Latest information on the NSA and related domestic spying issue.

[BelgianMadCow]

17. Declassified Documents: NSA Wanted To Collect Geolocation Data

In other words, the senator wanted to know if, in addition to telephone and Internet metadata, the US intelligence agency was also tracking the location of everybody who has a mobile phone or Internet connection. FISA is a reference to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which permits US intelligence agencies to undertake certain types of eavesdropping and data collection within the scope of the law.

The NSA's answer is long and convoluted, and at least 13 lines have been blacked out in the published version. Near the very end, though, the official who provided the answer gets to the point:

"With the exception of test data sampling acquired from one provider, NSA does not currently obtain cellular mobility data (cell site location information) pursuant to this Court-authorized program."

But in this case, the addition of the concrete program -- referring to the FISA program of collecting telephone and Internet metadata -- is at the very least odd. The reason is that it opens up the possibility that the NSA may long have been collecting geolocation data based on other legal bases. The answer also includes another potentially explosive sentence right at the end:

"NSA is, however, exploring the possibility of acquiring such mobility data under this program in the near future under the authority currently granted by the Court."

In this instance, the court is a reference to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret court charged with critical oversight of the government's FISA spying programs.

From Der Spiegel