{"id":83910,"date":"2013-06-22T21:08:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-22T20:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?guid=341ed71f4bcaba71ff0720051ac41eb0"},"modified":"2013-06-22T21:08:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-22T20:08:00","slug":"the-surveillance-state-in-britain-everything-is-not-okay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/the-surveillance-state-in-britain-everything-is-not-okay\/","title":{"rendered":"The Surveillance State: In Britain, Everything Is Not Okay!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left;\" trbidi=\"on\">\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 36pt;\">\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-RSiGQ_iRtpM\/UcYGvvZrg8I\/AAAAAAAAEho\/129GRt8NqAs\/s1600\/xxxx.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-RSiGQ_iRtpM\/UcYGvvZrg8I\/AAAAAAAAEho\/129GRt8NqAs\/s1600\/xxxx.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Global Research and Countercurrents 22\/6\/2013, The Market Oracle 23\/6\/2013 and Deccan Herald 27\/6\/2013<\/p><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 36pt;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 36pt;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">\u201cThe innocent have everything to fear, mostly from the guilty, but in the longer term even more from those who say things like \u2018The innocent have nothing to fear.\u2019&#8221;<\/span><span style=\"color: #333333;\">&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Terry Pratchett (British author), in Snuff (Doubleday, 2011).<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 36pt;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">For many people, personal privacy&nbsp;<i>vs<\/i>&nbsp;widespread surveillance has been a major issue for decades. However, some thought mass spying on us has been happening but chose to downplay it. Others didn\u2019t want to know and just didn\u2019t care. Edward Snowden\u2019s recent revelations indicate it is happening and that we should all care. &nbsp; &nbsp;<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Former National Security Agency (NSA) worker turned whistleblower Edward Snowden has now turned his attention to the&nbsp;<span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)<\/span>, the British equivalent of the NSA. On Friday, Snowden released documents to The Guardian newspaper in the&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">UK<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;to back up his claims that GCHQ has secretly accessed fibre optic cables carrying huge amounts of internet and communications data. According to The Guardian, the agency is able to tap into, analyse and store data. Snowden told the newspaper that the NSA has a more prolific British ally in GCHQ. (GCHQ is one of three&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">UK<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">intelligence agencies, alongside MI5 and MI6.)<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 36pt;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 36pt;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">\u201cIt\u2019s not just a&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">US<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;problem. The&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">UK<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;has a huge dog in this fight\u2026 They (GCHQ) are worse than the&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">US<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">.\u201d Edward Snowden<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Although it is physically impossible for the intelligence agencies to read everyone\u2019s emails, for instance, GCHQ can apparently record phone calls, read email and Facebook postings and review website traffic if they so wish. It can also access entire web use histories on individuals. Although GCHQ can only store certain data for 30 days, the Guardian says the practice is subject to little scrutiny. GCHQ operation can tap cables that carry global communications with the potential to carry 600 million daily \u2018telephone events\u2019.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 36pt;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 36pt;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">\u201cIf GCHQ have been intercepting huge numbers of innocent people&#8217;s communications as part of a massive sweeping exercise, then I struggle to see how that squares with a process that requires a warrant for each individual intercept.\u201d Nick Pickles, Big Brother Watch director, as reported in The Guardian, 22 June.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">This massive interception effort operates under two programmes: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation.&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">GCHQ is tapping 200 internet links, each with a data rate of 10Gbps, and the agency has the technical capacity to concurrently analyze 46 of these 200 streams of data at a time.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\">The revelations come alongside reports of the NSA snooping on US and international citizens via the metadata held on them by telecommunication companies, and secret data-sharing agreements between the NSA and consumer-web giants, such as Facebook, Google, Apple and others under the PRISM&nbsp;scheme.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\">GCHQ is able to capitalize on the UK&#8217;s position at the edge of Western Europe, by tapping into the vast quantity of data flowing through cables around the UK and abroad. Over 300 GCHQ and 250 NSA analysts sift through the data, which they use to identify communications relating to security, terror, organized crime, and economic well-being.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;\"><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;\"><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">Britain<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">US<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">&nbsp;are the founding members of the Five-Eyes intelligence sharing agreement. The Five-Eyes are members of a special club of former British colonies that gather and intelligence with each other.&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">Australia<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">,&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">Canada<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">and&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">New Zealand<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">&nbsp;are the three other members.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;\"><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">According to The Guardian,&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">Britain<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">&#8216;s ability to tap these fibre-optic cables makes it the web eavesdropping powerhouse of the Five-Eyes, with the documents provided by Snowden saying that of the five,&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">Britain<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">&nbsp;has &#8220;the biggest Internet access.&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;\"><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">The Guardian reports that British personnel on the team of 300 GCHQ and 250 NSA analysts sifting through the data have &#8220;a light oversight regime compared to the&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">US<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">&#8220;<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 14.4pt;\"><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">The newspaper reports that 850,000 NSA and employees and private American contractors have been able to access to the information gathered by CGHQ. One of the documents quotes NSA boss Gen. Keith Alexander as urging British spies to collect everything they could.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 14.4pt;\"><i><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">&#8220;Why can&#8217;t we collect at the signals, all the time? Sounds like a good summer homework project for Menwith,&#8221;&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">is written at the top of a slide shown by the Guardian that supposedly quotes Alexander during a 2008 visit to the&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">UK<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">. The slide is titled, &#8220;Collect-it-all.&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 14.4pt;\"><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">Menwith refers to RAF Menwith Hill, a secret signals intelligence gathering facility in the&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">Yorkshire<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">&nbsp;countryside run by the&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">US<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 14.4pt;\"><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">GCHQ operatives tapped the fibre-optic cables over the last five years at the point where the transatlantic cables reach British shores &#8211; these cables move Internet and telephone data from&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">North America<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">&nbsp;to&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">Western Europe<\/span><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">.&nbsp; All of this was done with agreements with the communications companies, described by the document as &#8220;intercept partners.&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 14.4pt;\"><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">Last week, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Robert Cole defended bulk collection of cellphone data and other business records to US lawmakers:<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 14.4pt 36pt;\"><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f;\">&#8220;If you&#8217;re looking for a needle in a haystack, you&#8217;ve got to get the haystack first,&#8221; said Cole during a June 18 House intelligence committee hearing on the matter. &#8220;That&#8217;s why we have the ability under the [FISA] court order, to acquire . . . all of that data, we don&#8217;t get to use all of that data, necessarily.&#8221; As reported by John Reed in Foreign Policy on 21 June.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.15pt;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Britain<\/span><span style=\"color: #333333;\">&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #333333;\">US<\/span><span style=\"color: #333333;\">&nbsp;are rapidly perfecting the system to allow them to capture and analyse a large quantity of international traffic consisting of emails, texts, phone calls, internet searches, chat, photographs, blogposts, videos and the many uses of Google.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.15pt;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Writing in The Guardian on Friday 21 June, Henry Porter states:<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.15pt 36pt;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">\u201cMastering the Internet treats the rights of billions of foreign web users, the possible menace to the privacy of British and American citizens and the duties of their legislators with equal contempt. After&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Iraq<\/span><span style=\"color: #333333;\">&nbsp;and the banking crash, the world may come to see MTI as further evidence of a heedless delinquency in two of the world&#8217;s oldest democracies.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"color: #333333;\">Porter talks about the lack of meaningful oversight in both countries, the use of commercial companies in the surveillance process and the wholesale disregard for the fundamentals of both countries\u2019 democratic principles.&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"color: #505050;\">Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil rights organisation&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"color: #505050;\">Liberty<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"color: #505050;\">, says that GCHQ are exploiting the fact that the internet is so international in nature and that what&#8217;s holding them back from going further is technological capability, certainly not ethics (1).<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.15pt;\"><b><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Why it matters, really matters<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.15pt;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">For too long, the majority in&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Britain<\/span><span style=\"color: #333333;\">&nbsp;has been led to believe that governments in major western liberal democracies operate with benign intentions, that the government acts on our behalf and in our interests and that only those with something to hide have anything to fear. The belief is forwarded that the loss of liberty and intrusions into our personal privacy are small prices to pay for ensuring our safety in a barbaric world that wants to attack and inflict terror on us.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.15pt;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">It\u2019s all part of the dominant narrative. It\u2019s all part of a dominant narrative that seeks to mislead and to mask the real essence of power and the true nature of intent behind notions of patriotism, nationalism, bowing down to the flag, militarism and that \u2018we\u2019, \u2018the nation\u2019 are in united in cause and belief. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"color: #333333;\">What Snowden\u2019s revelations illustrate is the unaccountable face of power. And this should concern us because&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">it\u2019s not the greater good of humankind, queen, flag or country that this power serves. It ultimately serves capital and the extremely wealthy, whose interests are diametrically opposed to those of ordinary people across the world (2).<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Look no further to see who funds the major political parties or individual politicians to do their bidding. Look no further than the backgrounds of many of these politicians. But, most important, look no further to see who owns the major corporations and banks and who sits on the bodies that hammer out major policies (3)(4)(5).<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;It is the powerful foundations and think tanks headed or funded by private corporations that drive&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">US<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;and British policies, whether at home or abroad, and that includes the Project for a New American Century (6) and the resultant ongoing war of terror waged on countries across the world.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Western liberal democracy has been quite successful in making many at home blind to the chains that bind and which make them immune to the falsehoods that underpin the system. However, with the economic meltdown, \u2018austerity\u2019, increasing public awareness of corporate crimes, disillusionment with mainstream politics and the ramping up of wars, paranoia and the stripping away of civil liberties, social control is no longer able to operate on the relatively benign level that it once did. The collapse of the economic system and its propping up has laid bare just who that system is set up to benefit. State violence and mass surveillance is now part of the changing agenda of liberal democracy that is no longer able to hide behind the pretence of being liberal or democratic. The mask has slipped and we are right to be concerned.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 36pt;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"color: #333333;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 36pt;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"color: #333333;\">\u201cThe world has evidence of the totally monitored future that GCHQ and NSA plan for us and that political establishments turn a blind eye to\u2026. fear still trumps everything. On Tuesday, the head of&nbsp;NSA, General Keith B Alexander, and the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, insisted that many terror plots had been stopped by surveillance. In&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"color: #333333;\">Britain<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"color: #333333;\">, the foreign secretary, William Hague\u2026 was joined by three former home secretaries, Jack Straw, Lord (John) Reid and Alan Johnson, to reassure us that mass surveillance was indeed necessary to make interdictions and\u2026 that further powers were needed\u2026 The point about these latest revelations is that they show there are more than adequate powers for interception on both sides of the&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"color: #333333;\">Atlantic<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"color: #333333;\">&nbsp;and that the terror agenda and, to a lesser degree, the fear of paedophilia, may well have been used to elaborate a huge system of espionage and domestic surveillance.\u201d \u2014 Henry Porter, The Guardian 21 June.<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.15pt;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.15pt;\"><b><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Notes<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"color: #333333;\">1)&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-23012910\" style=\"color: #1155cc;\" >http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-<wbr><\/wbr>23012910<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"color: #333333;\">2)&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2005\/07\/live-j01.html\" style=\"color: #1155cc;\" >http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/<wbr><\/wbr>articles\/2005\/07\/live-j01.html<\/a><wbr><\/wbr>)<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"color: #333333;\">3)<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/landdestroyer.blogspot.co.uk\/2012\/09\/tipping-balance-of-power.html\" style=\"color: #1155cc;\" >http:\/\/landdestroyer.blogspot.<wbr><\/wbr>co.uk\/2012\/09\/tipping-balance-<wbr><\/wbr>of-power.html<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">4)&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/the-four-horsemen-behind-america-s-oil-wars\/24507\" style=\"color: #1155cc;\" >http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/<wbr><\/wbr>the-four-horsemen-behind-<wbr><\/wbr>america-s-oil-wars\/24507<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">5)&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/bruceupbin\/2011\/10\/22\/the-147-companies-that-control-everything\/\" style=\"color: #1155cc;\" >http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/<wbr><\/wbr>bruceupbin\/2011\/10\/22\/the-147-<wbr><\/wbr>companies-that-control-<wbr><\/wbr>everything\/<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.15pt;\"><b><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><br \/><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.15pt;\"><b><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Sources for this article<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.15pt;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">The Guardian 21 and 22 June<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.15pt;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Foreign Policy:&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/killerapps.foreignpolicy.com\/posts\/2013\/06\/21\/the_british_are_spying_on_us_and_theyve_got_more_access_than_the_nsa\" style=\"color: #1155cc;\" >http:\/\/killerapps.<wbr><\/wbr>foreignpolicy.com\/posts\/2013\/<wbr><\/wbr>06\/21\/the_british_are_spying_<wbr><\/wbr>on_us_and_theyve_got_more_<wbr><\/wbr>access_than_the_nsa<\/a><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.15pt;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">The Register:&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2013\/06\/21\/gchq_nsa_spooks\/\" style=\"color: #1155cc;\" >http:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/<wbr><\/wbr>2013\/06\/21\/gchq_nsa_spooks\/<\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\" trbidi=\"on\">\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-RSiGQ_iRtpM\/UcYGvvZrg8I\/AAAAAAAAEho\/129GRt8NqAs\/s1600\/xxxx.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-RSiGQ_iRtpM\/UcYGvvZrg8I\/AAAAAAAAEho\/129GRt8NqAs\/s1600\/xxxx.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Global Research and Countercurrents 22\/6\/2013, The Market Oracle 23\/6\/2013 and Deccan Herald 27\/6\/2013<\/p><\/div>\n<div><span><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>&ldquo;The innocent have everything to fear, mostly from the guilty, but in the longer term even more from those who say things like &lsquo;The innocent have nothing to fear.&rsquo;&#8221;<\/span><span>&nbsp;<\/span><span>Terry Pratchett (British author), in Snuff (Doubleday, 2011).<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">For many people, personal privacy&nbsp;<i>vs<\/i>&nbsp;widespread surveillance has been a major issue for decades. However, some thought mass spying on us has been happening but chose to downplay it. Others didn&rsquo;t want to know and just didn&rsquo;t care. Edward Snowden&rsquo;s recent revelations indicate it is happening and that we should all care. &nbsp; &nbsp;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Former National Security Agency (NSA) worker turned whistleblower Edward Snowden has now turned his attention to the&nbsp;<span>Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)<\/span>, the British equivalent of the NSA. On Friday, Snowden released documents to The Guardian newspaper in the&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">UK<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;to back up his claims that GCHQ has secretly accessed fibre optic cables carrying huge amounts of internet and communications data. According to The Guardian, the agency is able to tap into, analyse and store data. Snowden told the newspaper that the NSA has a more prolific British ally in GCHQ. (GCHQ is one of three&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">UK<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">intelligence agencies, alongside MI5 and MI6.)<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not just a&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">US<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;problem. The&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">UK<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;has a huge dog in this fight&hellip; They (GCHQ) are worse than the&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">US<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">.&rdquo; Edward Snowden<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Although it is physically impossible for the intelligence agencies to read everyone&rsquo;s emails, for instance, GCHQ can apparently record phone calls, read email and Facebook postings and review website traffic if they so wish. It can also access entire web use histories on individuals. Although GCHQ can only store certain data for 30 days, the Guardian says the practice is subject to little scrutiny. GCHQ operation can tap cables that carry global communications with the potential to carry 600 million daily &lsquo;telephone events&rsquo;.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&ldquo;If GCHQ have been intercepting huge numbers of innocent people&#8217;s communications as part of a massive sweeping exercise, then I struggle to see how that squares with a process that requires a warrant for each individual intercept.&rdquo; Nick Pickles, Big Brother Watch director, as reported in The Guardian, 22 June.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">This massive interception effort operates under two programmes: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation.&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">GCHQ is tapping 200 internet links, each with a data rate of 10Gbps, and the agency has the technical capacity to concurrently analyze 46 of these 200 streams of data at a time.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The revelations come alongside reports of the NSA snooping on US and international citizens via the metadata held on them by telecommunication companies, and secret data-sharing agreements between the NSA and consumer-web giants, such as Facebook, Google, Apple and others under the PRISM&nbsp;scheme.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>GCHQ is able to capitalize on the UK&#8217;s position at the edge of Western Europe, by tapping into the vast quantity of data flowing through cables around the UK and abroad. Over 300 GCHQ and 250 NSA analysts sift through the data, which they use to identify communications relating to security, terror, organized crime, and economic well-being.<\/div>\n<div><span><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>Britain<\/span><span>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<\/span><span>US<\/span><span>&nbsp;are the founding members of the Five-Eyes intelligence sharing agreement. The Five-Eyes are members of a special club of former British colonies that gather and intelligence with each other.&nbsp;<\/span><span>Australia<\/span><span>,&nbsp;<\/span><span>Canada<\/span><span>and&nbsp;<\/span><span>New Zealand<\/span><span>&nbsp;are the three other members.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span>According to The Guardian,&nbsp;<\/span><span>Britain<\/span><span>&#8216;s ability to tap these fibre-optic cables makes it the web eavesdropping powerhouse of the Five-Eyes, with the documents provided by Snowden saying that of the five,&nbsp;<\/span><span>Britain<\/span><span>&nbsp;has &#8220;the biggest Internet access.&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span>The Guardian reports that British personnel on the team of 300 GCHQ and 250 NSA analysts sifting through the data have &#8220;a light oversight regime compared to the&nbsp;<\/span><span>US<\/span><span>&#8220;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span>The newspaper reports that 850,000 NSA and employees and private American contractors have been able to access to the information gathered by CGHQ. One of the documents quotes NSA boss Gen. Keith Alexander as urging British spies to collect everything they could.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><i><span>&#8220;Why can&#8217;t we collect at the signals, all the time? Sounds like a good summer homework project for Menwith,&#8221;&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><span>is written at the top of a slide shown by the Guardian that supposedly quotes Alexander during a 2008 visit to the&nbsp;<\/span><span>UK<\/span><span>. The slide is titled, &#8220;Collect-it-all.&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>Menwith refers to RAF Menwith Hill, a secret signals intelligence gathering facility in the&nbsp;<\/span><span>Yorkshire<\/span><span>&nbsp;countryside run by the&nbsp;<\/span><span>US<\/span><span>.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>GCHQ operatives tapped the fibre-optic cables over the last five years at the point where the transatlantic cables reach British shores &#8211; these cables move Internet and telephone data from&nbsp;<\/span><span>North America<\/span><span>&nbsp;to&nbsp;<\/span><span>Western Europe<\/span><span>.&nbsp; All of this was done with agreements with the communications companies, described by the document as &#8220;intercept partners.&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>Last week, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Robert Cole defended bulk collection of cellphone data and other business records to US lawmakers:<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>&#8220;If you&#8217;re looking for a needle in a haystack, you&#8217;ve got to get the haystack first,&#8221; said Cole during a June 18 House intelligence committee hearing on the matter. &#8220;That&#8217;s why we have the ability under the [FISA] court order, to acquire . . . all of that data, we don&#8217;t get to use all of that data, necessarily.&#8221; As reported by John Reed in Foreign Policy on 21 June.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>Britain<\/span><span>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<\/span><span>US<\/span><span>&nbsp;are rapidly perfecting the system to allow them to capture and analyse a large quantity of international traffic consisting of emails, texts, phone calls, internet searches, chat, photographs, blogposts, videos and the many uses of Google.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>Writing in The Guardian on Friday 21 June, Henry Porter states:<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>&ldquo;Mastering the Internet treats the rights of billions of foreign web users, the possible menace to the privacy of British and American citizens and the duties of their legislators with equal contempt. After&nbsp;<\/span><span>Iraq<\/span><span>&nbsp;and the banking crash, the world may come to see MTI as further evidence of a heedless delinquency in two of the world&#8217;s oldest democracies.&rdquo;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Porter talks about the lack of meaningful oversight in both countries, the use of commercial companies in the surveillance process and the wholesale disregard for the fundamentals of both countries&rsquo; democratic principles.&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil rights organisation&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Liberty<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">, says that GCHQ are exploiting the fact that the internet is so international in nature and that what&#8217;s holding them back from going further is technological capability, certainly not ethics (1).<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b><span>Why it matters, really matters<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n<div><span>For too long, the majority in&nbsp;<\/span><span>Britain<\/span><span>&nbsp;has been led to believe that governments in major western liberal democracies operate with benign intentions, that the government acts on our behalf and in our interests and that only those with something to hide have anything to fear. The belief is forwarded that the loss of liberty and intrusions into our personal privacy are small prices to pay for ensuring our safety in a barbaric world that wants to attack and inflict terror on us.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>It&rsquo;s all part of the dominant narrative. It&rsquo;s all part of a dominant narrative that seeks to mislead and to mask the real essence of power and the true nature of intent behind notions of patriotism, nationalism, bowing down to the flag, militarism and that &lsquo;we&rsquo;, &lsquo;the nation&rsquo; are in united in cause and belief. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">What Snowden&rsquo;s revelations illustrate is the unaccountable face of power. And this should concern us because&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">it&rsquo;s not the greater good of humankind, queen, flag or country that this power serves. It ultimately serves capital and the extremely wealthy, whose interests are diametrically opposed to those of ordinary people across the world (2).<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Look no further to see who funds the major political parties or individual politicians to do their bidding. Look no further than the backgrounds of many of these politicians. But, most important, look no further to see who owns the major corporations and banks and who sits on the bodies that hammer out major policies (3)(4)(5).<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;It is the powerful foundations and think tanks headed or funded by private corporations that drive&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">US<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;and British policies, whether at home or abroad, and that includes the Project for a New American Century (6) and the resultant ongoing war of terror waged on countries across the world.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Western liberal democracy has been quite successful in making many at home blind to the chains that bind and which make them immune to the falsehoods that underpin the system. However, with the economic meltdown, &lsquo;austerity&rsquo;, increasing public awareness of corporate crimes, disillusionment with mainstream politics and the ramping up of wars, paranoia and the stripping away of civil liberties, social control is no longer able to operate on the relatively benign level that it once did. The collapse of the economic system and its propping up has laid bare just who that system is set up to benefit. State violence and mass surveillance is now part of the changing agenda of liberal democracy that is no longer able to hide behind the pretence of being liberal or democratic. The mask has slipped and we are right to be concerned.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&ldquo;The world has evidence of the totally monitored future that GCHQ and NSA plan for us and that political establishments turn a blind eye to&hellip;. fear still trumps everything. On Tuesday, the head of&nbsp;NSA, General Keith B Alexander, and the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, insisted that many terror plots had been stopped by surveillance. In&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Britain<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">, the foreign secretary, William Hague&hellip; was joined by three former home secretaries, Jack Straw, Lord (John) Reid and Alan Johnson, to reassure us that mass surveillance was indeed necessary to make interdictions and&hellip; that further powers were needed&hellip; The point about these latest revelations is that they show there are more than adequate powers for interception on both sides of the&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Atlantic<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;and that the terror agenda and, to a lesser degree, the fear of paedophilia, may well have been used to elaborate a huge system of espionage and domestic surveillance.&rdquo; &ndash; Henry Porter, The Guardian 21 June.<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b><span>Notes<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">1)&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-23012910\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-<wbr><\/wbr>23012910<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">2)&nbsp;<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2005\/07\/live-j01.html\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/<wbr><\/wbr>articles\/2005\/07\/live-j01.html<\/a><wbr><\/wbr>)<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">3)<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/landdestroyer.blogspot.co.uk\/2012\/09\/tipping-balance-of-power.html\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/landdestroyer.blogspot.<wbr><\/wbr>co.uk\/2012\/09\/tipping-balance-<wbr><\/wbr>of-power.html<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">4)&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/the-four-horsemen-behind-america-s-oil-wars\/24507\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/<wbr><\/wbr>the-four-horsemen-behind-<wbr><\/wbr>america-s-oil-wars\/24507<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span lang=\"EN-GB\">5)&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/bruceupbin\/2011\/10\/22\/the-147-companies-that-control-everything\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/<wbr><\/wbr>bruceupbin\/2011\/10\/22\/the-147-<wbr><\/wbr>companies-that-control-<wbr><\/wbr>everything\/<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div><b><span><br \/><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n<div><b><span>Sources for this article<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n<div><span>The Guardian 21 and 22 June<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>Foreign Policy:&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/killerapps.foreignpolicy.com\/posts\/2013\/06\/21\/the_british_are_spying_on_us_and_theyve_got_more_access_than_the_nsa\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/killerapps.<wbr><\/wbr>foreignpolicy.com\/posts\/2013\/<wbr><\/wbr>06\/21\/the_british_are_spying_<wbr><\/wbr>on_us_and_theyve_got_more_<wbr><\/wbr>access_than_the_nsa<\/a><span><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>The Register:&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2013\/06\/21\/gchq_nsa_spooks\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/<wbr><\/wbr>2013\/06\/21\/gchq_nsa_spooks\/<\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1214,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-83910","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news","7":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1214"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}