be extracted, filtered, stored, analysed and/or disseminated; access to
information stored in a database, which can then be analysed and/or
disseminated; and access to intelligence reports produced on the basis of
analysis by the NSA or other US intelligence agencies.
77.
Several Executive Order 12333 programmes specifically permit GCHQ
access to material intercepted by the NSA. Under DISHFIRE, for example,
it seems that GCHQ has access to the communications data of hundreds of
millions of text messages intercepted, extracted and stored by the NSA.40
XKEYSCORE, the NSA’s “processing and query system”, storing “full-take
data” intercepted and extracted through various NSA bulk surveillance
programmes, is accessible to several foreign governments, including the
UK.41 GCHQ also appears to have access to various NSA databases,
including MARINA, the NSA’s communications data repository.42 One of
the Snowden disclosures revealed a GCHQ legal training slideshow, which
suggests that gaining access to such databases is relatively easy, requiring
analysts to undergo “‘multiple choice, open-book’ tests done at the agent’s
own desk on its ‘iLearn’ system”.43
D.
Summary of the Applicants and the nature of their work
78.
The Applicants are 10 non-governmental human rights organisations
based inside and outside the UK: the American Civil Liberties Union,
Amnesty International, Bytes for All, the Canadian Civil Liberties
Association, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, the Hungarian
James Ball, THE GUARDIAN, NSA Collects Millions of Text Messages Daily in ‘Untargeted’
Global Sweep, (Jan. 16, 2014) available at www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/16/nsa-collectsmillions-text-messages-daily-untargeted-global-sweep (cited in King Witness Statement, para
106). Reply Annex No. 11.
41 Morgan Marquis-Boire, Glenn Greenwald & Micah Lee, INTERCEPT: XKEYSCORE: NSA’s
Google
for
the
World’s
Private
Communications,
July
1,
2015,
https://theintercept.com/2015/07/01/nsas-google-world-private-communications/ (cited in King
Witness Statement, paras 139-141).
42
See
slide
titled
“Quantum
SIGDEV
–
Marina”,
available
at
https://www.spiegel.de/images/image-583972-galleryV9-mmeg.jpg. Reply Annex No. 37.
43 Ewen MacAskill & James Ball, Portrait of the NSA: no detail too small in quest for total
surveillance, 2 Nov. 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/02/nsa-portrait-totalsurveillance (cited in King Witness Statement, para 50).
40
35