By
Col.R.Hariharan
Nov.
24.2013
[This
article contains points made by the author in two TV interviews on November 5,
2013 about Edward Snowden’s disclosures on the NSA's worldwide clandestine
surveillance of millions of telephone conversations.]
The
astounding disclosures of whistleblower Edward Snowden about the U.S. National
Security
Surveillance
of electronic communication and wire tapping have a long and controversial
history in the U.S.. After the 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks exposed serious gaps in
the U.S. intelligence gathering efforts, the NSA launched PRISM – a massive
electronic surveillance data mining programme in 2007. Its ostensible purpose
was to trawl terror networks across the globe for information. However, the
programme seems to have widened its scope well beyond its original purpose to
eavesdrop on millions of communications of all kind everywhere, probably with
official sanction.
At
the start, the PRISM programme was being conducted within the ambit of the
Protect America Act of 2007 (PAA). The PAA removed the requirement of a warrant
to conduct government surveillance of foreign intelligence targets outside the
United States mandated by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Its
authorisation of massive information gathering of public and private networks
with an internal oversight procedure became controversial.
Though
subsequently the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FISAAA) replaced PAA, the new act
incorporated many provisions of PAA. After a lot of criticism, the U.S. Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review now provides the NSA a thin veneer of
legality to conduct PRISM’s dubious snooping operations including wire tapping.
Strong
anti-U.S. sentiments were triggered when The Guardian newspaper published the
Snowden disclosures about the NSA’s clandestine tapping of telephone
conversations of leaders and heads of states of friendly powers like Brazil,
France, Germany and India.
German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Brazil’s President Dilma Roussef took strong
exception to the NSA’s perfidious conduct compromising the secrecy and security
of their official and personal communications. The U.S. government’s official
sanction accorded to the programme terribly annoyed them. While the German
Chancellor took it up directly with President Obama, the Brazilian President
cancelled a much awaited official visit to the U.S.
The
U.S. President, while visiting Germany on June 19, 2013 defended the PRISM
programme describing it as “a circumscribed, narrow system directed at us being
able to protect our people. His claim that “as a consequence [of the
programme], we’ve saved lives” failed to impress the affected nations. While
Germany has taken it up at official level with the U.S., Brazil has called for
an international conference in 2014 to discuss the issue. How India will
respond to Brazil’s initiative remains to be seen.
This
is neither the first time the U.S. has spied upon friendly powers nor PRISM the
only such operation. According to Vikram Sood, former head of RAW, the U.S.,
UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada took part in project ECHELON to conduct
electronic surveillance on its European allies among others.Then why PRISM has
created such furore? Were Germany and Brazil overreacting? There are probably
two reasons for it.
Snowden
had disclosed that the NSA was also engaged in hacking civilian infrastructure
networks including universities, hospitals and private businesses in other
countries Documents leaked in the media showed that many technology companies
like Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Skype and Apple were roped in
to participate in PRISM programme. According to media assessment 98 percent of
PRISM data was based on Microsoft, Yahoo and Google. As most of the global
internet communication passes through these U.S. based systems, probably the
PRISM has evoked greater international concern.
A
second aspect is intelligence programmes like PRISM should not be considered as
mere intelligence gathering tools. They are part of nation’s overall cyber
warfare capability. They would play a vital role in snooping, hacking, and
compromising of communication networks of military and vital national
infrastructure.
India’s
reactions to PRISM have been curious and ambivalent. Initially the external
affairs ministerial spokesman said any privacy violation of PRISM would be
‘unacceptable.” However, the Minister of External Affairs Salman Khurshid on
the sidelines of the ASEAN regional forum meet on July 2, 2013 defended the
programme. He said it was “not scrutiny and access to actual messages. It is
only computer analysis of pattern of calls and emails that are being sent. Some
of the information they got out of their scrutiny, they were able to use it to
prevent serious terrorist attacks in several countries.” Prime Minister Dr
Manmohan Singh’s subdued response to the issue during his meeting with the U.S
President when he visited Washington after the Snowden disclosures drew a lot
of criticism in India.
The
colossal data mining capability demonstrated by the NSA will have far reaching impact
upon intelligence gathering worldwide. An important step towards denial of
electronic snooping would be to reduce to the dependence upon the U.S. Global
Positioning System (GPS) by developing indigenous regional navigation satellite
system. So far only the U.S., Russia, and China have their own domestic
satellite navigation system. It is heartening to note that India has taken the
first step to overcome this weakness by launching the first of a cluster of
seven IRNSS satellites in July 2013. This navigation system costing Rs 1600
crores will be made up of seven satellites named IRNSS-1A to IRNSS-1G. It will
provide India’s own domestic navigation system when completed by 2015-16.
India
had been using electronic surveillance as an effective tool of its national
security effort for quite some time. It was electronic surveillance that
successfully eavesdropped on General Pervez Musharraf’s conversation with Lt
General Mohammed Aziz Khan during the Kargil War to confirm Pakistan army’s
involvement in the conflict. Pakistani terror groups like Lashkar-e-Tayabba
(LeT) has been using social networks like FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube etc. for
quite some time. And India is LeT’s main target. So, electronic surveillance
will continue to be an essential arm in India’s battle against terrorism.
The
PRISM experience has shown extensive misuse of its capability in spite of
oversight procedures in place. It also shows how the government can distort
such operations to suit their political purpose. There are also moral, ethical
and legal grounds on which clandestine wire tapping and related electronic data
mining have been criticized. The whole PRISM episode has demonstrated the need
for greater accountability, independent auditing and legislative monitoring of
the entire chain of actions in surveillance programmes.
There
is no doubt that electronic surveillance systems intrude upon individual’s
right to privacy and curb his freedom of communication. While no democratic
government can ignore such concerns, these have to be balanced against threats
to national security from terrorism and globalised trafficking in arms, drugs
and people. So India has no other option but to strengthen its electronic
surveillance capability. At the same time, we need to tighten the accountability
of intelligence agencies through independent auditing of their surveillance
activities and effective oversight procedures.
NOTE--
Col R Hariharan is a retired MI officer associated with the Chennai Centre for
China Studies and the South Asia Analysis Group. E-mail: colhari@yahoo.com
Blog: www.colhariharan.org
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