Article, and # 5.
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Posted on 06/23/2013 2:44:41 PM PDT by nickcarraway
We already knew that the U.S. spy agencies collect all kinds on Americans, thanks to leaked documents from NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Now, in a fresh leak, we're learning that Brits are snooping on us, too -- tapping the world's telephone and Internet traffic, and sharing that info with the United States.
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain's version of the NSA, is allowed to tap more than 200 fiber-optic data cables running through British territory, giving the organization access massive amounts of telephone and Internet data, according to the Guardian, who revealed today that Snowden provided it with a document detailing the UK spy agencies efforts to collect phone and web data.
GCHQ cable taps allow it to gather recordings of phone calls, email content, Facebook entries and any Internet users web browsing history -- not exactly the anonymous metadata that we've been hearing about on the U.S. side of the Atlantic.
What's not surprising is that the UK shares this information with NSA. Remember, the two nations have their 70-year old "special relationship" and are the founding members of the Five-Eyes intelligence sharing agreement, formally known as the UKUSA agreement (pronounced you-kooza). The Five-Eyes are members of a special club of former British colonies that gather and share super secret signals intelligence with each other -- exactly the type of information gathered by NSA and GCHQ. Australia, Canada and New Zealand are the other three members of this little club that was established by secret treaty during World War II.
(Excerpt) Read more at killerapps.foreignpolicy.com ...
A head turner, for sure.
How freaking normal of them!
They’ve been doing this since at least ECHELON.
Of course. They spy on us because we’re foreigners to them and then they turn the info over to NSA and everything is nice and legal-like. NSA has no “direct access to” to our info, legally true. NSA is not spying on Americans, but they’ve got all your $h!+ somewhere, somehow.
They probably just spy on the other’s citizens, then exchange the info. I recall a story on FR about that years ago. The idea was to get around any legal protections their own citizens had from being spied on by their gov’t.
Just do a search on Menwith Hill. It’s the really weird looking buildings, like geodesic domes.
from wiki:
In 3 November 1999 the BBC reported that they had confirmation from the Australian Government of the existence of a powerful “global spying network” codenamed Echelon, that can eavesdrop on every single phone call, fax or e-mail, anywhere on the planet” with Britain and the United States as the chief protagonists. They confirmed that Menwith Hill was “linked directly to the headquarters of the US National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade in Maryland.”
Freegards
Still then, my problem is with the US government. The British government does not answer to me.
1) Britain is not a “former British colony”.
2) Four out of the Five members continue to recognize the Queen as their Head of State.
Queen Elizabeth II is really some guy in drag. (Do you hear me??)
The list probably needs significant updating, but with the number of people using smart phones, laptops and tablets compared to 1999, an updated counter-attack could become more problematic for the eavesdroppers.
Absolutely, it is scummy. Our gov’t probably just accepts a gift of intel about us from the Brits and the Brits do the same from the USA.
Quid pro quo, but both sides get something it would be illegal for them to do on their own. At least that was the speculation I recall on what was happening.
Freegards
Everybody spies on everybody. Only the idiot Press acts shocked.
Back when spies needed warrants, the US teamed up with its other ECHELON partners in the UKUSA Security Agreement, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom; who together with the US were also known as “five eyes”.
They played a game of “you spy on us and we’ll spy on you”, to evade their domestic anti-spying laws. That is, since the NSA had limitations about spying on Americans, the UK intelligence agency would do so, then turn the results over to the NSA.
By the 1980s, one out of every four long distance phone calls was monitored by computer, mostly using keywords to alert a human operator if there might be something interesting going on.
Yoo Hoo! Perfidious Albion! I’m over here!
Article, and # 5.
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RAF Menwith Hill.
"Yo, da Five Eyeses is meetin'! Drop da gun. Bring da cannoli!"
The Europeans are helping the Kenyan dismantle the constitution. And he’s helping them suppress the right.
This is a Quisling/Mohammed symbiosis.
What difference does it make? They're Brits, just a bunch of lads.
This is why the whole “we only spy on non-US persons” is utterly bogus.
The US only spies on non-US persons. The UK spies on US persons using the same sort of technology, and forwards intelligence to the US national security apparatus.
IOW, we’re all on the FEMA camp round-up list. All that remains is right moment to begin the round-up.
I really don’t know whether I should put a sarcasm tag on this.
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