Britain is running secret surveillance base in the Middle East, Edward Snowden reveals.
The latest documents leaked by the US National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden has revealed that the UK is running a secret spying center in the Middle East.
Britain runs the secret snooping station in the Middle East to intercept huge numbers of emails, telephone calls and web traffic for the United States and other Western intelligence agencies, The Independent reported.
The newspaper, however, has not disclosed the exact location of the snooping station.
According to the leaked documents, the information extracted from the underwater fibre-optic cables, is passed to Britain’s eavesdropping agency, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and then shared with the US NSA.
British government claimed the Middle East installation, is a key element in the Westâ„¢s so-called Å“war on terror” and provides a vital Å“early warning” system when it comes to possible attacks.
The UKâ„¢s secret surveillance base in the Middle East is part of a larger $1.5 billion clandestine electronic operation, codenamed Å“Tempora,” which includes recordings of telephone calls, the content of email messages, Facebook entries and the personal internet history of users around the world.
Secret documents on the GCHQ Tempora project monitoring global phones and internet traffic was revealed by Snowden earlier in June.
Earlier this week, British Prime Minister David Cameron pushed the British paper The Guardian to destroy the classified documents it received from former NSA contractor.
Cameron ordered his top civil servant Sir Jeremy Heywood to collect sensitive material which has been leaked to the paper.
Multiple sources, including the paperâ„¢s editor Alan Rusbridger, said Heywood had been tasked by the British PM to warn The Guardian to either Å“hand over the documents or destroy them if it did not want to face legal action”.
MOS/HE
Republished from: Press TV