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."
Now we know why.
Ah, but you're missing the key point on how the "game" is played.
The GCHQ in the UK isn't allowed to spy on UK citizens, so they spy on the rest of the EU's citizens, and apparently on the Middle East.
The NSA isn't allowed to spy on US citizens, so they spy on Canadians and others.
The Canadian spy agency isn't allowed to spy on Canadians, so it spies on Americans and others.
Australia and New Zealand spy on anyone close to their networks as well.
Even the Germans are into spying.
Then after everyone has spied on the "foreigners" who aren't protected by each nation's laws, they get together, exchange their data, and end up with the intel on their own citizens, all while claiming "but we don't spy on our own citizens."
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
As a British citizen, I'm so used to assuming that the government is intercepting every piece of electronic communication,
As one that lived more than half of his life in one of those European countries in the communist block, I am afraid that you are properly fucked already.
If this persist for longer (say 15-20 years... it only takes one generation of used to, everybody will be teaching it to their children!), the society you'll be living would show the same weird behaviour of its people as during the secret police in communist countries: use of paraphrases when speaking, carefully planning/doing your everyday actions so that they don't appear to have any element of verboten, every neighbour... heck even members of you family... may be turning you to the authorities.
Walk only a little in the past and you'll find Gestapo as another example.
My point is: stop being just so used to... and do something if you don't want there
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Snowden gave the trove of files to The Guardian at least. The specific leaks, after the initial ones, are decided by Glenn Greenwald and not Snowden.
Whether Greenwald gave some stuff to the Independent or Snowden did that earlier is unknown.
But my guess would be the whole episode of the UK Gov't detaining Mr. Miranda and forcing The Guarding to shred some systems seriously pissed off the British Press. Releasing UK-specific material is most likely payback. Spreading it around to other papers is most likely a signal that "threaten the Guardian with prior restraint, you better be ready to shut down every paper in the UK".
GCHQ and Whitehall fucked up royally with that and they are now going to pay for threatening a major newspaper.
Just a guess, mind you.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
You may be right. From the linked article....
"But there are fears in Government that Mr Greenwald – who still has access to the files – could attempt to release damaging information.
He said after the arrest of Mr Miranda: “I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I have many more documents on England’s spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did.”"
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.
And I should add: huge kudos to the Independent for having the balls to stand up and keep reporting in the face of what appears to be a War on Journalism.
Peace,
Andy.
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.