In days gone by, this sort of behavior was used by the US and UK as the bastions of liberalism to condemn "totalitarian" regimes. How times change.
Last year, The Intercept exposed how GCHQ has in recent years attempted to create what it described as the world’s largest surveillance system, covertly harvesting in excess of 50 billion records every day about people’s emails, phone calls, and Web browsing habits. In one program code-named KARMA POLICE, the agency said it was seeking to obtain “a web browsing profile for every visible user on the internet.”The US calls it "total information awareness."
The Intercept
Documents Reveal Secretive U.K. Surveillance Policies
Ryan Gallagher
Ryan Gallagher
I "feel" much safer about the scourge of terrorism knowing that the competent folks in the US Government and UK Government are keeping an eye on all of you crazy bastards.
ReplyDeleteNSA-UK is a better description of GCHQ. Some years back, the NSA was suddenly beset by all manner of major technical problems. The NSA was effectively shutdown until the problems were resolved. What is interesting, is that within minutes all NSA activities were up and running again via GCHQ. Clearly a spy agency that is linked to a much larger and more sophisticated spy agency is not independent. It is NSA-UK.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder the UK is a laughing stock in international circles. The UK's so-called independent nuclear "deterrent" is completely dependant on US technology, from maintenance to guidance. The eavesdropping agency is nothing more than a cog in a much larger US operation. Many UK military bases are only that in name to hide the fact that they are US bases. The UK forcibly expelled the inhabitants of Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, so as to facilitate the building of a major US base. The relationship is as "special" as that between a pimp and a crack whore.
If by some miracle we can find a way out of the EU, the next thing on the agenda should be independence from the US - 1776 in reverse. Unfortunately, neither of those things is going to happen. Like the clownish imbeciles we are, instead of taking these things seriously we moan about straight cucumbers and cheer the Queen's birthday. You'd have to live here to appreciate the foul wall to wall news coverage/propaganda of the Queen today. Cromwell, where art thou in our hour of need?