Report: Britain Has a Secret Middle East Web Surveillance Base

wiredmikey writes "Britain is running a secret Internet surveillance station in the Middle East, according to a recent report citing the latest leaked documents obtained by fugitive US security contractor Edward Snowden. The Independent newspaper said it was not disclosing the country where the base is located, but said the facility can intercept emails, telephone calls and web traffic for the United States and other intelligence agencies and taps into underwater fibre-optic cables in the region, the newspaper said. The Independent did not disclose how it obtained the details from the Snowden files."

Re:Yes, and?

[AHuxley]

The problem with the UK and its secret surveillance stations is in the political power it gives the host country.
Land, power, guards, a local cover story was once all post colonial joy or NATO like anti Soviet deals, training and some basic intel sharing.
eg Cold war Sweden got some airborne elint but no UK/US like sharing/resources.
The problem with the local "citizens" is once the locals find out the steps the local rulers/politicians/military have to take to keep the secret again.
Britain's Embassy in Peking was looted by "protesters" in 1967 and lost its Rockex cypher equipment.
Iran, Ethiopia and Turkey (via TPLA and TPLF) where often at issue to further UK/US sites in the ~1960's (and other sites later during the Cold War).
ie the Cld War offered sigint facilities extreme secrecy.
Now nations offer other types of sites just to show how thankful they are:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cia-black-sites-lithuania/story?id=9400744 [go.com]
http://www.thejournal.ie/british-papers-reveal-interrogation-centre-in-derry-1023719-Aug2013/ [thejournal.ie]
"Secret British papers reveal secret 1970s interrogation centre in Derry"
Sites have many uses and can become news again years later. "subject to deep interrogation under the five techniques system the European Commission has called ‘torture’"

Re:Yes, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

You may be right. From the linked article....

"But there are fears in Government that Mr Greenwald – who still has access to the files – could attempt to release damaging information.

He said after the arrest of Mr Miranda: “I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I have many more documents on England’s spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did.”"

Re:"...not disclosing....where the base is located

[SpockLogic]

The UK have sovereign bases on Cyprus, about 150 miles wet of Lebanon, and having a listening post on the top of the islands highest mountain shouldn't be difficult.

Put some old news in a new context

[gmuslera]

like this cable cut near Egypt [gigaom.com]

in march (and probably others undersea cable cuts that happened recently close to that zone). Or it was an "oops, i did it again" from an agent, or was meant to be done that way (i.,e. an "accidental" cut by an anchor) so the company that repaired it added the extra functionality.

Re:Remember all those times the cables were cut?

[Burz]

Remember Skype's blackout? Six weeks later on 2/6/2011 they joined NSA's PRISM program. And given the P2P nature of Skype, I'm sure it was a more difficult conversion than the other services.

Re:traitor

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been against interfering with Snowden and thought that we should just let him be in Russia.
But at this time, if he suddenly dies, and all the data is grabbed, I am fine with that.

Your willingness to "not mind" if Snowden is murdered marks you as a morally bankrupt
person. And that is sad, both for you and for those whose lives will be made poorer by
knowing you.

But your assumption that "all the data" could somehow be "grabbed" marks you
as technologically illiterate. The very idea that "all the data" could somehow be "grabbed"
when there are many mirrors of the data in multiple locations makes your idea laughable,
even to ten year old children I know who are computer literate.

So you don't belong on this website because you lack the faculties
required to swim in this pool. Perhaps you can find a place on Facebook where
there are people stupid enough to accept your idiocy and the drivel you write.

Your own link proves otherwise

[Camael]

Did you even check the source/link you posted?

The very first entry as of now, is Bush Secretly Lifted Some Limits on Spying in U.S. After 9/11, Officials Say [cryptome.org]

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight.

So much for your comment that

'The United States cannot target a foreigner to intercept the communications of one of its own citizens, nor can it use a second party nation (UK, CAN, AUS, or NZ), or anyone else, to target US citizens or anyone else it would be otherwise prohibited from targeting.'

They've moved beyond that, they're targetting citizens directly, without warrants, i.e. illegally.