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Anti-spying protesters outside the US Department of Justice in Washington, DC, earlier this year. Photo: Reuters

The US National Security Agency has built a surveillance system capable of recording ''100 per cent'' of a foreign country's telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place, according to people with direct knowledge of the effort and documents supplied by former contractor Edward Snowden.

A senior manager for the program compares it to a time machine one that can replay the voices from any call without requiring that a person be identified in advance for surveillance.

The National Security Agency building in Fort Meade, Maryland. Photo: AP

The voice interception program, called MYSTIC, began in 2009. Its RETRO tool, short for ''retrospective retrieval'', and related projects reached full capacity against the first target nation in 2011. Planning documents two years later anticipated similar operations elsewhere.

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In the initial deployment, collection systems are recording ''every single'' conversation nationwide, storing billions of them in a 30-day rolling buffer that clears the oldest calls as new ones arrive, according to a classified summary.

The call buffer opens a door ''into the past'', the summary says, enabling users to ''retrieve audio of interest that was not tasked at the time of the original call''. Analysts listen to only a fraction of 1 per cent of the calls, but the absolute numbers are high. Each month, they send millions of voice clippings, or ''cuts'', for processing and long-term storage.

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Photo: Getty Images

At the request of US officials, this article withholdsdetails that could be used to identify the country where the system is being employed or other countries where its use was envisioned.

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NSA surveillance program can retrieve, replay phone calls

PC Format Magazine via Getty Images New information reported by Der Spiegel suggests staying anonymous online is a more accessible prospect than it seems. (Photo by Simon Lees/PC Format Magazine via Getty Images)

If you want a truly anonymous life, then maybe it's time you learned about Tor, CSpace and ZRTP.

These three technologies could help people hide their activities from the National Security Agency, according to NSA documents newly obtained from the archive of former contractor Edward Snowden by the German magazine Der Spiegel.

The combination of Tor, CSpace and ZRTP (plus another anonymizing technology for good measure) results in levels of protection that the NSA deems "catastrophic" -- meaning the organization has "near-total loss/lack of insight to target communications," according to Der Spiegel.

"Although the documents are around two years old, experts consider it unlikely the agency's digital spies have made much progress in cracking these technologies," Spiegel's staff wrote.

In comparison, accessing somebody's Facebook messages is considered a "minor" task for the agency. Similarly, virtual private networks (or VPNs), which are widely used by companies, are easily accessed by the NSA, according to Der Spiegel's report, as are so-called "HTTPS" connections.

So, what are these services and what do you actually have to do to use them?

Tor is basically a network that offers an easy way for people to mask their location when communicating online. Anyone can download Tor's web browser -- it's available on Mac, Windows, Linux, and smartphones. It's not foolproof: When using Tor, you're advised to sacrifice the convenience of browser plugins, torrent downloads, and websites that don't use "HTTPS encryption" if you truly want to stay off the grid.

And that's just if you want to mask your online habits -- messaging and phone calls require more steps still, meaning you also have to add CSpace and ZRTP if you want to hide those from the NSA, according to Der Spiegel.

CSpace is a program that lets people text chat and transfer files, while ZRTP is a form of encryption that protects mobile phone calls and texting -- it's used in apps like RedPhone and Signal.

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Leaked NSA Documents Reveal How To Hide From The NSA

A NSA spying tool is configured to snoop on an array of privacy programs used by journalists and dissidents, according to an analysis of never-before-seen code leaked by an unknown source.

The code, published as part of investigation by two German broadcasters on Thursday, contains tracking specifications for XKeyScore, a powerful NSA program that collects and sorts intercepted data.

XKeyScore came to light in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, but some observers believe the latest information -- which adds greater detail on how the agency monitors people trying to protect their privacy online -- may have not come from the documents he passed to journalists.

The broadcasters, Norddeutscher Rundfunk and Westdeutscher Rundfunk, did not reveal their source for the code but claimed in a report that former NSA employees and experts "are convinced that the same code or similar code is still in use today,"

The report describes how the code enables XKeyScore to track users connected to The Onion Router, known as TOR, a network that encrypts data traffic through random servers in order to obscure identification of a web surfer.

TOR, a project initially started by the U.S. Navy, is considered a critical privacy enhancing tool and one that has hampered NSA surveillance in the past.

The report contends the NSA is monitoring two TOR servers in Germany. One is run by Sebastian Hahn, a 28-year-old computer science student at the University of Erlangen. The server, known as a Directory Authority, a critical part of TOR's infrastructure, supplies a list of relays in the network to computers connecting to the network.

The NSA's collection of metadata about people connecting to the server puts those people at risk, the report quoted Hahn as saying.

The NSA also tracks the use of non-public TOR relays, which are supplied to users upon request in countries known to actively block TOR relays, such as in China and Iran, the report said.

Other rules in the code indicate the agency is tracking people who visit public websites for privacy-related projects including the TOR Project; Tails, a privacy-focused portable operating system; and the Linux Journal website, the report alleged.

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Secret code indicates NSA tracks users of privacy tools, report says

An Open Message to The NSA
Dear NSA (and all you other alphabet soup agencies), If you #39;re listening, listen carefully, cause we have something to say to you. ------- Follow us on Faceb. This is an open message to...

By: Patricia Higgins

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An Open Message to The NSA - Video

NSA whistleblower
Thomas Drake, a former top NSA official, says he is emblematic of the problems with the whistleblower system for defense and intelligence employees. He says he was retaliated against by the...

By: McClatchyDC

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NSA whistleblower - Video