The US is relying upon NSA metadata to identify targets for drone strikes, reports the Intercept. A former NSA operative said the tactic is flawed and the agency targets phones “in the hopes that the person on the other end of the missile is the bad guy.”
Citing documents leaked by Edward Snowden and testimonies from
former Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) members, Glen
Greenwald and colleague Jeremy Scahill have revealed the extent
which the US military is using NSA intel to establish targets for
drone strikes in an article in the Intercept.
The most common tactic employed by the NSA is known as
‘geolocation’, which entails locking on to the SIM card or
handset of a suspected terrorist. A former drone sensor operator
with the US Air Force, Brandon Bryant, told the Intercept that
using the metadata led to inaccuracies that killed civilians.
The NSA uses a program called Geo Cell to follow potential
targets and often do not verify whether the carrier of the phone
is the intended target of the strike.
“It’s really like we’re targeting a cell phone. We’re not going
after people – we’re going after their phones, in the hopes that
the person on the other end of that missile is the bad guy,”
Bryant told the Intercept – the nascent news site created by eBay
founder Pierre Omidyar to “to hold the most powerful
governmental and corporate factions accountable.”
Over the past five years the NSA “has played an increasingly
central role in drone killing,” but the growing reliance on
metadata to find insurgents is also targeting civilians. The
analysis of the electronic surveillance leaves a lot of room for
error and can kill “the wrong people.”
Moreover, the lack of operatives on the ground in Afghanistan,
Yemen and Pakistan means the JSOC is often not able to confirm
the identity of the targets.
‘Gilgamesh’ and ‘Shenanigans’
Instead of accessing cellphone metadata through cell phone towers
and internet service providers, the NSA uses a program called
Gilgamesh. To be able to track the cellphones of potential
targets a special device known as a ‘virtual base-tower
transceiver’ has to be installed on the drone. The transceiver
emits a signal that forces the target’s mobile to lock into the
NSA’s system, allowing the target to be tracked to within 30 feet
of their location.
As well as Gilgamesh, the NSA has developed a program known as
‘Shenanigans’ that acts like a giant cyber vacuum cleaner. A pod
on an aircraft downloads massive amounts of information from any
wireless networks, smart phones, computers, or other electronic
devices that are within range.
Bryant told the Intercept the “JSOC acknowledges that it
would be completely helpless without the NSA conducting mass
surveillance on an industrial level.”
Noting that innocent people have “absolutely” been
killed in these strikes, Bryant said that some terrorists have
got wise to geo-tracking and have developed a number of tricks to
elude the NSA. Taliban groups, he said, had been known to
purposely distribute SIM cards among their organization to muddle
trackers.
“They would do things like go to meetings, take all their SIM
cards out, put them in a bag, mix them up, and everybody gets a
different SIM card when they leave,” said Bryant, adding the
targets “might have been terrorists, or they could have been
family members who have nothing to do with the target’s
activities.”
The classified data paints a very different picture of the
targeted killings to Washington’s stance on the matter. The White
House maintains the strikes are conducted with the utmost
precision and all possible measures are taken to minimize
civilian casualties.
Last year President Obama claimed “before any strike is
taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be
killed or injured.”