Leaked Documents Expose NSA Citizen 'Spy' Tool

Records leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden have revealed that NSA has built a database called ICREACH, through which intelligence staff from across the US government can access information about private e-mails and phone records from people around the world.

News of the existence of ICREACH emerged earlier this week, after documents leaked by Snowden were broadcast by online publication The Intercept.

The database, which can be accessed by 23 US agencies including the FBI, CIA and DEA, contains more than 85 billion records drawn from e-mails and phones, along with mobile phone locations, text messages and Internet chat rooms. It is also claimed that the site contains details about religious affiliations and political views, as well as information about individuals' networks of friends and family, and lists of their monthly phone calls. Described by NSA (The US National Security Agency) as a 'one-stop shopping tool' for analyzing communications, the system, which features a Google-like search engine, can process up to five billion new records every day - including those from both US citizens and foreigners.

In a memo dated December 2007, it was noted: 'The ICREACH team delivered the first-ever wholesale sharing of communications metadata within the US intelligence community. This team began over two years ago with a basic concept compelled by the IC's increasing need for communications metadata and NSA's ability to collect, process and store vast amounts of communications metadata related to worldwide intelligence targets.'

Web site: www.nsa.org .