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GCHQ, European Spy Agencies Cooperate On Surveillance
jones_supa writes "Edward Snowden papers unmask that the German, French, Spanish and Swedish intelligence services have all developed methods of mass surveillance of internet and phone traffic over the past five years in close partnership with Britain's GCHQ eavesdropping agency. The bulk monitoring is carried out through direct taps into fibre optic cables and the development of covert relationships with telecommunications companies. A loose but growing eavesdropping alliance has allowed intelligence agencies from one country to cultivate ties with corporations from another to facilitate the trawling of the web. The files also make clear that GCHQ played a leading role in advising its European counterparts how to work around national laws intended to restrict the surveillance power of intelligence agencies."
Everyone knows only the USA does this stuff.
The whole "anti-terrorism" excuse is a sham. The NSA has already been providing the DEA with information about drug deals they've intercepted. We know that for a fact.
But when pressured, they can't itemize a list of the terrorist operations they've intercepted and stopped. They toss out vague numbers in the 40s after over a decade of surveillance. So even if they're exagerrating, that's only 4 per year!
From a cruelly financial perspective, it would have been far cheaper to just pay the death benefits to the families of the few people who might have died than to pay the untold billions the NSA, GCHQ, CSEC, et. al. have cost to operate.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
When the Snowden info came out, people I know (I live in the UK) just shrugged their shoulders and said that it had been happening here for years.
Blue Horseshoe loves Anacott Steel.
So, all this posturing by Europe's leaders was absurd, because they were spying themselves? Who would have ever thought that?
What's next? Will Snowden have the guts to reveal all the spying that China and Russia do?
I can't wait until his little "scandal-of-the-week" show is over, so we can calm down and focus on fixing the ACTUAL problems that exist with these spy agencies.
Is there anyone left in the world who doesn't think their government doesn't spy on their countrymen?
Why UNIX?
Thank you all, fuckers, for the increase of latency in my networked games.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
One thing that wonders me is the recursive spying - spies need supervise themselves - how did they solved the problems that causes?
One of the things we're learning from Snowden's releases is that, apparently, many/most European spy agencies are behaving much like the US and British agencies. So will people get as outraged about the behavior of their own country's government? Will they speak as disparagingly about their own fellow "sheeple" as they like to do about Americans? Or will they maybe pay a little lip service, then get back to droning on about the NSA and idiot Americans?
It seems to me we ALL need to let our own governments know this is intolerable. And the statement that "everyone else is doing it" is no more of an excuse for a country than it is for an 11 year old.
#DeleteChrome
GCHQ played a leading role in advising its European counterparts how to work around national laws intended to restrict the surveillance power of intelligence agencies."
It might not happen for another 50 or 100 years, but when the Revolution comes, it's gonna be glorious. To bad I won't be around to see it.
I've been assuming GCHQ has had their hands as dirty as they get in this ever since they detained Greenwald's partner a few months back. They were terribly concerned with seeing what exactly the Journalists had on them, so it's been reasonable to assume they've been figuring out whether they can cover this up or not. They've had months to prepare themselves for this revelation, I just hope they come up with a better plan then directing the attention to Snowden himself instead of what he's saying- that plan's getting old.
OK, we all now know that what ever we do is being watched, but what are the computers that are watching us? Could we take their abilities and address the problems in our community? Like Spell Checking. And where did I put my xBox remote?! You know, things that of a Vital Interest to me.
Americans think themselves a bit safer because the NSA is not supposed to spy on them. But what tells me that the NSA is not letting a foreign partner agency collect and evaluate the data of the Americans for them and just gets back the hits? For these hits they would have no problems getting a warrant, even from a non-secret court.
British spying is a riddle wrapped inside an Enigma.
What we need is a government-proof internet.
Yes, I'm aware of the irony given the origins of this internet. But that doesn't change the reality we are presently faced with.
He's exposing things we all figured were true and then some.
And the release order is also well thought out, expose the US's complete global surveillance operation, wait for EU leaders to react, and then release that those EU leaders are effectively doing the same thing.
Given the level of surveillance, which at this point makes conspiracy theorist's claims seem conservative, this seems to be THE chance for actual change.
I doubt it though, Newspeak will be provided - "We are no longer monitoring you", while the truth will be that they are. Everyone will still be.
The real question will be whether people buy into the "open" future, seek to protect their privacy, or just don't give a shit.
The real problem is that most people just won't give a shit. This is the result of an educational system that doesn't promote thinking. The masters have won the game.
BlameBillCosby.com
Not very surprisingly, the news about European countries' secret agencies cooperating with GCHQ and NSA easily explain the reluctance of said countries' politicians to really go after the US and UK for spying on them and their citizens ... after all, it's the local agencies that do the work ... too bad that too few of the citizens care ... ("I have nothing to hide")
Guess what they say is true: Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're not being watched ...
If the threat was as real as they say it is, the CIA's clandestine service would be the largest it's ever been since the agency was founded and Bush/Obama would have told them to take the kid gloves off in dealing with Al Qaeda. By that I mean the CIA (or MI6 here) would have been given carte blanche to go abroad and use the full playbook of nasty espionage tactics. You'd think a "Mossad times ten" had suddenly hit the major terrorist networks.
I concur, our spies are well known for spying on expremiers wife not on US agencies or any other country.
End to end encryption is the only answer here. Maybe instead of relying on server certificates, which could be compromised, do the reverse -- the client certificate is used to secure the connection. That way everyone can use a CA (or even issue their own) that they trust. It puts the client in the driver seat, so instead of just stealing Google's key (or tapping Google's fiber), they have to get yours... One might argue that they could target you with advanced malware and steal your private key, but that is no different than what could happen today if they REALLY target you.
Makes sense that if you trust no one, why do you trust their SSL certificate? Why not make them use yours. In the case of on-line purchases, you trust the server based on their certificate but the client still controls the session key. And they trust you based on your login rather than the certificate.
Shrug... Something has to be done by the users. These governments are never, ever going to stop spying.
Most of us [geeks] think the blanket surveillance is not just evil, but is also a danger to democratic governance. Yet, we are the only ones who can implement it. Certainly, politicians and attorneys wouldn't have a clue about how to do it. So why do only a a few like Snowden take a stand?
Who is actually benefiting from all this spying - that's a lot of data collection and a lot of money to only stop a few terrorists.
How are they benefiting - that much data from that many countries would be more appropriate to the needs of governmental programs for social control not terrorism. Except that governments do not seem to be fully aware of purpose or extent.
Why do the agencies need so much data - localization of a threat does not require records for every citizen - in fact as has been pointed out many times they would be counter productive to finding anything.
Where is the benefit - has anyone seen evidence of any tangible benefit as a result of all the money spent, trillions of dollars.
What is the really benefiting - all of these agencies have and continue to lie about the extent and purpose of their surveillance. What is it really being used for. This seems to be an onion problem. Strip one layer of lies away only to find another layer underneath and the process has just started. I do not think anyone has come close to the truth yet.
I think Snowden's timed release is more so that everyone can see the layers being peeled and accept them. The truth without preparation and context may not be believable flat out.
Should research data, aka NSA spying, funded by taxpayer dollars be freely available to taxpayers. When do the databases get opened up?
Everyone will still be.
The real question will be whether people buy into the "open" future, seek to protect their privacy, or just don't give a shit.
The real problem is that most people just won't give a shit. This is the result of an educational system that doesn't promote thinking. The masters have won the game.
Would that be the "global" education system, or did you have something closer to home in mind?
I heard a Swed say that when the US says to 'jump', Sweden says 'how high'?
The files also make clear that GCHQ played a leading role in advising its European counterparts how to work around national laws intended to restrict the surveillance power of intelligence agencies
What work around? The collaboration is legislated already in the laws regulating telecommunication actors. Perhaps working around legislation is something of a British legal system style of problem. That what you get when you didn't surrender at the Waterloo and assimilate Napoleon's style of justice. Or didn't surrender to Hitler and get the Austrian or German style of system.
There are no surprises here.
Find a job you love, and never work a day in your life.
Google was created to be the R&D arm of the NSA. You've all witnessed the disaster of 'Obamacare' IT systems. This disaster is the enduring story of ALL major Government funded IT projects across the Western World. Google was one of a number of projects to provide state-of-the-art hardware and software designs to Western Intelligence agencies, without the usual overspend, and under-deliver.
Before the usual vile shills step in, Google personnel do NOT run these shadow-Google sites. Google test-beds hardware and software engineering at its OBVIOUS public facilities, while focusing on direct usefulness to the intelligence communities. Google's data-mining that drive its significant ad-based revenue, for instance, is a direct spin-off of the data-mining algorithms Google created for 'intelligence' purposes.
It takes no genius to comprehend why machine translation of language (voice and text) was a Google priority. In the commercial world, this has near zero use (from a profit POV). But for intelligence agencies collecting EVERYTHING possible on other nations, and foreign-speaking residents of their own nations, such an ability is essential.
As the third wave of computing took hold, the biggest problem faced by GCHQ, the NSA, and all their Western partners was firstly storing ALL forms of data FOREVER in a scalable, searchable, mineable construct. Every existing IT company at the time DEMANDED that most data reside on useless media like tape, so mega-expensive robotic facilities would be needed to select, load, deselect and store physical tape units. Every existing IT company declared the long term storage of data on Hard-drives to be a utter joke.
Google employed mathematicians and statisticians WITHOUT decades of brain-dead (and erroneous) pseudo-computer-science conditioning. They simply proved that no storage system available then, now or in any immediate future could come close to a properly designed, scalable system of COMMODITY hard-drives, with the security of data being guaranteed to a required percentage of probability by redundancy of storage, and a continuous replacement of drives as they expectedly failed.
Just as going to FLAT memory models revolutionised programming on modern hardware, having ALL long term storage on permanently powered, accessible drives, each linked to their own powerful general purpose computers, revolutionised the business of FULL SURVEILLANCE, and allowed your masters, for the first time, to anticipate the collection and storage of EVERY piece of data potentially available in the world.
Your masters long ago slurped up EVERY piece of visible electronic data, including ALL your financial transactions, ALL your phone calls (landlines and mobile), and the addresses, weight, and a high-powered paper penetrating photo of ALL your snail-mail. Yes, most of the contents of your ordinary mail are found on intelligence agency databases as well. Most mail has only a few layers of text, and a bright enough light, combined with a bit of clever software, reads the contents of most unopened envelopes quite successfully.
Today, Google (and Microsoft) are all about NEW forms of intelligence gathering from YOUR life. Gates created the Xbox One Kinect 2, at a cost of billions of dollars, to place 1984+ style spying into the homes of every American. The Kinect 2 spying platform is the most sophisticated ever devised by the NSA, outside of their space satellites, and yet will be willingly set up in optimum fashion (at their own expense) by millions of American sheeple. A psychological victory that your masters state PROVE that the sheeple are so pathetic and stupid that they fully deserve their fate (a willing slave deserves no respect).
Social network systems exist entirely for the purpose of having people declare their own relationships with others to the NSA.
Snowden's revelations were arranged by those that rule you at the HIGHEST level. They needed you, the sheeple, to be aware of the extent that your masters abuse you, to gain your PASSIVE con
'I' is for "Industrial. The eves dropping by the MI complex is not primarily about terrorists, or Joe Random's hydroponic shed, it's economic/diplomatic espionage. The "five eyes" (Google it) have been cooperating on economic espionage since ww2, that's not to say they don't look for terrorist, just that they can do more than one thing at once.
That communications are monitored on a large scale for this sort of information has been common knowledge since the 70's. Doesn't anyone watch Robert Redford movies anymore? It's the same thing, except now they have much more powerful tools.
BTW: We are not "struggling" in the west, we are cock of the roost in the current international pecking order. What's happening here is just another periodic introspection on the practice before everyone forgets and a new Snowden shows up in 2025 and "shocks" us all over again. International politics is still at the level of medieval feudal warlords, with the security council playing the part of the Vatican. We have a long way to go before humans can walk the Earth and not bump into political/military walls.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You say you want a revolution
Well, you know we all wanna change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know we all wanna change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be alright, alright
Don't you know it's gonna be alright
You say you got a real solution
Well, you know we'd all love to see the plan, oh yeah
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know we're all doing what we can
But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is, brother, you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be alright
Know it's gonna be alright
Don't you know it's gonna be alright, hey, hey
You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know we all wanna change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know you better free your mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't gonna make it with anyone, anyhow
Don't you know it's gonna be alright.....
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"The document also makes clear that British intelligence agencies were helping their German counterparts change or bypass laws that restricted their ability to use their advanced surveillance technology."
Seems their loyalty isn't to their own countries....
Imagine that, spy agencies working with a foreign power to bypass their own legal/democratic processes. Who'd have thunk it!
Anti terror budget is $20 million vs $10 billion NSA budget.
Terrorism is just an excuse.
Additionally, how many crooked Politicians, Bankers and CEOs have been netted as a result of this? I would argue that the damage done by the aforementioned is significantly more impacting at the all levels of the socio-economic strata from the individual citizen to the entire economy. Just compare the monies and long term impacts involved and you can see that the threat is significantly bigger and more serious.
Given that EU member state politicians have been complaining, it suggests they did not know. Are European spying agency completely out of control from their own governments?
Spying on population: good
Well, good until the population catches its own government with pants on the knees. There are laws preventing government to spy to much on its own citizen, and breaking them may have consequences (except in the US, apparently)
Their job is to spy. Unfortunately, terrorists would rather use proper enforcement (as you wished it to happen) to hide.
If you have to find the needle, you have to go through the whole haystack.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
When will we hear about what China and Russia are doing from Snowden? That would be some very nasty information, but it would redeem his character. It might also make it a bit easier to be lenient at his eventual conviction.
(oh, and by the way, modbombing the unpleasant truth about Snowden doesn't make your case better.)
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Intelligence operations aren't like building a new bridge in a congressional district. Chances are that most people want the bridge, welcome the jobs and spending in the district, will think highly of the congressman for getting it (if needed), many people will use the bridge when it's completed, and people might even vote for the congressman in the future. By definition the target of an intelligence operation isn't going to want it, will avoid its consequences if possible, might try to capture or kill the people involved with the operation, and might even completely avoid things associated with it in the future.
That's what Snowden is not understanding - his actions are having unintended consequences. He's taking the idea of "National security be damned" to new levels with his PR campaign. That is the precise attitude that will not only endanger US citizens, but will eventually endanger his own life - whether he runs out of information (and the NSA survives) or some private citizen gets to be the most lucky person in the world for taking him out.
To preempt the "but our current president is doing the same thing": You think that he doesn't mind damaging the NSA too? They may not be on the same page, but they certainly are within the same chapter of the same book.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
They can't go into details since they don't want to violate the same rule that Snowden is regularly breaking.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
...now, all what matters is who got how many? Was it a fair share? Did someone hoard?
The world needs to pull up these spoiled brats and give them a decent spanking.
Tat Tvam Asi
Ipads have been banned from UK cabinet meetings due to fears of Russain and Chinese hacking
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10423514/iPads-banned-from-Cabinet-meetings-over-surveillance-fears.html