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There is something else that is pretty certain.... There must be a group inside NSA tasked to snoop on politicians. And I don’t mean just conservatives, I mean ALL OF ‘EM.

It’s a proven fact now that the NSA recognizes no boundaries and operates outside constitutional restraints.

Why would such an outfit balk at collecting and storing data of politician’s calls/emails/etc? This data would become the guarantee that they could do as they wish and no one could stop them...they have the goods on their masters and have become the masters..IMO

There is also a huge story that has not yet come to the attention of the public. It’s not only network data that is being watched by snoops. There is a whole other system of surveillance that is being ignored.

The NSA has its own multi-billion dollar silicon chip fab. Just what do you suppose they do with this toy??

You could build a custom SOC that looks exactly like the large BGA flash memory chip in one of the popular thumb drives shipping out of Shenzhen. Swap that part in and you have what? An 8gb thumb that is actually a 16gb thumb..the extra 8gb is a non erasable backup that can be queried if need be to see what was once on the other 8gb. Add communications to the SOC and you have a thumb that can phone home with the details. All this is doable..any good geek could make a crude version of this at home. You would need.
-A small custom board... less than a buck at itead studios.
-A micro-controller that can handle USB and read/write a micro SD card.
-A small xtal oscillator part to send out the data bursts..use a board trace as antenna.
-Custom programming to handle the hidden section of the SD card and discern what data to store there (pdf’s jpg. etc)
-Stuff your populated board into a plastic shell from a popular thumb drive.
-Print up an envelope that looks like something sent from a commercial computer parts supplier or whatever and stick the custom thumb drive in as a promotional gift and mail to the target.
-— And you are now an amateur gov snoop.
This is similar to how the Stuxnet virus was introduced to Iranian nuclear sites.

I built a custom thumb drive exactly as described above...it cost less than 20 dollars to construct. You can update the firmware in the Atmega32 processor by simply putting a .dat file on the visible 8gb and plugging into a USB port...the .dat file is then erased. The same method is used to dump the contents of the hidden 8gb. The Atmega32 encrypts the data sent to the hidden section with a fast stream algorithm. The key is generated by a diode noise source. You have to brute-force decrypt the data... thus you have left no key in the firmware of the Atmega32. I used a sm oscillator scrounged from an old motherboard as the rf oscillator to transmit data from the hidden SD card section... It worked well at about 1/4 mile between a friend’s house and my roof mounted broadband yagi. I’m designing a custom thumb now that will allow me to place files on to the thumb remotely and not simply gather data using the oscillator on the thumb drive... 2way data.... easily done you see... it’s the same ability a cheap USB WiFi or bluetooth adapter has.

NSA has access to the huge surveillance satellites put into geo orbit by the NRO. These sats have enormous dishes aimed at the earth. Since the huge dish antennas do not have to contend with gravity they were built like large fragile umbrellas that unfolded from a compact package into huge 300+ foot monsters. The gain of these things is astonishing and comparable to the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope)

If you know anything about radio propagation then just run the numbers on what an 85db+ antenna at 22,000 miles can pick up... it’s unbelievable!

Imagine what mischief you could get into with the sats and the chip fab!?

Using the sats to gather data of this sort would be a fragile thing (if it’s being done) since the whole operation would depend on the frequencies being used remaining VERY quiet...VERY quiet!! Anyone creating rf noise on these frequencies would wipe out the ability to use the parts already in the field.

A good frequency to use if you do not want your signals snooped on is 2450, this is the frequency assigned to the microwave amp in all microwave ovens... at any altitude above average terrain this frequency is chock full of signal noise from ovens, WiFi routers, wireless cameras..etc

By various means the ability to create custom chips would allow for hardware that worked only in certain locations, or worked one way in one place and another someplace else. Use you imagination to figure out how and why this is important. I have built devices that were location aware myself and know for certain how easily this could be accomplished using custom fab resources...my device was crude and relied on the fact that each large city has a
radio footprint of commercial transmitters. I used the data to record where the device had been taken...;. this was before cheap GPS equipment was available... we are talking early 90’s here. I would do it very differently now of course.

Custom chips and the NRO sats would allow for tiny surveillance cameras to be placed into small and ordinary looking objects of all descriptions. These could be scattered at a place of interest.

All the above is MERELY SPECULATION on my part, based on my knowledge of radio, embedded systems, security, and commonly known facts about NSA and NRO. It’s what I would do if I had these toys and needed to gather data.

One other thing, I’m certain that drones are often used as a cover story to explain how data was gathered. Much like how Churchill used to get data from Blechely park Enigma decrypts and send scout planes out to spot German subs in the Atlantic... a nice explanation for how the Brits always seemed to know where the wolf packs were... no need for the Germans to suspect a weakness in the naval enigma since it was the plane that spotted them.. I wonder how many scout planes they thought the Brits had ;-)