Glenn Greenwald says the goal of the NSA program is ‘destroy privacy’ worldwide
The NSA’s ultimate goal is to destroy individual privacy worldwide, warned former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, during an EU inquiry to discuss the NSA and their “ability to destroy privacy.”
Greenwald, the former Guardian journalist renowned for publishing Edward Snowden’s leaks, criticized EU governments’ nonexistant response to the revelations about the NSA’s mass espionage.
“I think western governments have inculcated people to accept that privacy does not really matter,” said Greenwald, adding it was “to get populations accustomed to violations of their privacy.”
“The NSA doesn’t need a specific reason to collect data on citizens’ communications,” said the journalist, reminding the panel that the agency’s ultimate goal is to “eliminate individual privacy worldwide,” he said.
Greenwald testified before the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties and Home Affairs via a video link, contributing to an inquiry into the NSA’s surveillance on EU citizens.
The collection of metadata is one of the “supreme priorities” for the NSA , said Greenwald, adding that the practice was more invasive than snooping on the content of electronic communications.
Metadata refers to the time, date, duration and location of calls, allowing the NSA to effectively follow targets.
To demonstrate the fact that metadata is far more useful to security agencies than content, Greenwald gave the example of a woman deciding to have an abortion. If you listen in on the woman’s call you will get a very constricting interpretation of events, said Greenwald, a “generic-sounding” clinic name and an appointment time.
With metadata, however, agencies can construct a much more detailed picture because it gives them access to phone numbers that in turn could be used to identify the clinic.
[…] Glenn Greenwald says the goal of the NSA program is ‘destroy privacy’ worldwide […]