Report: U.S., U.K. spy agencies collaborated to gather data on Britons

LONDON, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- The U.S. National Security Agency collected, analyzed and stored telephone and online records of British citizens not suspected of wrongdoing, an NSA memo said.

The memo -- published in Britain's The Guardian and Channel 4 News -- indicates U.S. and British intelligence agencies worked together secretly to develop the collection program, the newspaper said Wednesday.

The memo, leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, describes a 2007 agreement authorizing British intelligence to "unmask" and retain personal data on British citizens that had formerly been denied to intelligence gathering agencies, the newspaper said.

The document says the data collected are being stored in databases accessible to other U.S. intelligence and military officials.

The United States and Britain -- together with Australia, New Zealand and Canada -- are partners in an intelligence-sharing organization known as the Five-Eyes, and each has generally avoided conducting surveillance on citizens of the others, The Guardian said. However, rule changes in 2007 authorized the NSA to retain and analyze a range of data from British citizens -- including cellphone and fax numbers, emails and Internet provider addresses -- that formerly had been removed from NSA databases in a process known as "minimizing," the report said.

The newspaper said the NSA uses the collected data to analyze citizens' "pattern of life" or "contact-chaining" behavior -- and evaluating contacts as much as three "hops" from people who are targeted for surveillance.

The Guardian said a spokeswoman for the NSA did not respond to questions about the memo.