What the Snowden Documents Revealed

…about U.S. intelligence gathering:  NSA collects bulk phone data of millions of Verizon customers on a daily basis (link)  NSA taps directly into servers of internet giants including Google, Yahoo and Facebook (link)  NSA analysts map cellphone owners’ locations and relationships with others by correlating their patterns of movement (link)  NSA collected vast records of Americans’ email correspondence and internet usage (link)  NSA unlocks encryption used to protect emails, banking and hospital records (link)  Microsoft allows the FBI to intercept and decrypt communications including email and Skype chats (link)  NSA installs “back doors” into computer programs and hardware to allow remote access even when computers are disconnected from the internet (link)  NSA can access smartphone data including mapping, voicemail and photos (link)  NSA targets “leaky” apps like Google Maps and Angry Birds to access to user data (link)  Judicial oversight over NSA activities is limited at best (link)  NSA collected 97 billion pieces of data worldwide per month (link)  NSA views Apple as today’s “Big Brother” and users of Apple smartphones as “zombies” (link)  NSA allows GCHQ to spy on American targets since foreign spies do not need a warrant (link)  NSA shares bulk information collected on American citizens with Israel (link)  The IP addresses of visitors to the WikiLeaks website were catalogued by NSA (link)  NSA infiltrates online video game communities including “World of Warcraft” (link)  Intercepted phone data is used to target drone attacks overseas (link), with incorrect data sometimes leading to the death of innocents  NSA, often with the cooperation of the other “Five Eyes” powers (Canada, UK, Australia & New Zealand), spies on o European Union offices (link) o United Nations headquarters (link) o communications and/or movements of millions of citizens in Germany (link), Canada (link), Brazil (link), Spain (link), France (link), China (link), o the personal communications of thirty five world leaders (link), including leaders of Mexico (link), Germany (link), Spain (link), Indonesia (link), o international conferences including G20 Toronto (link) and the Copenhagen climate summit (link), with the goal of furthering the economic interests and diplomatic bargaining power of the “Five Eyes” o hotel reservations of foreign diplomats (link) …about the NSA’s British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)  GCHQ intercepted and collected in bulk the images of Yahoo webcam users, 3% to 11% of which traffic contained “undesirable nudity” (link)  GCHQ intercepts internet traffic in bulk, sharing the information with the NSA (link)  NSA pays GCHQ to conduct further spying because of weaker privacy laws in Britain (link)  GCHQ spies on economic conferences between world leaders (link)