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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.
Thank you all, fuckers, for the increase of latency in my networked games.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
Good job missing the essential point. The problem is that spies agency of our countries don't consider other spy agency as their enemies but as their allies. We citizens are considered the enemy by our own spy agencies and spy agencies around the world collaborate with each other to spy on normal citizens. I's not USA vs Europe. It's spy agencies vs citizens.
Same thing happened in the US to a large extent, but there's a big difference between "everybody knows" and serious evidence. The former can be shrugged off a lot more easily.
P.S. Looks like us Yanks aren't the only ones who should be grateful to Snowden.
P.P.S. I do get some satisfaction from being able to shut up overly smug Europeans (I don't mean you). I can be very critical of my country, and except for stupid anti-American rants, I don't mind others doing so. What I hate is smug superiority - and this shows that their shit stinks too.
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
Ha! We all knew our shit stank long before this - here in Sweden the spying was mostly in the open - our govt enacted the "FRA-law" openly to allow the military signal intelligence agency FRA to tap all cables crossing our borders, and the EU enacted the Data retention Directive forcing ISPs to log all call meta data for an extended period of time.
This is a global problem. But, the US is also taking the lead. Most of this stuff originates from the US, but it infects everyone.
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.
British spying is a riddle wrapped inside an Enigma.
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.
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.
It's a big hole to pour money in. Governments are always looking for those, especially ones that no political party will argue against.
Uhm.
Germany has a population of 82 million. It's about 1/4 of the population in the US, and about 3/4 of Russias. Only US, India, China and Russia have larger economies. It is also one of the worlds most technically advanced countries. They certainly could have technical and economical capability to monitor american politicians.
It is only for political reasons they probably not are doing that, but you can be certain that they monitor the political situation and the military capabilities of all relevant parties,
We citizens are considered the enemy by our own spy agencies and spy agencies around the world collaborate with each other to spy on normal citizens.
Ordinary citizens aren't the enemy, but the enemy typically hides among them. Terrorists don't tend to live in their own private "terrorist army" barracks, they hide among ordinary citizens until they strike, which may not be in the same country in which they live. That is a crucial distinction that for some reason a lot of people seem to have a hard time understanding.
The Hamburg cell is a perfect example. They lived in Hamburg, Germany, plotting and preparing for their attack. The actual attacks they participated in were in New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania, in the US on 9/11/2001.
If you think the struggle in the West is between spy agencies and citizens, you fail to understand this basic and easy to understand fact. I'm curious as to why?
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
We all knew our shit stank long before this ... the US is also taking the lead. Most of this stuff originates from the US, but it infects everyone.
So your shit stinks, but it's still the fault of the US? Maybe you should tell your PM that Sweden is a sovereign country.
'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.