‘MYSTIC’ stores billions of calls up to a month on rolling basis
In a new revelation on the mind-boggling reach of the US National Security Agency, it has now been reported that the super spy outfit has put in place a unique system that records and retrieves every single phone call made in an unnamed foreign country — for up to 30 days at any given time.
Called ‘MYSTIC’, this voice interception programme allows agents to play back and listen to phone conversations recorded in the designated country during the 30-day period on a rolling basis, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden and people with knowledge of the operation.
The report speaks of storage of billions of phone calls after the collection mechanism records “every single” conversation nationwide in the target country. In this 30-day storage cycle, the newly arriving calls automatically clear the oldest calls.
The MYSTIC programme began in 2009, with the Retro tool (for retrospective retrieval) reaching its full capacity against the first target nation in 2011. “Planning documents two years later anticipated similar operations elsewhere,” the report said.
The Post, however, does not disclose the target nation, stating that at the request of US officials, it was withholding details that could be used to identify the country in question or other countries where it is intended to be used.
A senior manager of the programme has been cited as comparing MYSTIC to a time machine — one that can replay the voices from any call without requiring that a person be identified in advance for surveillance.
Although a whole range of operations of the highly-secretive NSA has been systematically exposed by Snowden since May 2013, this is the first disclosure about a highly-potent system that is said to have “swallowed” the entire telephone network of a target nation.
Without confirming or denying the existence of the MYSTIC operation, NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines told The Post in an e-mailed statement that “continuous and selective reporting of specific techniques and tools used for legitimate US foreign intelligence activities is highly detrimental to the national security of the United States and of our allies, and places at risk those we are sworn to protect”.
White House spokesman Jay Carney, at his regular news briefing, sidestepped a question about the Post article, saying: “We don’t, as a general rule, comment on every specific allegation or report….We make clear what activity the NSA and ... our intelligence community engages in, and the fact that they are bound by our laws and the oversight of three branches of Government.”