Exclusive: NSA Pays £100m in Secret Funding for GCHQ ('wants to "exploit any phone, anywhere..."')
Source: Guardian
Thursday 1 August 2013 11.04 EDT
Exclusive: NSA pays £100m in secret funding for GCHQ
• Secret payments revealed in leaks by Edward Snowden
• GCHQ expected to 'pull its weight' for Americans
• Weaker regulation of British spies 'a selling point' for NSA
The US government has paid at least £100m to the UK spy agency GCHQ over the last three years to secure access to and influence over Britain's intelligence gathering programmes.
- snip -
Snowden warned about the relationship between the NSA and GCHQ, saying the organisations have been jointly responsible for developing techniques that allow the mass harvesting and analysis of internet traffic. "It's not just a US problem," he said. "They are worse than the US."
As well as the payments, the documents seen by the Guardian reveal:
• GCHQ is pouring money into efforts to gather personal information from mobile phones and apps, and has said it wants to be able to "exploit any phone, anywhere, any time".
• Some GCHQ staff working on one sensitive programme expressed concern about "the morality and ethics of their operational work, particularly given the level of deception involved".
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/01/nsa-paid-gchq-spying-edward-snowden
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