Germany blasts Britain over GCHQ's secret cable trawl

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: Guardian

The German government has expressed the growing public anger of its citizens over Britain's mass programme of monitoring global phone and internet traffic and directly challenged UK ministers over the whole basis of GCHQ's Project Tempora surveillance operation.

The German justice minister, who has described the secret operation by Britain's eavesdropping agency as a catastrophe that sounded "like a Hollywood nightmare", warned UK ministers that free and democratic societies could not flourish when states shielded their actions in "a veil of secrecy".

Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger sent two letters on Tuesday to the British justice secretary, Chris Grayling, and the home secretary, Theresa May, stressing the widespread concern the disclosures have triggered in Germany and demanding to know the extent to which German citizens have been targeted.
...
William Hague, the British foreign secretary, again dismissed concerns on Tuesday in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Library in California, saying Britain should have nothing but pride in its "indispensable" intelligence-sharing relationship with the US.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/25/germany-uk-gchq-internet-surveillance

[dipsydoodle]

1. Hague might be better off speaking through his mouth.

.

[temmer]

2. Trans Atlantic Telephone Cable No 14

German media somehow have obtained documents originally coming from Snowden (via Guardian?). The GCHQ has hacked the TAT-14 cable which basically connects Germany with the western hemisphere. Every German knows now that the Brits are sucking all of his phone calls and emails. Nice.

[temmer]

3. and they share it with the NSA, of course nt

[idwiyo]

4. But of course! It's all part of that special fucking relationship our dear leaders have.

Never mind, we should be just happy and enjoy life because they care about us and only want to make sure we are protected from terrorists. That's all. Nothing else.