The National Security Agency is working with the Joint Special Operations Command's High Value Targeting task force to track targets using their cellphones and blow them away using drones, according to a new report.

According to the report, the "NSA has played an increasingly central role in drone killings over the past five years," using its "complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes."

There are two important aspects to this story -- the story and the storytellers. First: the journalists behind the report.

Greenwald's Gloves Are Off

The new information again comes from Glenn Greenwald, former journalist at The Guardian that broke the Edward Snowden NSA leaks, who's now at his own site called The Intercept. The report, based on a leak from a former drone operator for JSOC's task force, was co-written by Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill -- the journalist and activist behind the book and documentary Dirty Wars, a highly critical take on U.S. actions abroad.

The Intercept blog -- run by Greenwald who left The Guardian to set up the outlet -- is part of the new online media network called First Look Media, started by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. The Intercept's short-term mission, according to the inaugural post, is "to provide a platform and an editorial structure in which to aggressively report on the disclosures provided to us by our source, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden."

The Intercept's long-term mission is to be a completely independent source for aggressive, progressive reporting on corruption, secrecy, abuse, and inequality, among other topics. Basically, for Greenwald and his partners, the gloves are off.

NSA and Drone Strikes

That Greenwald isn't pulling any punches is apparent in the lede of the report on the NSA and Drone Strikes, which calls targeting individuals using the NSA's electronic surveillance "an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people," later in the article calling it "death by unreliable metadata."

Strident as the language is, Greenwald has a point. According to his anonymous source, backed up by former U.S. Air Force drone sensor operator Brandon Bryant and leaked Snowden documents, the NSA often locates drone targets by analyzing the activity of a SIM card, rather than the content of the calls. The agency even has a motto for their program, known as Geo Cell: "We Track 'Em, You Whack 'Em."

But tracking cell phones to target terrorists is an imprecise method, compared with human intelligence on the ground. "Once the bomb lands or a night raid happens, you know that phone is there," said Greenwald's source. "But we don't know who's behind it, who's holding it. It's of course assumed that the phone belongs to a human being who is nefarious and considered an 'unlawful enemy combatant.' This is where it gets very shady."

"People get hung up that there's a targeted list of people," added Greenwald's source. "It's really like we're targeting a cell phone. We're not going after people -- we're going after their phones, in the hopes that the person on the other end of that missile is the bad guy." One example of the problem is that sophisticated terrorists know to use many different SIM cards in cell phones: some can have "as many as 16 different SIM cards associated with their identity within the [drone strike identification] system."

The point is that targeting based on electronic surveillance, without verification on the ground, leaves the possibility of unknowning, innocent people -- like family members or strangers who simply bought the wrong used cell phone -- ending up with a phone that could put a big "X" on their backs.

A New Era of NSA Leaks

The Guardian destroyed the media drives on which their NSA files, leaked by Edward Snowden, were located -- on camera, in front of two spies from the U.K.'s equivalent of the NSA.

But of course, copies exist, perhaps even with The Guardian, but definitely with Greenwald. Up until now, the Snowden leaks have mostly been reported by The Guardian, ProPublica, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and a few other sources, like NBC News, that have occasionally managed to get their hands on the material. But those sources all have a long, institutional commitment to "objective" reporting. Depending on whether you believe they're objective or not, a measured tone has usually been employed by these outlets.

The Intercept is likely to be one of the major source of NSA leaks, and, judging by its first major release -- which criticizes not only the NSA and President Obama, but other media outlets reporting on the Snowden files -- it's not looking to be "measured." Prepare for a new deluge of reports as Greenwald and friends beat the war drums against secrecy, surveillance, and anyone that gets in their way.

Related