Protestors rally against drone attacks in Waziristan

Protestors rally against drone attacks in Waziristan K.M. Chaudary/AP

How the NSA is Using Cell Phone Data to Drone Civilians (In Pakistan)

Technological shifts have allowed agency to pinpoint terrorist targets. By Philip Bump

In late 2001, a National Security Agency analyst was asked to do something unusual. Instead of locating a target's cell phone to eavesdrop on his conversation, the analyst was asked for the phone's location in real-time. It was apparently the beginning of the NSA's role in the CIA's drone operations that, a new report compiled by Pakistan suggests, had killed nearly 200 civilians by 2009.

The details of that first NSA-supported strike appear in a new story from The Washington Post. A Navy SEAL, standing in a trailer that was once home to the CIA's child care program, asked the analyst where the NSA's target was located.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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