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June 22, 2013 02:01 am GMT

Revealed: British Spy Agency Secretly Taps Global Communications

Gchq-surveillance

It's not just the National Security Agency. The NSA's British relative, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), also secretly collects and stores a vast trove of global communications through a surveillance program called Project Tempora, a report in The Guardian revealed Friday.

The GCHQ monitors the world's phone and Internet traffic, including calls, emails, Facebook messages and browsing history by tapping directly into transatlantic fiber optic cables that land on the shores of the UK, The Guardian reported, sourcing more documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden

Project Tempora allows British spies to sift through the vast amount of data passing through the cables. The agency is able to store metadata for up to 30 days and content for up to three days, allowing some time to analyze the data. According to the documents, in just the last year, the GCHQ handled 600 million "telephone events" a day, tapping 200 cables. Given that cables can carry 10 gigabits of data per second, the agency has the capacity to store 21 petabytes a day — the equivalent of more than 279 years of HD video

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Original Link: http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/hD4NfNxrn1c/

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