Report: The NSA records all cellphone calls in the Bahamas

The U.S. National Security Agency has been recording and archiving virtually every cellphone call in the Bahamas without knowledge and permission from the island nations government, according to a report from The Intercept.

The surveillance is part of an NSA secret system called SOMALGET that tapped into access legally granted to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and opened a backdoor into the countrys cell telephone network, the article states.

The NSA is able to intercept and record cellphone calls made to, from and within the Bahamas, and access the recordings for 30 days, according to the article, whose revelations are based on documents provided by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

The article, authored by Ryan Devereaux, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, describes SOMALGET as a cutting edge tool that gives the NSA access to the content of the calls, not just to their metadata.

SOMALGET is part of a broader program called MYSTIC in which the NSA secretly monitors the telecom systems not only of the Bahamas but of several other countries as well, including Mexico, the Philippines and Kenya, according to the report.

All told, the NSA is using MYSTIC to gather personal data on mobile calls placed in countries with a combined population of more than 250 million people. And according to classified documents, the agency is seeking funding to export the sweeping surveillance capability elsewhere, reads the article.

The Bahamas surveillance is focused on locating international narcotics traffickers and special-interest alien smugglers, according to the story.

The Intercept is published by Pierre Omidyars First Look Media and was co-created by Greenwald, whose groundbreaking coverage last year in The Guardian about NSA surveillance programs helped that newspaper win a Pulitzer Prize this year. The Intercept was founded primarily to report on documents provided by Snowden.

Mondays article states that the Bahamas SOMALGET surveillance raises profound questions about the nature and extent of American surveillance abroad because it isnt driven by anti-terrorism motivations and because the Bahamas is considered a stable democracy that presents no terrorism threat to the U.S.

By targeting the Bahamas entire mobile network, the NSA is intentionally collecting and retaining intelligence on millions of people who have not been accused of any crime or terrorist activity, reads the article, noting that almost 5 million Americans visit the Bahamas every year, and that many prominent U.S. citizens have homes there.