BLARNEY is a communications surveillance program of the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

(NSA) of the United States. It started in 1978, operated under the

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA" , ) is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and the collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign po ...

and was expanded after the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

. The collection takes place at top-level telecommunications facilities within the United States, choke points through which most traffic will flow, including wireless. This type of surveillance is referred to as

Upstream collection Upstream collection is a term used by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States for intercepting telephone and Internet traffic from the Internet backbone, meaning major Internet cables and switches, both domestic and foreign. Beside ...

. BLARNEY was first brought to public view in a

PRISM Prism usually refers to: * Prism (optics), a transparent optical component with flat surfaces that refract light * Prism (geometry), a kind of polyhedron Prism may also refer to: Science and mathematics * Prism (geology), a type of sedimentary ...

slide revealed by

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...

. The FY 2013 budget for BLARNEY was $65.96 million.

Misrepresentations

Initially it was assumed that BLARNEY was the program under which the NSA cooperated with AT&T and that among the tapping facilities were

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

Room 641A Room 641A is a telecommunication interception facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency, as part of its warrantless surveillance program as authorized by the Patriot Act. The facility commenced operations in 2003 and its ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California, revealed in 2006 by

Mark Klein Mark Klein is a former AT&T technician and whistleblower who revealed details of the company's cooperation with the United States National Security Agency in installing network hardware at a site known as Room 641A to monitor, capture and proce ...

, and another in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. However, new NSA documents released on August 15, 2015 show that the cooperation with AT&T takes places under FAIRVIEW, and that Room 641A is probably part of that program, instead of BLARNEY.Electrospaces.net
FAIRVIEW: Collecting foreign intelligence inside the US
August 31, 2015 The new documents about FAIRVIEW also show that this isn't a larger umbrella program comprising BLARNEY,

OAKSTAR OAKSTAR is a secret internet surveillance program of the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States. It was disclosed in 2013 as part of the leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. OAKSTAR is an umbrella program involving survei ...

, STORMBREW and others, as was said by Thomas Drake. Those programs are very similar, but associated with different companies, and may have slightly different legal arrangements with the NSA. Arrangements with corporations are associated with the NSA's

Special Source Operations Special Source Operations (SSO) is a division in the US National Security Agency (NSA) which is responsible for all programs aimed at collecting data from major fiber-optic cables and switches, both inside the US and abroad, and also through corpor ...

division (SSO).

Legal authorities

BLARNEY operates under three legal authorities: NSA FISA, FBI FISA and section 702

FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

. Collection of data under the

FISA The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA" , ) is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and the collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign pow ...

authority requires a court order from the

FISA Court The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), also called the FISA Court, is a U.S. federal court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants agai ...

(FISC) in which the identifiers ("selectors") for the target are mentioned. The legal process to acquire a court order can be expedited and approved within 2 days. See page 143 'No Place To Hide' by Glenn Greenwald (Snowden Archive 050113
Expedited Court Approval Process
/ref> BLARNEY collection under the FISA authority is the main contributor to the

President's Daily Brief The President's Daily Brief (PDB), sometimes referred to as the President's Daily Briefing or the President's Daily Bulletin, is a top-secret document produced and given each morning to the president of the United States; it is also distributed ...

and accounts for over 11,000 product reports a year. See page 14 of the NSA presentatio
SSO Corporate Portfolio Overview
/ref>

Workings

To gather intelligence, algorithms are used to sift through the communications, and forward on, for storage and possible analysis, those which are believed likely to contain foreign intelligence. The first stage of filtering is done by the telecoms themselves, at the request of the NSA. The filters are not always perfect, and sometimes purely domestic communications are caught. In the event that domestic communications are swept up, the minimization procedures are applied. The procedures require that most "incidental" communications between U.S. persons be destroyed, with a few exceptions. The exceptions include: the content is encrypted, it contains foreign intelligence, or is evidence of a crime. This last exception allows the NSA to pass to the

Drug Enforcement Administration The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within th ...

's Special Operations Division (SOD) information relating to drug trafficking. The program has been likened to

Project SHAMROCK Project SHAMROCK was the sister project to Project MINARET, an espionage exercise started in August 1945. Project MINARET involved the accumulation of all telegraphic data that entered or exited the United States. The Armed Forces Security Agency ...

, in which the NSA, and its predecessor organization were given daily microfilm copies of all telegrams entering and exiting the United States.

SIGADs

BLARNEY is known to be associated with two

SIGAD A SIGINT Activity Designator (or SIGAD) identifies a signals intelligence (SIGINT) line of collection activity associated with a signals collection station, such as a base or a ship. For example, the SIGAD for Menwith Hill in the UK is USD1000. S ...

s of the same name. The designation for

(US-984XN) is very similar to the designations of the BLARNEY SIGADs: US-984 and US-984X. Accordingly, the speaker's notes of an NSA presentation that was released on August 15, 2015, say that "PRISM falls under BLARNEY, but is just one access of many". ''Note: SIGADs not otherwise designated are presumed to operate under the legal authority of Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA)'' Glossary *DNI: Digital Network Intelligence. *DNR: Dial Number Recognition. *

Transit authority A transit district or transit authority is a government agency or a public-benefit corporation created for the purpose of providing public transportation within a specific region. A transit district may operate bus, rail or other types of tra ...

: A legal authority that states communications that transit the United States are collectible, provided that both endpoints are foreign.

Media relating to BLARNEY

File:International Cables- Crop.jpg, Upstream: Map of International Cables File:Transit authority (3) -crop.jpg, Upstream: Transit Authority File:Transit authority map -Crop.jpg, Upstream: Map of Transit Authority File:Unique aspects-crop.jpg, Upstream: Unique Aspects File:Corporate Portfolio (3) -Crop.jpg, Upstream: Corporate Portfolio File:Blarney at a glance (2).jpg, Blarney at a Glance File:Blarney at a glance. - reconstructed.png, Blarney at a glance (readable version) File:US-984 BLARNEY - crop.jpg, Blarney SIGAD File:US-984X FAA. -crop.jpg, Blarney chart - top 10 collection SIGADs

References