Britains Middle East Spy StationStephen Lendman On August 23, The Independent headlined Exclusive: UKs secret Mid-East internet surveillance is revealed in Edward Snowden leaks. Did Snowden provide information to The Independent? He categorically denies doing so. Perhaps its exclusive stopped short of telling all. More on that below. Data gathering is part of a ($1.5 billion) web project still being assembled by GCHQ, said The Independent. Its involved in intercept(ing) and process(ing) vast quantities of emails, telephone calls and web traffic on behalf of Western intelligence agencies, The Independent has learnt. It taps and extracts data from underwater fibre-optic cables passing through the region. It processes them. It passes them onto Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). It hands them to NSA. Government officials lie. They claim lawless spying is vital in waging war on terror. Its an early warning system, they say. Its no such thing. Its a ruse. Its about control. Its about advancing imperial priorities. It wants threats challenging it eliminated. Its about espionage. Its for economic advantage. Its to be one up on foreign competitors. Its for information used advantageously in trade, political, and military relations. A previous article discussed Britains war on freedom. Its being systematically destroyed. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger was ordered to destroy Edward Snowden provided documents. They pertain to lawless NSA spying. They explain GCHQs complicity. Its a longstanding relationship. They operate extrajudicially. Its official policy. NSA and GCHQ want none of their illicit activities revealed. At issue is serious government wrongdoing. It has nothing to do with preventing terrorism. Its for control, espionage and intimidation. Police states operate this way. Britains Middle East station is especially valuable, said The Independent. It accesses submarine cables passing through the region. Data gotten from all sources is copied into giant computer storage buffers and then sifted for data of special interest. Information about the project was contained in 50,000 GCHQ documents that Mr. Snowden downloaded during 2012. Many of them came from an internal Wikipedia-style information site called GC-Wiki. Unlike the public Wikipedia, GCHQs wiki was generally classified Top Secret or above. The Independents article followed Metropolitan Police initiating a terrorist investigation regarding material found on David Mirandas computer. Hes Glenn Greenwalds partner. He was in transit from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro. He threatened no one. He violated no laws. His laptop, cell phone, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and game consoles were confiscated. It was done lawlessly. Gwendolen Morgan represents him. Shes suing on his behalf. She seeks judicial review. She wants assurance that property police wrongfully seized wont be examined. She demands to know if its been passed on to others. If so, to whom, why, and whether they compromised Mirandas privacy. Scotland Yard apparently ignored her. They examined Mirandas hard drive anyway. They claimed it contained highly sensitive material. They said disclosure could put lives at risk. They lied. Information Snowden provided exposed government wrongdoing. Everyone needs to know. Its a national priority. It needs to be stopped. Londons Guardian published Snowdens material. Thousands more documents remain to be disclosed. The Guardian agreed not to report anything potentially compromising national security. It hasnt done so. It wont. It wants government wrongdoing alone exposed. Its vital to do it. Britain demanded the Guardian not publish information on how UK telecom firms secretly collaborate with GCHQ. They do it to intercept the vast majority of all internet traffic entering the country, said The Independent. The paper had details of the highly controversial and secret programme for over a month. But it only published information on the scheme which involved paying the companies to tap into fibre-optic cables entering Britain after the allegations appeared in the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung. Glenn Greenwald has access to Snowdens information. After Mirandas mistreatment, he said hell be far more aggressive in reporting henceforth. I am going to publish many more documents, he said. I have many more on Englands spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did. GCHQs data-gathering operation is a work in progress. Its part of a sweeping spy operation code-named Tempora. Its goal is global digital communications collection. It includes emails, text messages and more. It wants to know everything about everyone. It wants to be Big Brother writ large. NSA operates the same way. Across three sites, communications including telephone calls are tracked both by satellite dishes and by tapping into underwater fibre-optic cables, said The Independent. GCHQ collects information on political intentions of foreign powers. Its after much more than that. Its all-embracing. Its lawless. It doesnt matter. GCHQ target(s) anyone who is overseas or communicating from overseas without further checks or controls. GCHQ and NSA spy domestically. They claim otherwise. They deny blanket data-gathering. They claim operations are security related. They say terror and organized crime are targeted. They lied. Theyve been caught red-handed. Theyre waging war on freedom. On August 23, London Guardian contributor Glenn Greenwaldheadlined Snowden: UK government now leaking documents about itself. He addressed The Independents article discussed above. He quoted Snowden saying: I have never spoken with, worked with, or provided any journalistic materials to the Independent. The journalists I have worked with have, at my request, been judicious and careful in ensuring that the only things disclosed are what the public should know but that does not place any person in danger. People at all levels of society up to and including the President of the United States have recognized the contribution of these careful disclosures to a necessary public debate, and we are proud of this record. It appears that the UK government is now seeking to create an appearance that the Guardian and Washington Posts disclosures are harmful, and they are doing so by intentionally leaking harmful information to The Independent and attributing it to others. The UK government should explain the reasoning behind this decision to disclose information that, were it released by a private citizen, they would argue is a criminal act. Whos the source for The Independents disclosure, asked Greenwald? Britains been abus(ing) and lawless(ly) exploit(ing) its Terrorism Act. It did so against David Miranda. (S)uddenly serious dangers (to) public safety are cited. Disclosures Britains government wants follows. America operates the same way. It aggressively target(s) those who disclose embarrassing or incriminating information about the government in the name of protecting the sanctity of classified information, while simultaneously leaking classified information prolifically when doing so advances (its) political interests. The Independents Oliver Wright responded, saying: For the record: The Independent was not leaked or duped into publishing todays front page story by the Government. Greenwald didnt say it was duped. Whos the source for its disclosure, he asked? Its a legitimate question. It deserves an honest answer. If The Independents information wasnt leaked, where did it come from? Who supplied it? It wasnt Snowden or anyone working with him. Most likely Britains government was involved. A Final Comment It did so after a court ruled that some of the agencys activities were unconstitutional, according to top-secret material passed to the Guardian. Information revealed provides the first evidence of a financial relationship between the tech companies and the NSA. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, Apple, YouTube, Skype, and others are involved. A December 2012 top secret NSA newsletter entry disclosed the huge costs, saying: Renewing FISA court ordered certifications on a temporary basis (instead of annually as required) cost millions of dollars for Prism providers to implement each successive extension costs covered by Special Source Operations (SSO). Snowden calls NSAs SSO its crown jewel. It handles all surveillance programs. It relies on telecom and Internet provider partnerships to do it. Its how NSA accesses all communications. It highlights disturbing questions. NSA officials lie. So do complicit companies. They do it repeatedly. Since the Guardian and Washington Post first revealed NSAs program on June 6, they first denied it existed. They claim informations only supplied in response to specific legal requests from authorities. Earlier information showed they lied. New details provide added confirmation. Companies were asked to respond. Google refused. CEO Eric Schmidts closely connected to powerful Bilderberg movers and shakers. Their agenda includes controlling the global political and technological landscape. Schmidt thinks privacy is quaint and outdated. Hes turning Google into the ultimate Big Brother. Hes working with NSA to do it. So are other online and telecom companies. They operate lawlessly. They breach privacy with impunity. They do it without required authorization. They do it because wholl stop them. linkwithin_text=Related Articles: 