Code-name“Tempora” – UK’s secret Middle-East internet surveillance base
Via
StratRisks – Must Read: Glimmerglass Intercepts Undersea Cable Traffic for Spy
Agencies
Source: Independent
Britain
runs a secret internet-monitoring station in the Middle East to intercept and
process vast quantities of emails, telephone calls and web traffic on behalf of
Western intelligence agencies, The Independent has learnt.
The
station is able to tap into and extract data from the underwater fibre-optic
cables passing through the region.
The
information is then processed for intelligence and passed to GCHQ in Cheltenham
and shared with the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States. The
Government claims the station is a key element in the West’s “war on terror” and
provides a vital “early warning” system for potential attacks around the
world.
The
Independent is not revealing the precise location of the station but
information on its activities was contained in the leaked documents obtained
from the NSA by Edward Snowden. The Guardian newspaper’s reporting on
these documents in recent months has sparked a dispute with the Government, with
GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives containing the
data.
The
Middle East installation is regarded as particularly valuable by the British and
Americans because it can access submarine cables passing through the region. All
of the messages and data passed back and forth on the cables 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, GCHQ’s wiki was
generally classified Top Secret or above.
