NSA spy server in Chongqing could be used to bury Bo Xilai: Duowei
Staff Reporter 2013-08-08 17:54
A NSA training presentation slide appears to reveal an XKeyscore server in Chongqing. (Internet photo)
Top secret documents provided by US whistleblower Edward Snowden said to reveal the existence of a US server for spying activities in Chongqing could be used as evidence to bury the city's disgraced former Communist Party chief Bo Xilai, according to a Chinese blogger on Duowei News, an outlet operated by overseas Chinese.
The 30-year-old Snowden remains in an undisclosed location in Russia after receiving temporary asylum. The former NSA contractor has been on the run from US authorities since handing over documents detailing the US government's mass surveillance programs to the Guardian and the Washington Post in May, fleeing first from Hawaii to Hong Kong and then on to Moscow.
Documents provided by Snowden have unveiled XKeyscore, a confidential NSA program that allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals.
XKeyscore, according to the NSA, is its "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks. Training materials show how users of the program use it to mine agency databases by filling in simple on-screen forms, while presentation slides boast that it covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches.
The NSA documents claim that 300 terrorists had been captured using intelligence from XKeyscore by 2008.
Among the leaked documents is a 2008 training presentation on XKeyscore, which reveals that the program is used in approximately 150 sites via over 700 servers around the world. A slide entitled "Where is XKeyscore?" roughly pinpoints where the XKeyscore servers are on a world map, and the only server in China appears to be in the southwestern part of the country, roughly where Chongqing is situated.
According to the Duowei blogger known as Le Jia, if the allegations of an XKeyscore server in Chongqing are true, then it could be a "huge present" from Snowden to Chinese president and Communist Party chief Xi Jinping by providing "proof" that Bo was a traitor to his country. Since rising to power in November last year, Xi has vowed to tackle corruption within the party regardless of whether officials are lowly "flies" or high-ranked "tigers," and it would appear that evidence of treason is what Xi needs to take down a tiger of Bo's background and popularity, the blogger said.
The 64-year-old Bo, once tipped to rise to China's highest echelons of power, has been in custody for more than a year since being brought down by unspecified "serious disciplinary violations" in March last year. He was recently charged with taking bribes, embezzlement and abuse of power, and is set to stand trial shortly in Jinan, the capital of east China's Shandong province. Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, was handed a suspended death sentence — typically commuted to life imprisonment after two years — last August for the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood.
In a statement to the Guardian, the NSA defended the XKeyscore program claiming that it is only used against "legitimate foreign intelligence targets in response to requirements that our leaders need for information necessary to protect our nation and its interests."
"XKeyscore is used as a part of NSA's lawful foreign signals intelligence collection system," the statement said, adding that "[e]very search by an NSA analyst is fully auditable to ensure that they are proper and within the law."
