MI5 feared GCHQ went 'too far' over phone and internet monitoring

[Rosa Luxemburg]

Source: The Guardian. UK

Senior figures inside British intelligence have been alarmed by GCHQ's secret decision to tap into transatlantic cables in order to engage in the bulk interception of phone calls and internet traffic.

According to one source who has been directly involved in GCHQ operations, concerns were expressed when the project was being discussed internally in 2008: "We felt we were starting to overstep the mark with some of it. People from MI5 were complaining that they were going too far from a civil liberties perspective … We all had reservations about it, because we all thought: 'If this was used against us, we wouldn't stand a chance'."

The Guardian revealed on Friday that GCHQ has placed more than 200 probes on transatlantic cables and is processing 600m "telephone events" a day as well as up to 39m gigabytes of internet traffic. Using a programme codenamed Tempora, it can store and analyse voice recordings, the content of emails, entries on Facebook, the use of websites as well as the "metadata" which records who has contacted who. The programme is shared with GCHQ's American partner, the National Security Agency.


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/23/mi5-feared-gchq-went-too-far

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It would seem that the USA is not the only country doing the over-surveillance. Nothing new really.

According to the UK source: "Not so long ago, this was all about attaching crocodile clips to copper wires............."

[DavidDvorkin]

1. When MI5 thinks you've gone too far, you very probably have.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

5. It's interesting that one agency is complaining about the other

I suppose it would be like the FBI saying to the NSA - you've gone too far?

[DavidDvorkin]

6. If they're under separate cabinet ministers, that might have a lot to do with it.

[Iliyah]

2. The Guardian UK again

No, most major countries are tracking and it won't change but the method will. Thanks Greenwald, ya'll made the world more paranoid through Snowden.

[bhikkhu]

3. So, the US, Britain, certainly China and Russia

probably many others. That's the bulk of the human population there.

"Nothing new really" is my impression as well. Having grown up at the tail end of the cold war, the technology now is new but the basic approach of governments to the public/private divide hasn't especially changed.

They monitor because they think they have to, and they know their neighbors and rivals are. Peace might relax vigilance, but every intelligence failure or challenge ramps it back up again.

[blkmusclmachine]

4. We can hear you now.