NSA Metadata's For Harassing, Killing Targeted Individuals Carrying Cell Phones

The National Security Agency mainly uses metadata and cell phones for electronic surveillance to locate targeted individuals for the CIA and military to order srikes on that target, according to an insider this week, who says this system often results in deaths of innocent or unidentified people.

The same system analysis is likely used to spy on, harass, intimidate and injure innocent targeted individuals deemed worthy of such persecution but not assassination as “High Value Targets” are.

The agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies, according to a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA and spoke to award-winning jourmalists Glenn Greewald and Jeremy Scahill.

After locating a target, rather than confirming that target’s identity with human operatives or informants, the CIA or U.S. military orders a drone operator to strike the person, based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using, according to Greenwald and Scahill.

The drone operator, who agreed to discuss the top-secret programs on the condition of anonymity, was a member of JSOC’s High Value Targeting task force charged with identifying, capturing or killing terrorist suspects in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan “and elsewhere.”

His account is bolstered by top-secret NSA documents whistleblower Edward Snowden has provided.

It’s also supported by a former drone sensor operator with the U.S. Air Force, Brandon Bryant, who’s become an outspoken critic of the lethal operations in which he was directly involved in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.

In one tactic, the NSA “geolocates” the SIM card or handset of a suspected terrorist’s mobile phone, enabling the CIA and U.S. military to conduct night raids and drone strikes to kill or capture the individual in possession of the device.

Greenwald and Scahiil write, “The former JSOC drone operator, however, remains highly disturbed by the unreliability of such methods. Like other whistleblowers, including Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, he says that his efforts to alert his superiors to the problems were brushed off.

“The system continues to work because, like most things in the military, the people who use it trust it unconditionally,” he says.

The insider raised objections about intelligence being “rushed” or “inaccurate” or “outright wrong.”

“The most common response I would get was ‘JSOC wouldn’t spend millions and millions of dollars, and man hours, to go after someone if they weren’t certain that they were the right person.’

Obama once reportedly told his aides that it “turns out I’m really good at killing people.”

It appears he’s also really good at keeping under weird surveillance, harassing, intimidating, injuring and tortturing innocent people, hundreds of thousands of people in communities in the U.S. alone.

Source: The Intercept

Photo Credit: Radio Free Thinker