GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's communications
Found on The Guardian on Saturday, 22 June 2013
Britain's spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA).
The documents reveal that by last year GCHQ was handling 600m "telephone events" each day, had tapped more than 200 fibre-optic cables and was able to process data from at least 46 of them at a time.
The source with knowledge of intelligence said on Friday the companies were obliged to co-operate in this operation. They are forbidden from revealing the existence of warrants compelling them to allow GCHQ access to the cables.
This get more and more ugly. It feels like a house that's infested with cockroaches and everytime a little light hits the floor they hurry to hide in the shadows again.