Mental Floss have put together an excellent list of the ways the US government is known to be spying on the communications of private individuals.
The information is “based on the public statements of the former director of the National Security Agency, Justice Department attorneys, and others involved in NSA operations—as well as confidential information provided to the authors and verified independently by officials..”
So take the list to mean the bare minimum. But also keep in mind that, officially:
- “only three dozen or so people inside the NSA have the authority to read the content of FISA-derived material, all of which is now subject to a warrant”
If the government intercepted and read every communication that mention “Al Qaeda” or “bomb”, they would need many thousands of staff. So there’s no need to be too paranoid. Here’s my summary of the ways you are likely to catch the eye of the NSA:
- you actually are a terrorist, or know one
- if you regularly call people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Yemen – or email people living in countries that are terrorist havens
- your IP address is associated with bad guys – they may have spoofed it, randomly
- if you are a lawyer working for bad guys (!)
- you are connected in some way with defense secrets
- you have worked in or near a war zone
- your premises are shared with bad guys – like the same office building
Perhaps the most interesting possibility on the list is this one:
If you are of Arab descent and attend a mosque whose imam was linked through degrees of association with Islamic charities considered to be supporters of terrorism, NSA computers probably analyzed metadata from your telephone communications and e-mail.
Just about everything else on the list is an automated process. There’s no way the NSA knows who visits a mosque unless they spy on the mosque and follow those who come and go. And then find out your phone number and email address…
I would treat mosque-goers as an example, rather than unique. If you are associated with a group that the government has any suspicions about, you could be spied on. That could be anything like anarchists, communists, gun nuts, survivalists and religious fundamentalists.
