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The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call In the Bahamas

Posted by samzenpus on from the listen-up dept.

Advocatus Diaboli (1627651) writes "The National Security Agency is secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas. According to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the surveillance is part of a top-secret system – code-named SOMALGET – that was implemented without the knowledge or consent of the Bahamian government. Instead, the agency appears to have used access legally obtained in cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to open a backdoor to the country's cellular telephone network, enabling it to covertly record and store the 'full-take audio' of every mobile call made to, from and within the Bahamas – and to replay those calls for up to a month."

14 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. the question is by fche · · Score: 5, Interesting

    .. what will the Bahama government/people do - will they sue the US for the presumable crime of breaking into their phone system?

    1. Re:the question is by Rich0 · · Score: 4, Informative

      .. what will the Bahama government/people do - will they sue the US for the presumable crime of breaking into their phone system?

      In what court would they do this? You can't sue the US government in a US court without the permission of the US government, and the US will just ignore the ruling of just about any other court.

      And yes, many (most?) other countries work the same way...

  2. Cayman Islands? by rogoshen1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Had they done this with Cayman Islands they could have possible nabbed some real criminals, and probably made the world a better/safer place.

    1. Re:Cayman Islands? by Jahoda · · Score: 5, Interesting

      1) It seems much more likely they do monitor the Cayman Islands in a similar fashion than them not monitoring them.

      2) What you say is indeed humorous, but what isn't funny is that we know that the purpose has never been to catch criminals, it is to catch people doing things contrary to the interests of the state, conduct corporate espionage, and/or gather useful blackmail-worthy information for use at a future time.

  3. To serve and protect by gmuslera · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Surely there is a branch of al-quaeda there to have that kind of surveillance. When they will start to send the killer drones?

    1. Re:To serve and protect by funwithBSD · · Score: 4, Funny

      Send in the drones... there ought to be drones....

      --
      Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
  4. Favoritism. by Forbo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "The U.S. Department of Treasury estimated that in 2011 the Caribbean Banking Centers, which include Bahamas ...held almost $2 trillion dollars in United States debt." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    I bet there were some pretty juicy tidbits swept up in that massive dragnet. I certainly believe that tax evaders are a lot more of an actual threat to the US than the terrorism "boogeyman". So where are our prosecutions on this crap?

    The answer is that there never will be. All this mass-surveillance will never actually be used to our benefit, only as a means enforcing the status quo for the powers that be.

    1. Re:Favoritism. by rahvin112 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The US has aggressively been targeting tax evaders since about 2008. They've collected billions in back taxes, penalties and interest. Most haven't gone to jail because they are using the government's amnesty program that grants amnesty from criminal charges and partial penalty relief (but still typically takes better than 50% of the value of the accounts often far more than the taxes and interest).

      The interesting bit is each year you don't come forward the amount of penalties they reduce goes down. If you took them up in 2008 you got a pretty decent deal, not so in 2014. With the steady decrease in what they will forgive they are setting the stage for genuine criminal prosecutions once the amnesty programs winds down in a few more years. IIRC the IRS has estimated they've discovered and taxed better than 50% of the hidden accounts and the people coming forward goes up each year because of the agreements the US is striking with other nations is revealing the tax cheats. Fact is you either come forward using the amnesty program and take your lumps or in a few years you could be looking at jail time.

  5. congress by p51d007 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh no, can't have them monitor the Cayman islands...they would net about 90% of our congress, senate and 3/4 of the power brokers in DC...can't have that ya know ;)

  6. Re:Legally speaking... by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Anyone at NSA who is participating in this is committing an act of war against a sovereign nation without any declaration of war.

    Under what theory of international law? This behavior is clearly bad and is the sort of thing a country has a right to be pissed off about, but there's no coherent, conventional theory that makes this an act of war. The situation is bad enough without exaggerating.

  7. Reaction guestimations... by mythosaz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Based on the number of proportional font memos with a blacked out second country name, it shouldn't be too hard to narrow down the other country (in addition to the Bahamas) for which "full retrieval" was possible.

    I mean, it's not Laos, and it's not Nagorno-Karabakh, but with a known font, you could narrow it down pretty quickly based on the redacted images.

    Here:
    https://prod01-cdn00.cdn.first...
    And here:
    https://prod01-cdn02.cdn.first...

  8. Re:and the answer is by JMJimmy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As if a country like the Bahamas can do anything like that. The US is the only country they could hook into for internet infrastructure without running a cable to South America or Mexico.

    The US also flies unmarked helos in Bahamas airspace - the DEA would do low level flights up and down the island of Eleuthera looking for crops and attempting to follow drug mules. The mules would drop the drugs off on the south end of the island, transfer from boat to a truck, drive up to the north end of the island and dump them on another boat to get around satellite surveillance. It's scary seeing an unmarked Apache 30 feet off the deck fly over as you're laying on the beach.

  9. Re:Legally speaking... by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Informative

    Anyone at NSA who is participating in this is committing an act of war against a sovereign nation without any declaration of war.

    -jcr

    I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the united states does that like every other week. Noticed Ukraine lately? We started that. Everyone seems to forget there was a fucking US backed coup before Russia stepped in. It's not like they randomly decided to invade.

  10. Re:On the Bahamas, TOO. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the United States took the high ground and refused to engage this, it would be to the detriment of the West, likely including the Country you've posted from.

    And how exactly? Are the evil Internet terrorists going to hack us? Wait I know, maybe some evil foreign spy agency will steal trade secrets from our businesses... oh wait.

    This technology is already out there for everyone to exploit

    "But Johny also did it" is the kind of excuse I'd expect from a first grader. Just because someone else engages in something morally questionable doesn't make it ok for you to do it.

    Just stop. This isn't about "defending" anything, but American financial interests. If you honestly believe there is some higher purpose behind the US spying efforts, then you are either extremely naive, or suffering from a severe case of cognitive dissonance.