Slashdot Mirror
Report: Britain Has a Secret Middle East Web Surveillance Base
wiredmikey writes "Britain is running a secret Internet surveillance station in the Middle East, according to a recent report citing the latest leaked documents obtained by fugitive US security contractor Edward Snowden. The Independent newspaper said it was not disclosing the country where the base is located, but said the facility can intercept emails, telephone calls and web traffic for the United States and other intelligence agencies and taps into underwater fibre-optic cables in the region, the newspaper said. The Independent did not disclose how it obtained the details from the Snowden files."
that is what they are supposed to be doing right? Gathering intel? The problem is when they do it against their own citizens.
As a British citizen, I'm so used to assuming that the government is intercepting every piece of electronic communication, I get really confused that other countries are annoyed they get spied on. Do these other people actually trust their governments? Because that's weird.
tell me something new.
So, it's in Israel.
Now we know why.
So, it's in Israel.
Not necessarily. Given the, um, togetherness in that neighborhood, do you think that the countries you'd really want to listen in on run their fiber any closer to the Israelis than they absolutely have to?
In the words of the famous Inspector Clouseau: "Not anymore..."
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I guess it is if you live in the middle east... but as an American this unlike the purly domestic shit is exactly what the NSA and allied signal intelligence agencies should be doing.
GCHQ decided to fuck with The Guardian and with Greenwald's partner.
Greenwald said "If the UK and U.S. governments believe that tactics like this are going to deter or intimidate us in any way from continuing to report aggressively on what these documents reveal, they are beyond deluded. If anything, it will have only the opposite effect: to embolden us even further."
A little story about a probably-sensitive GCHQ listening post seems like a warning shot in exactly that direction.
that I read "Secret Middle Earth Web Surveillance" and Slashdot becomes, for just a few moments, a bit cooler.
Actually, there are separate ones for the UK, US, France.
And, of course, Israel.
But everyone knew that.
In case you were wondering, even if you are a citizen of the EU or US, all four listen to any email or phone call you make, even the ones you think are encrypted.
I'm surprised you didn't know this.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
His leaks are directly damaging to the intelligence agencies of the US and its allies.
I wish that were true. In fact, I wish his leaks do so much damage to them that it utterly destroys these parasites, but sadly, I doubt that's going to be the case.
So, it's in Israel.
Not necessarily. Given the, um, togetherness in that neighborhood, do you think that the countries you'd really want to listen in on run their fiber any closer to the Israelis than they absolutely have to?
I see you missed the classes on How The Internets Work.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Oh come on... You know this shit's gotta happen every so often. It helps to keep the war... alive! Now they can fatten up the budget a bit and build a nice new station (like the owners burning down their own restaurant to write off and collect the insurance), and who's gonna bitch about it? Who's gonna listen? There's big money out there. Everybody wants a piece of the pie.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
What country is it? We just have to look at where do most cables go. I bet on Egypt.
The data-gathering operation is part of a £1bn internet project still being assembled by GCHQ. It is part of the surveillance and monitoring system, code-named “Tempora”, whose wider aim is the global interception of digital communications, such as emails and text messages.
Heck, UK's economy must be booming.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
How are the US public in any way confused?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/us/2011-ruling-found-an-nsa-program-unconstitutional.html?_r=0
Selling expensive useless encryption is not "friction".
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
If there is any group of people constantly on the edge of going on killing sprees on civilians, it's the muslims.
You have conveniently overlooked the Israelis and the US, with respect to
killings of civilians. The facts indicate that the two aforementioned parties
certainly deserve to be counted as contenders in these matters.
You need professional help, because it is obvious that your mind is
not working logically.
You equate the exposure of crimes by the government with being
"damage".
Maybe your 300 pound wife believes your bullshit, but no one here does.
Listening posts where always an issue for the budget conscious UK before and after the 1990's but US (NSA/mil) cash often helped keep very expensive sites running.
The region knew all about US/UK bases. The leaders and their "freedom fighters" would have be aware of:
Masirah Island, Oman (with NSA)
HMS Vacoas, Mauritius, closed 1976
Meshed, Iran lost in 1979
Mount Olympus, Cyprus, (Project Sandra/US Cobra Shoe) 1959 till?
Muharraq, Bahrain
Mutlah Ridge, Kuwait, 1961- till?
Pergamos, Cyprus 1957 -till?
Perkhar, Ceylon, 1957-65
Silvermine, South Africa (1970's)
Steamer Point and Khormaksar ~ Aden
Yarallakos, Cyprus (NSA?)
Habbaniya, Iraq till 1957
Diego Garcia 1964 - with a some slight issues for a very short time over a cash for land deal.
Optical, satellite and the govs/telcos buying/upgrading into standardised tech makes the need for many locations less of an issue.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Too obvious. Besides, none of Israel's neighbours expects anything but the worst from it and takes appropriate precautions.
I'd guess it's a moderate Arab state trying to balance between vociferously criticising Israel/the West and doing deals with them. Possibly a former British colony, like Kuwait, Egypt or the UAE.
Uhunh. Yeah. Right. So all the "bi-lateral security agreements" that the government has bragged about are for what purpose, then?
Your NSA has been caught ignoring the rulings of the FISC that said their actions were illegal. They've been caught spying on Americans. What in all that's holy makes you think they wouldn't take data from a foreign government's spy agency when the Americans have repeatedly sent people to foreign nations to be tortured and to use that intelligence data despite the fact that it's illegal to do so?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The UK have sovereign bases on Cyprus, about 150 miles wet of Lebanon, and having a listening post on the top of the islands highest mountain shouldn't be difficult.
Obviously the station is on a fishing boat as in the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only
Well, it takes some talent to get them there. First you need to starve them a bit. Then you need to eradicate all of the moderate / peaceful imams. Then you need to repress the youth, and make them feel trapped. Then you need to make them feel that violence is the only answer to solving their lifestyle problems.
Sure, it takes a large investment in that kind of control / behavioral modification, but it has worked wonders on various indigenous populations, no matter which religion they choose to identify with.
I mean, let's be honest, a fat and happy populace is not a populace which is going to attack anyone. You need to lie to them, cheat them, steal from them, every single day, from every angle, so they feel that even their emotions are on loan from you; that's when you know you have them, when they will altruistically damage themselves to be just like the false image of you. You need to remove that innermost sense of peace that humans are born with, and make them uneasy to be alone with themselves.
I hope you get the dripping sarcasm in the above statements.
I am John Hurt.
Britain, along with France, Germany, U.S., Russia, China, Brazil, Japan, and quite possibly Lichtenstein.
Why the intelligence agencies are in the press is over:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/22/david-miranda-court-victory-data-police
Using laws formed around the time of the Irish peace talks and turning it onto the UK press is not so smart.
The UK press is rather smart and knows the next step might be closed material procedures.
ie UK lawyers may never get to see much real evidence anymore, question, only a security-cleared lawyer or ‘special advocate’ might.
Welcome to a next gen Franz Kafka like trial.
So the UK press know they might be on a collective list and want to get out in front of the debate rather than face closed courts for just doing their jobs.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
And knowing who exactly they are put your government in position to give them the right push so they act. The next thing you know is that their democratically elected government got overthrown and a bunch of puppets rule there. Probably that happened in Egypt, is happening in Syria, and happened in most of the Arab Spring countries.
There is no better prediction of the future than the one that you make it happen.
in march (and probably others undersea cable cuts that happened recently close to that zone). Or it was an "oops, i did it again" from an agent, or was meant to be done that way (i.,e. an "accidental" cut by an anchor) so the company that repaired it added the extra functionality.
I have been against interfering with Snowden and thought that we should just let him be in Russia.
But at this time, if he suddenly dies, and all the data is grabbed, I am fine with that.
Your willingness to "not mind" if Snowden is murdered marks you as a morally bankrupt
person. And that is sad, both for you and for those whose lives will be made poorer by
knowing you.
But your assumption that "all the data" could somehow be "grabbed" marks you
as technologically illiterate. The very idea that "all the data" could somehow be "grabbed"
when there are many mirrors of the data in multiple locations makes your idea laughable,
even to ten year old children I know who are computer literate.
So you don't belong on this website because you lack the faculties
required to swim in this pool. Perhaps you can find a place on Facebook where
there are people stupid enough to accept your idiocy and the drivel you write.
The United States cannot target a foreigner to intercept the communications of one of its own citizens, nor can it use a second party nation (UK, CAN, AUS, or NZ), or anyone else, to target US citizens or anyone else it would be otherwise prohibited from targeting.
Care to point to the law that says that?
I'm pretty sure that what intel the US comes by without dirtying their own hands is fair game.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
And this:
Examined? As in they broke the encryption? Or is this misinformation?
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Did you even check the source/link you posted?
The very first entry as of now, is Bush Secretly Lifted Some Limits on Spying in U.S. After 9/11, Officials Say
So much for your comment that
'The United States cannot target a foreigner to intercept the communications of one of its own citizens, nor can it use a second party nation (UK, CAN, AUS, or NZ), or anyone else, to target US citizens or anyone else it would be otherwise prohibited from targeting.'
They've moved beyond that, they're targetting citizens directly, without warrants, i.e. illegally.
The Snowden leaks at this point are well past issues of Constitutional rights in the US.
Actually, I think the government intentionally breaching the Constitution is a much bigger issue than any intelligence leak. 50 years from now no one will care about the data Snowden leaked. OTOH, the government of today has set the precedent that it can ignore the protections provided by the Constitution. Imagine what the government 50 years from now can and will do.
His leaks are directly damaging to the intelligence agencies of the US and its allies.
And I'm sure you will provide some proof of that.
That is before you get to the question of friction between the US and its allies and trading partners, or the domestic political turmoil.
Friction and anger which is caused by the government's acts of covert surveillance. If your neighbour tells you a pervert has been spying on you, should you be angry with your neighbour or with the pervert?
Here he comes, cold fjord, the man himself!
Snowden and Greenwald are obstructing anti-terrorist agencies throughout the civilized world. Honestly, we should just lynch them. They're a disgrace.
-- cold fjord
Terrorism is a threat to the way we live our lives. We must give up our privacy if we want security (which we do, at any cost)
-- cold fjord
Fuckin' snowden piece of shit! How dare he do this! Snowden is fuckin' guilty as fuck! Kill him! Kill! Kill! Kill!
-- cold fjord
I'm gonna fuckin' kill Snowden, that fucking piece of shit fucker ass fuck shit ass fuck supreme fuck ass! GOD! He makes me so fuckin' angry! How dare he disobey me! Get him, boys!
-- cold fjord
Snowden is the worst thing to happen to this nation since the Constitution was formed and signed.
-- cold fjord
That fuckin' Snowden piece of shit! The government can do no wrong! The terrorists! Think of the terrorists, you fuckin' insolent insects! Give me all your privacy so we can stop the terrorists, you fucks!
-- cold fjord
So, it's in Israel.
No, it's Egypt.
They're not spying on the Middle East; they're spying in the Middle East... on all the data traffic running through the Suez canal. And that's basically everything between Asia and Europe.
Britain have had a watch on all traffic going through the canal pretty much from day one of its existence. And they've probably had communications taps in since the very first telegraph cables were installed.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
You want a bloated police state but you don't want to pay for it. Typical. Keep licking those boots, cold fjord, maybe they will kick you a bit softer when you've outlived your usefulness to them.
Belfast, Northern Ireland. In the cellar under Barfoos Paki Takeaway-
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
And how valuable is that, really? Valuable enough to enrage and piss off all kinds of countries who could be allies? See the mess that resulted after it came out GCHQ had been spying on foreign delegations to banking reform talks of all things. Who gives a shit about that? It's much more important that other countries diplomats feel secure and professionally treated when on British soil.
GCHQ is a relic, a holdover from the cold war that was never wound up properly. The vast majority of its spying is just cynical perversion of public infrastructure to give Britain an unfair legup over countries that don't do it. It's right there in the article - the spying is anything that enhances "British interests". That's gotta suck if you're founding a company in Turkey or the Ukraine that's trying to compete with a big company in the 5-eyes governments domains.
You wouldn't put it on a fishing boat, that' be way too conspicuous. It's inside the volcano!
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
we are really, really without any way out if we dont start inundating them with noise...
please, people, install at once trackmenot or paranoid browsing
http://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/
http://boingboing.net/2013/08/18/paranoid-browsing-anti-profil.html
Why do people moan so much. We can't spy on our own citizens: Who cares, are we so special that we cannot be spied on but other countries are fair game? We need to spy to catch people who need to be caught, domestic or foreign I really do not care. If my emails are read, ok, if my mail is intercepted, who cares, if my phone is tapped, who cares, if I have a file in some secret facility and they know I buy Cheetos, who cares. Crime, espionage and terroism cost us all money which directly effects the quality and lengths of our lifes, our childrens lives, in fact for all citizens on earth. Leaking information, such as the Independant newspaper has done, is not safe, will focus other's resources in to identifying this source, and as a result cost money and possibly lives. We feel more safe now than at any other point in time, that is not because of some self riteous idiot releasing facts that are better left alone. It is because we try to do the right thing in a world where many do the wrong thing. The cost of all this is hidden and incalculable. Shut up and leave it alone, careless talk cost lives.
The UK Government has been sending out D-Notices to newspapers to prevent them publishing things that might harm our vital interests since around the year 1912. Most comply. The Guardian, on the other hand, is up a shit creek without a paddle financially (which is kind-of funny as they promote debt fuelled government spending regularly in their editorials and of course their entire operation is debt fuelled and has been for years) and so is doing this primarily to gain a wider global audience. If you think they have your interests uppermost in their minds, I'm afraid you would be sadly mistaken.
1) Poor Mr Greenwald: so young and healthy and yet he suffered a fatal heart attack.
2) Poor Mr Greenwald: his vehicle careening off the road like that.
3) Poor Mr Greenwald: killed last night while being mugged for cash and his cell phone.
4) Poor Mr Greenwald: left a note saying he decided to go backpacking around the world but no one's seen him since.
etc
Of course, I hope he lives a long and healthy life ...
Get real Mike. All countries spy on all other countries. The Germans are spying on the British, the British on the French, the French on the Americans, the Americans on the Chinese. People want an edge in negotiations that affect their nation's interests. It's always been like this. Diplomats know it. Most embassies run agency stations inside them.
It exists because they could sell the massive load of oil the country was sitting on. That counts as a business.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Do you also quake in your boots at the thought of getting into your car and driving on public roads?
Planted information to discredit Snowden or using Snowden's name to cover for another leaker?
"Snowden: UK government now leaking documents about itself" Wow, UK government are _really_ getting desperate scattering like cockroaches when the light gets turned on them...
For non-techies it should be a genuine surprise that spies aren't just spying on military targets, but every single one of us, and spying on foreign governments they are not at war with for economic and political purporses.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
" It isn't just 'the government' doing the bad stuff, unless you ride your bike everywhere and have solar panels like me, you are part of the problem too."
Just shut the fuck up. Unless you live in a hut you fashioned out of materials you harvested by hand, hunt with spear or bow and arrow you hand made and farm your own food then you are also part of the problem. Stop acting like a childish, finger pointing pussy because you think you have environmental immunity. You don't.
We need more 7/7 attacks. Glenn Greenwald asserts they are nothing more than the exercise of free speech. I'm fine with it.
Of course I didn't write any of that.
I'm sure the NSA could fix it so that you did.
The Independent newspaper said it was not disclosing the country where the base is located
Does someone on /. know something they're not supposed to be telling us?
I didn't write any of that. That post is a troll.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Ramadan Bombathon 2013
Jihad Attacks: 310
Countries: 19
Religions targeted: 5
Dead Bodies: 1651
Critically Injured: 3048
For comparison, the Ku Klux Klan has killed about 2,000 people in its entire 150-year history.. Islamic extremists killed close to that number in one month. If Islamic extremism is not a threat and nothing to worry about, then the KKK and white supremacy are certainly not a threat and nothing to worry about.
The important story here is not that there's more secret surveillance, it's that the Independent claims that the story is based on materials from Snowden, and he and the Guardian flat-out deny that. The obvious implication is that the UK government itself "leaked" the material to the Independent, to create an appearance of potential danger to people arising from "the Snowden disclosures", a type of release that Snowden and the Guardian have strenuously avoided.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
Regardless of your imaginings about Greenwald, this latest release is nothing to with him or the Guardian, but comes from another newspaper the Independent. Snowden and the Guardian strongly dispute that Snowden's materials are the source of the Independent's story, and claim that the UK government itself must be the source of this particular material.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
The one morally bankrupt are those who are busy putting down others while remaining anonymous. True coward.
In addition, with him putting out information that is NOT illegal for any nation to do, but that is of value to enemies, says that he is a traitor. The fact that he is now using this information as a way to blackmail his nation, speaks of even lower morals than yours.
Sorry, but I am not a believer in the death penality SAVE for treason or turning on your nation. As such, Snowden should be executed.
And you obviously have no idea about data, the net, or anything else that you talk about.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The article cites Snowden's files as their source, but Snowden and Greenwald have both explicitly denied that, and even go further to assert that neither of them have provided any information whatsoever to the Independent:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/uk-government-independent-military-base
That means somebody is lying, and that is extremely important and worth your careful consideration, no matter who you think it is.
I'm disappointed that this development hasn't already been modded up in the comments here; a lot of folks are jumping to conclusions by taking the Independent at their word about who leaked this particular information.
I JE'd about it, and tried to get a Slashdot frontpage submission. Linked stories?
After what you've learned over the past 3-4 months, it's hard to discredit this, outright.
A total of five cables being operated by two submarine cable operators have been damaged with a fault in each.
These are SeaMeWe-4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4) near Penang, Malaysia, the FLAG Europe-Asia near Alexandria, FLAG near the Dubai coast, FALCON near Bandar Abbas in Iran and SeaMeWe-4, also near Alexandria.
The first cut in the undersea Internet cable occurred on January 23, in the Flag Telcoms FALCON submarine cable which was not reported. This has not been repaired yet and the cause remains unknown, explained Jaishanker.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theuae/2008/February/theuae_February155.xml§ion=theuae
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Ah, but they do..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This just in: newspapers want to make money. Details at 11.
Funny how that works:
Spread news widely, sell more newspapers.
Sell more newspapers, make money.
Make money, spread news widely.
I might guess that this bit of shocking news matters less to most than the topic under discussion. Or are we supposed to see that because The Guardian is in business that what they report is suspect?
By all accounts, including The Independent, this bit of news on GCHG is not down to Snowden, so what changed? Btw, that Great Britain had listening posts abroad is not news but someone decided to make it so.
"all the data is grabbed" While the arrest of Miranda was likely an attempt to find some or all of the repositories, I highly doubt that there is a single complete list or that using a partial list will lead to other locations. If Snowden suddenly dies, I rather suspect that all of the material will be released at once by multiple unknown sources. The earlier destructions of hard drives and such at The Guardian's offices under the guise of security accomplished nothing other than sending a ham-handed threat.
While the bulk of AQ are hardly the brightest bulbs on the tree, I rather think that most anyone with some relevant technical understanding will long have known the basics. That a location of something is posited, or that a code name to a program is revealed adds no useful intel for anyone. Those details merely flesh out a larger story. As regards Manning, even the retired general charged by the court with investigating the harm caused by the material he passed on was unable to name a single person who came to harm. That the disclosures may have put a crimp on some of their activities is open to investigation. That some were embarrassed is obvious. (All three major official investigations of classification of which I've been aware all concluded that the majority of items classified were to prevent the embarrassment of higher-ups.)
I find it amusing and sad that diplomats presume their cables to be secure while at the same time expecting the communications of lesser mortals to be open. I suspect that one of the reasons that Congress and the mainstream media (apart from their corporate overlords' wishes) are not more exercised about the revelations of the past few months is that they are suddenly mindful that all their past decade's communications are, or can be, an open book. The executive doesn't have to say a word, just let the implications sink in. What might have become fruitful debate over a matter with grave constitutional import can now be swept away by the next crisis du jour.
So I suspect that, in a short while, whatever you or I think about any of this will be irrelevant. There will be bits and bobs of denouement that dribble out over time but they will vanish in the chatter of the rest of the ho-hum portions of the news.
Their motives are suspect, yes. And it's not beyond the wit of a newspaper editor to twist, lie and run a story that's extremely disingenuous. Or do you think there's a big hole in the backside of the editor and proprietors firing out a 2,000,000 watt beam of light? I guess you do. Well, you're a fool.
No, it was a question, not a statement of what I particularly believe. I can see where the possible sarcasm could come out as more than intended. I understand a bit of possible conflict of interest - twisting a story so's to be more dramatic as the tabloids do, and know from history (Hearst, et al) that some publishers are not above chicanery.
What I mean to ask is simple. Does a newspaper being in business require that it's stories are not honest reporting? On one end of things you've got a publisher who hires editors and reporters and tells them to go forth and do their thing; on the other end, a publisher might tell them the corporate catechism and instruct them that all reporting must cleave to it. Where do you think The Guardian lies on that continuum?
The Guardian is not "in business". If it was it would have gone bankrupt years ago. It's being kept afloat by wealthy benefactors.