NSA每天蒐集2億條短信

Federal officials at the National Security Agency (NSA) collected almost 200 million text messages a day, according to a report based on material provided by former agency contractor Edward Snowden.

The Guardian reported on Thursday that the spy agency’s collection of information from phones around the world in a program known as Dishfire allowed it to extract credit card, location and contact data about people without a warrant.

In a 2011 top-secret NSA document, the agency called SMS text messages a “goldmine to exploit.” A similar document referred to content about text messages combined with automatic alerts for international network roaming or missed calls as “analytic gems.”

After the texts and other content were collected, an NSA program called Prefer conducted automatic analyses of the millions of messages to dig up details about people’s travel plans, financial transactions and other data.

The United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters has also accessed the database of information obtained through the collection effort to search the communications of people in the U.K.

Information about texts and other messages retrieved from American phones were deleted from the records database, The Guardian reported.

The report comes just a day before President Obama is scheduled to outline which measures he supports to reform the NSA.

Obama is expected to propose a series of changes to the spy agency's surveillance efforts in a speech at the Justice Department on Friday. He will likely call for increased privacy protections for foreign citizens, among other provisions.

But the president is also expected to give Congress the ultimate say on some of the more controversial surveillance efforts, such as the collection of information about almost all Americans’ phone calls.

The Guardian report was part of a joint investigation with the UK's Channel 4 News.據英國《衛報》1月16日報道，愛德華•斯諾登提供的文件顯示，美國國家安全局（NSA）每天截取大約2億條短信，從中搜集地點、聯繫人和信用卡等細節信息。

NSA蒐集行爲並非針對某一團體，而是廣泛截取短信。英國政府通信總部（GCHQ）也因此獲利，擅自調查英國民衆通信。據英國廣播公司報道，NSA官方表示“合法收集了短信數據，有關NSA武斷、放肆收集信息的暗示是錯誤的。”GCHQ也表示“嚴格按照法律和政策框架行事”。

美國總統奧巴馬已經參考了評估團對監控項目的報告，將於1月17日發表講話，宣佈改革措施。奧巴馬16日已經把講話的主要內容告知給英國首相卡梅倫。有知情人士透露，奧巴馬不大可能大力改革NSA，而是會撒手不管，把擔子交給國會和法庭。

本次曝光的NSA監控項目名叫“碟火”（Dishfire），至少從2012年起投入使用。“碟火”能夠從手機中獲取未接來電、所在位置、旅行提示等信息；另外，包括銀行提示，付款信息和電子名片也盡在監控之下。

“碟火”並非針對性地監控可疑的個人或集團，而是廣泛蒐集大衆信息。GCHQ的文件顯示，“碟火”在蒐集情報基本上是“能搜就搜”。但NSA發言人瓦因斯曾說：“NSA根據情報需求，專門特別針對——並且只針對——外國情報目標。”