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Did The UK Police Hire Foreigners To Hack Hundreds of Activists? (bbc.co.uk)
Big Hairy Ian shared this story from the BBC:
Undercover counter-extremism officers used hackers in India to access the emails of journalists and environmental activists, it has been claimed... The Independent Police Complaints Commission said it had received an anonymous letter, which alleged covert officers from the Metropolitan Police's National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit contacted Indian police officers for help to enlist hackers. The letter alleges the hackers accessed the email accounts of hundreds of people, including members of political and environmental pressure groups and journalists.
"The letter said the monitoring included the 'email accounts of radical journalists who reported on activist protests (as well as sympathetic photographers) including at least two employed by the Guardian newspaper,'" the Guardian reports, adding that the letter provided the names of 10 campaigners -- and the passwords for their accounts.
"The letter said the monitoring included the 'email accounts of radical journalists who reported on activist protests (as well as sympathetic photographers) including at least two employed by the Guardian newspaper,'" the Guardian reports, adding that the letter provided the names of 10 campaigners -- and the passwords for their accounts.
This sort of "outsourcing" of illegal information gathering activities has been going on for years. GCHQ has the NSA spying on the Brits. GCHQ spies on the Yankees. The Cannucks are spying on the Aussies and the Aussies are spying on the Cannucks. Meanwhile the Kiwis are all pissed because no one gives a shit about what goes on in New Zealand.
For a country like America who gave the crown a fat middle finger, the level of coziness today should unnerve everyone.
So, basically, the UK is following the lead of the USS... I mean the USA... in having an agency illegally monitor internal political dissenters?