India is among the top 5 NSA spying targets.

[sovcomflot]

The US National Security Agency regularly collected information and intercepted communication in India despite the friendly relationship between the two nations, according to newly disclosed documents by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The NSA used at least two major programs to monitor communication in India: Boundless Informant, which records the number of phone calls and emails made over a certain time span, and PRISM, employed to intercept and collect actual data content from telecommunication networks.

The revelations were first made public in India’s The Hindu in an article Tuesday co-written by Glenn Greenwald, who was one of the few journalists in contact with Snowden before the former NSA contractor was granted political asylum in Russia.

Greenwald and co-author Shobhan Saxena noted that the NSA collected “billions of pieces of information…in just 30 days” from Indian telephone and internet networks. India was the NSA’s fifth likeliest surveillance target in the world, according to the new report.

Boundless Informant was primarily used to track and organize internet data (DNI) and telephone metadata (DNR). The program is also used to provide summaries of the information the NSA collects from India and around the world, meaning Boundless Informant likely lays the groundwork for some of the most important intelligence activity carried out by the NSA.

DNI and DNR are then stored in an NSA storage file known as GM-PLACE. Documents seen by The Hindu Times show records from at least 504 DNR and DNI collection sources in India alone.

Boundless Informant was not used to intercept messages or communication. However, it does count and categorize phone calls and internet records in an easy-to-use database that allows the NSA to quickly track individuals.

PRISM, a massive clandestine service used for data mining first disclosed in June 2013, gathered intelligence on “certain specific issues not related to terrorism” from major web services like Facebook, Apple, YouTube, Microsoft and Google, among others.

So-called “heat maps” also seen by The Hindu Times indicated by depth of color which nations the NSA targeted most frequently. Iran, shown in dark red on the map, ranked at number one with 14 billion Boundless Informant reports, followed by Pakistan (13.5 billion), Jordan (12.7 billion), Egypt (7.6 billion) and India (6.3 billion).

China and the US were coded in light orange on the map, while Russia and Brazil fell lower on the list in light green.

A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence circumvented the question when pressed by a representative from The Hindu on why India, a friendly nation to the US, was treated as a favorite target.

“The US government will respond through diplomatic channels to our partners and allies,” the spokesman said. “While we are not going to comment publicly on every specific alleged intelligence activity, as a matter of policy we have made clear that the United States gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations. We value our cooperation will all countries on issues of mutual concern.”

The issue was discussed during US Secretary of State John Kerry’s June visit to New Delhi, when representatives from both nations met for the India-US Strategic Dialogue sessions.

“We had an issue, which was discussed when Secretary Kerry was in India,” Indian Minister of External Affairs Salman Khurshid said shortly after the visit. “He made a very clear explanation that no content has been sought or received of any email…So, I think as far as we are concerned, there is no issue today.”

India among NSA’s favorite surveillance targets, latest Snowden disclosure reveals — RT News

Lets see what the indian puppet regime of Sonia Gandhi aka CIA puppet and their pdf based US cheerleaders for indian puppetry have to say.

 

[fast]

Not surprised. India's computers are easy to break in. They are used as a training ground for script-kiddo.

 

[sovcomflot]

Not surprised. India's computers are easy to break in. They are used as a training ground for script-kiddo.

Indian govt is nothing but a pathetic joke.

 

[ENRL]

Well, if they are training computers, what is the need for the US to break in? Don't be silly. The world is not as simple as you think it is.

Not surprised. India's computers are easy to break in. They are used as a training ground for script-kiddo.

 

[vK_man]

Indian govt is nothing but a pathetic joke.

I second that.The Congress kisses the rear of USA harder and harder.

 

[shiv]

someone said correctly .. congress can sell their mothers even ! This is not a surprise at all !!

 

[thesolar65]

Just a minute, Can anybody imagine what they would be coming across reading Indian E-mail or say facebook or may be PDF. I saw one episode of Cyrus Broacha's The week-That wasn't in IBN. Where the NSA first snoops in to MOD and couldn't understand bit as all were talking in Malayali. Then they had 25000 hrs of recording in our PM's office and all they could hear is complete silence...

 

[Jai_Hind]

Not surprised. India's computers are easy to break in. They are used as a training ground for script-kiddo.

and some1 said a majority of microsoft employees are indians...,--

 

[armchairPrivate]

^^^

That explains why Microsoft specifically Windows is a mess.

 

[Mugwop]

^^^

That explains why Microsoft specifically Windows is a mess.

Welcome back to the forum.

 

[Thəorətic Muslim]

Guys why are threads still being created for Snowden revelations?

Intel agencies spy on their country's allies just as much as their enemies. Hell, they spy on each other.

Lets move on, shall we?

 

[vK_man]

Guys why are threads still being created for Snowden revelations?

Intel agencies spy on their country's allies just as much as their enemies. Hell, they spy on each other.

Lets move on, shall we?

USA and CIA are the guys who have plans to balkanize India and Pakistan. I sure do not want either happening as a lot of people will die then.I hope Pakistan become secular place though.

 

[ChinaToday]

Among the countries that were subjected to prying by the National Security Agency, or NSA, India was one of its top five targets, and ranked above other BRICS bloc economies such as China, Russia and Brazil, which were also reported to have been under the scanner of the U.S. government agency.

Contrary to NSA’s claims that it filters communication to counter terrorism, the agency intercepted data pertaining to India’s domestic politics, and strategic and economic interests, including its nuclear and space programs, by tapping into computer networks of technology companies that provide Internet communication services such as email, video-sharing, voice-over-IPs, chats and social networking, The Hindu newspaper reported on Monday, citing classified documents obtained by Edward Snowden.

“As politics, space and nuclear are mentioned as “end products” in this document, it means that emails, texts and phones of important people related to these fields were constantly monitored and intelligence was taken from them, and then the NSA prepared official reports on the basis of raw intelligence. It means, they are listening in real time to what our political leaders, bureaucrats and scientists are communicating with each other,” an Indian intelligence official told The Hindu, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The report contradicts a statement made by Secretary of State John Kerry on June 24, when he visited New Delhi, stressing that the NSA does not intercept individual emails or listen to people’s telephone communication.

“It does not look at individual emails. It does not listen to people’s telephone conversation. It is a random survey by computers of anybody’s telephone, of just the numbers and not even the names,” Kerry had said, according to a report by Press Trust of India, or PTI.

NSA’s color-coded “global heat maps,” -- a pictographic portrayal of the extent of its surveillance around the world, ranging from green, depicting the least amount of monitoring, to red, indicating the highest level of surveillance -- showed India in “shades of deep orange to red,” while China, Russia and Brazil, were in green or yellow zones, The Hindu reported.

In one of the maps, based on the amount of telephone and email communication data collected by the agency, Iran was shown as the primary target, warranting 14 billion reports, followed by Pakistan (13.5 billion), Jordan (12.7 billion), Egypt (7.6 billion) and India (6.3 billion).

In another heat map that depicted the extent of Internet surveillance, India was behind top targets, Iran and Pakistan, both shown in red, but above China and the U.S., which were shown in orange. In yet another map that showed surveillance of telephone communication, India was subjected to the same level of spying as Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Venezuela, all of which were depicted in orange, while other BRICS nations were shown in green.

Kapil Sibal, India’s minister of communication and information technology, said on Aug. 23 that breach of any Indian law pertaining to the privacy of Indian citizens by surveillance was “unacceptable.”

“It would be a matter of concern for government if intrusive data capture has been deployed against Indian citizens or government infrastructure. Government has clearly conveyed these concerns to the US government,” Sibal said at the time, according to PTI.

India Among Top 5 NSA Targets Alongside Iran, Pakistan And Above China, Russia, Brazil: Report

 

[Lightningbolt]

This is complete humiliation of India. No other way to put it.

 

[Genesis]

well to be fair, it's a lot harder to get into China than India.

Our government's ban of western sites, gives them limited options in terms of mass spying.