe from 1983 to 1992. Most
governments opposed internet technology, backing instead nascent ISO
networking standards. CERN’s decision to migrate to internet was heavily
criticized by TCP/IP opponents.

In Geneva, the very first meeting of the Coordinating Committee for
Intercontinental Research Network (CCIRN) was in May 1988. This committee was
the first attempt to harmonize the inter-regional operation of the emerging
world-wide research network.

The second meeting took place in October 1988 at a summer resort in Western
Virginia, sad and grey this particular autumn. The Americans turned up in
force. Bill Bostwick, from the Department of Energy was the Chairman, Barry
Leiner from the Department of Defense and Vint Cerf were present. The European
representatives were thin on the ground: a German and British representative
plus Francois Flückiger.

In 1991, 80% of the internet capacity in Europe for international traffic was
installed at CERN, in building 513.

From 1985 to 1988, as CERN's first official "TCP/IP Co-ordinator", Segal was
responsible for coordinating the introduction of the Internet protocols within
CERN.

This router was one of two installed at CERN in 1987; they are thought to have
been the first Cisco routers in Switzerland and possibly the first in Europe.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ciscosystemsrouteratcern....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ciscosystemsrouteratcern.jpg)

------
frik
Don't forget Iraq and Austria.

    
    
      Translation:
      As part of "Mystic" apparently the NSA monitored not only 
      all communications in Iraq, but also in Austria.  The 
      basis for this was a secret treaty, by which the 
      government knew about it, writes an Austrian magazine. 
      [...]
    

[http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pre...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fnewsticker%2Fmeldung%2FNSA-
hoert-angeblich-auch-Oesterreich-komplett-ab-2165101.html&edit-text=&act=url)

~~~
Zelphyr
Austria?! WTH? Are they afraid Hitler 2.0 The Sequel might rise up or
something?

~~~
samstave
Gotta be able to blackmail the one percent

------
CurtMonash
Sounds a bit like a proof-of-concept, on the way to doing it for larger
countries.

~~~
zacinbusiness
I was thinking the same thing. Figure out the scalability issues, work on
performance, and of course anti-detection. Then roll it out somewhere more
sophisticated.

~~~
a3n
And do it in a friendly, dependent country who can be relied on for a "no
comment" when asked.

------
leeoniya
i will just say that if you're in the business of smuggling drugs and are dumb
enough not to use secure communication channels, you deserve to be caught.

keeping that in mind, the only ones who end up in the dragnet are small-time
stupid smugglers and your average innocent citizen. the value of the former at
the expense of the latter is likely inconsequential.

~~~
zacinbusiness
Interesting point that the NSA spends billions of dollars, if not trillions of
dollars, along with some of the most sophisticated technology on the planet to
catch b-level smugglers and criminals.

~~~
rdtsc
Quite often NSA spends billions because it already spends billions.

Contractors, infrastructure, PR, salaries, promotions, training. That has been
put into place.

Well it was there to spy on the Soviets. Then it was kind of sitting there
waiting for a problem. And the problem was found. Terrorism. Drugs. Could be
something else tomorrow. As long as Joe Smith in SIGINT department 15 gets his
salary paid, he doesn't care. As long as L3 or whoever gets to build another
data center they don't care. They will all collectively find some reason to
justify it, but underneath, quite often is just making more money keeping
busy.

They made the mistake though (mistake from their point of view), that one of
the characteristics they look for in people they hire is patriotism. That can
very very dangerous if eventually those people are forced to do un-patriotic
things (or things they can't brainwash them into thinking they are patriotic).
You end up with Binney and Snowden then.

~~~
us0r
This image kind of explains a lot:

[http://leaksource.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/booz-allen-
map...](http://leaksource.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/booz-allen-map.png)

It is missing Clapper. He came from Booz.

~~~
samstave
Are they holding these positions simultaneously?

~~~
rdtsc
Usually not. They jump from gov to private and back.

This happens with other agencies as well. FDA is full of future and past heads
from agro-businesses and pharma companies. FCC is full of people from cable
and satellite companies and so on.

This is capitalism at work. Achieve success by whatever means possible. The
easiest means is the get in the position to re-write rules and police
yourself.

~~~
chris_mahan
That's what you get with term limits.

~~~
rdtsc
Unless the people writing legislation are the ones doing it so they never pass
the bill to change term limits.

------
rdl
I'm interested in the technology they use for this -- record on-site,
requiring someone in the country maintain a pretty decent hard disk farm, or
send every call back to the US over expensive bandwidth?

For the Bahamas, you could clearly do either, but for the Philippines, sending
back all content would be seriously difficult. Which is why it looks like they
just do metadata from the bigger countries.

For the unnamed full-data country, I'd probably bet on the Caymans. Antigua or
another small Caribbean nation would be a possibility.

I assume there is another entire program for actual jihadi communications
(Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc.) under different cover and pretense;
the other countries in MYSTIC appear to be DEA LI based.

~~~
sitkack
The population of the Bahamas is only ~400k. Lets say everyone talked to each
other for 2 hrs a day, 200K * 2hrs. And their conversations are recorded using
Opus [0] @ 32 kbits / s (we don't want analysts ears getting tired from
compression artifacts)

32kbits is 4KB/s ~ .24 MB/minute ... turns out to be on the order of 6TB a day
on the high end.

This 9U server can hold all of the Bahamas voice traffic for 30 days.

[http://www.storagenewsletter.com/rubriques/systems-raid-
nas-...](http://www.storagenewsletter.com/rubriques/systems-raid-nas-
san/eracks-9u-nas50/)

The calls never have to leave the island and they probably have a nice
spotify/splunk style web page for playing back conversations.

[0] [http://www.opus-codec.org/examples/](http://www.opus-codec.org/examples/)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Supposedly Backblaze was at one point approached about their 45 drive chassis'
by a federal agency.

[http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/03/19/backblaze-storage-
pod-4...](http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/03/19/backblaze-storage-pod-4/)

45 drives * 6TB drives = 270TB of storage in _one chassis_ (more than a
month's worth of recordings). How much does it cost to get a whole rack colo'd
in the Bahamas?

As you mentioned, if you have the horsepower, you can do speech to text right
on the box. Plenty of space for ElasticSearch as well.

------
cgusto
Is anyone else curious on what data setup the NSA is using? Do they have some
crazy non relational ZFS setup that makes Hadoop seem like a kid's toy? Or is
it just a bunch of off the shelf enterprise SQL servers duct taped together?

My bet is on the latter.

~~~
wil421
I think they are _the_ cutting edge of this sort of thing. Think about
military tech that we now use in everyday life, lots of innovations come from
military applications. Think about memory foam and NASA.

Think about it they have more money to spend than anyone; corporation or
government.

~~~
JonFish85
Or, y'know, the internet (ARPANET).

------
a3n
"The documents don’t spell out how the NSA has been able to tap the phone
calls of an entire country. But one memo indicates that SOMALGET data is
covertly acquired under the auspices of “lawful intercepts” made through Drug
Enforcement Administration “accesses”– legal wiretaps of foreign phone
networks that the DEA requests as part of international law enforcement
cooperation."

"lawful intercepts." As opposed to what the NSA does with them later.

Hopefully the Bahamas won't indict anyone from the NSA, as we just did with
China. /s

------
aenean
Is there a list of every NSA revelation?

~~~
glitchdout
This is THE list:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/NSALeaks/wiki/stuff](http://www.reddit.com/r/NSALeaks/wiki/stuff)

Still missing today's revelation though.

~~~
dublinben
What revelation from today? This story was originally reported over a month
ago in the Washington Post.

~~~
glitchdout
No, it wasn't.

Today's revelation is that the NSA records and stores 100% of the phone calls
made in the Bahamas.

The Post's revelation was that the NSA records and stores 100% of the phone
calls made in an _unnamed country_.

These two countries are distinct. Read the actual article we're discussing.

I'll quote:

> In March, The Washington Post revealed that the NSA had developed the
> capability to record and store an entire nation’s phone traffic for 30 days.

(...)

> The Intercept has confirmed that as of 2013, the NSA was actively using
> MYSTIC to gather cell-phone metadata in five countries, and was intercepting
> voice data in two of them. Documents show that the NSA has been generating
> intelligence reports from MYSTIC surveillance in the Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya,
> the Philippines, and one other country, which The Intercept is not naming in
> response to specific, credible concerns that doing so could lead to
> increased violence.

------
sexmonad
Yes, this is the NSA's job - foreign SIGINT. If you don't like this, you need
to use encrypted communications.

~~~
toufka
However, it's being done from within the DEA - and actually erodes the DEA's
long-term powers. Likely, governments will no longer allow DEA involvement if
they know it now comes with the 'full-take' capabilities of the American NSA.

And so with the lawful directives of the FBI. And so with the CIA. Etc. etc.

~~~
afarrell
Whose to say it wasn't with the consent (or strongarmed-consent) of the
Bahaman government?

------
kevinburke
Why are Greenwald & Poitras writing this in The Intercept and not The
Guardian, or Washington Post?

~~~
eoi
In a recent interview with Democracy Now[1] Greenwald talked about the status
of his relationship with the Guardian at the time he went to Hong Kong to meet
Snowden, and it made me view his move to create The Intercept in a very
different light. Here's a quote:

"I had only worked with them for eight months. My deal with The Guardian was I
write whatever I want, and I post it directly to the Internet, and you don’t
interfere in any way in what I’m writing. So I had barely worked with any
Guardian editors at all, let alone on a story of this size."

[1]
[http://www.democracynow.org/2014/5/14/right_out_of_a_spy_mov...](http://www.democracynow.org/2014/5/14/right_out_of_a_spy_movie)

~~~
lern_too_spel
That explains all the errors in his initial articles.

------
xacaxulu
Let's call this what it is: some government employees trying to get stationed
in the Bahamas. It's an old ruse but effective :-)

~~~
kenrikm
The Bahamas are really, really close to the US and have rather lax security. I
can see why they would be worried about them.

------
stefantalpalaru
We have always been at war with the Bahamas.

------
pistle
Is that thing with the two wheels on it some sort of high-density, digital
storage device? It looks like a Mickey Mouse robot head.

There was one at my local second-hand audio shop in a dusty corner. I bet they
didn't know they were sitting on such a device.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Looks like a standard reel-to-reel tape recorder used simply as a graphic
device to represent audio recording.

~~~
pistle
Exactly, which is why someone should ask the question, "Why would that
represent audio recording?" Is the NSA still fumbling with fishing the tape
through the spindles to record all our phone calls?

They should have just depicted an analyst sitting there with headphones and a
pencil (with manual sharpener on desk) writing furiously.

I guess the intended audience for this article is all 50y.o.+ and/or people
who have worked in some recording facility's store room 10 years ago.

