GCHQ and European spy agencies worked together on mass surveillance

[BelgianMadCow]

Source: The Guardian

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, according to GCHQ documents leaked by the former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

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.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/01/gchq-europe-spy-agencies-mass-surveillance-snowden

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So, many EU governments are no better than the Five Eyes. Everybody Is Doing It. Always good to not have illusions (like the EU parliament trying to get tough on the US, a dog and pony show then?)

And I still hate it, disagree with it and will work against it.

[Purveyor]

1. Thank you Edward Snowden for cracking this bullshit wide-open, indeed! eom

[newthinking]

2. They certainly are... But not nearly equivilent

The powers that be would love us all to think that "everyone is doing it".

But that is a false equivilence. Most of Europe works under real privacy restrictions that actually limit their capabilities and require more oversight. They also do not have near the budget and number of personel.

The UK being the exception. They are far more like us in many ways than the rest of Europe.

[blkmusclmachine]

5. Gas station cameras in the UK transmit your license plate number to check if the Gov't OK's your

filling your gas tank.

Why? "Freedom/safety."

[blkmusclmachine]

3. One World Government

[JDPriestly]

4. "I hate it, disagree with it and will work against it."

It is a waste of money because 99% of the work they do is totally irrelevant.

They are amassing enormous power -- personal power for those at the top of the intelligence services and their favorites.

It is a menace to democracy, completely incompatible with any idea of democracy to have that much information about the population in the hands of a relative few individuals. What a feeling of power the select few must have.

And worst of all it gives those in intelligence and government a feeling of false security.

Threats do not necessarily come from those who talk big.

Besides, the real threats in our society today or from the environment and the economy. And the surveillance is a distraction from dealing with those overwhelming threats. Surveillance can do nothing to heal the environment or make our economy work.

It's a right-wing boondoggle, and we should outlaw it.

[blkmusclmachine]

6. Welcome to 1984.

[BelgianMadCow]

8. Here's an example of working against it

promoting open source software: https://prism-break.org/ I've been using several of the open source programs listed for years.

I no longer believe in fighting against the system (on edit: but very much believe in exposing and resisting it), and rather spend my time building new and better things, locally.

Entirely agree with your post, too.

[JDPriestly]

9. Thanks.

[intaglio]

7. Oh FFS

The GCHQ (actually RAF Menwith Hill) has been doing this for years and it was first revealed 25 years ago

This is not in any way "Latest Breaking News"

[Earth_First]

11. Ahhh, yes. I was wondering when this response would rear it's head....

Quite right. Cheerio. Carry on.

Nothing to see here.
Oh, look!
A shiny object!

A Big Mac, glass of Coke. Duck Dynasty. Then sleep.

Rinse and repeat.

Zzzz...

[intaglio]

12. Not nothing, just not LBN

Put it in GD but never use LBN for news 25 years old.

All you are doing is pointing out your total ignorance of the history of this surveillance.

[Ghost Dog]

14. What's new is that the information,

in so much detail, is now so very much in the international public domain.

Mostly just a relatively few 'nerds' really took on board the information about Echelon, etc., that came out years ago, wouldn't you agree?

[intaglio]

15. Check the history

Google (other search engines etc.) Menwith Hill and GCHQ. If you want you can also check The Guardian's and The Observer's own archives. There was loads in Private Eye some even predating Duncan Campbell's original article in New Statesman. IIRC then there were similar revelations made to Le Canard Enchainé back in the 90's.

The detail has been about for ages well known amongst the media. There were the open reports in the European Parliament back in 200-2001 including much info about operation Five Eyes (FVEY) and the extension of that op to include West Germany, The Nordic countries and the Philippines (although full revelation about that had to wait until 2005).

The problem is not that the information was not out there it is just that it was not published by US news sources and that Americans, if you'll excuse the misnomer, tend to be so insular.

[Ghost Dog]

16. Ok. Agreed.

... Rather than "international public domain" I should have said, "international (and especially American) public consciousness".

Also, two things. 1. The scale of these operations appears to have massively increased. 2. There appears to be a widening American public awareness that this much power is vulnerable to abuse and might in fact have been or be being abused?

[MADem]

10. Let's cut to the chase, here, and hold a few truths to be self-evident.

We've got good friends in Europe, and they are good friends for a reason--because good friends help each other out.

They do favors for one another.

Whenever a nation needs to say "Look, I can tell you categorically that WE DO NOT DO .......... (fill in the blank with the "THAT" of the day)...." they are able to say it because some other nation is doing the "that" for them.

Everyone knows this, it's fairly obvious--plausible deniability.

Country X doesn't spy on their people; they have Country Y do it FOR them.

And then Country Z returns the favor, in exchange for this consideration or that.

That former French intelligence official who said, weeks ago, before this article broke and this one or that professed faux outrage, "BFD, mon freres, this is not surprising, everyone's doing it, it's nothing but a thing" was speaking the truth.

I suppose the countries that feel insulted are the ones where no one finds them important enough to tap their phones or monitor their communications...!

Is it "right?" Well, who knows what they've done with the info they've found. Have they saved us from terrible terra-terra-terra? Who can say? That's all TS/NOFORN, most likely. Should they keep doing it? Some say yes, others no. Will they keep doing it? I'll bet they will, in some form or another, with a bit more oversight. Will computer geniuses look for more ways to secure information? That's gonna be a Growth Industry, count on it...

[joshcryer]

13. But they would never do that!

Spying is wrong! Only the US spies! No one else spies!