The National Security Agency and its British counterpart have apparently tapped the fiber-optic cables connecting Google's and Yahoo's overseas servers and are copying vast amounts of email and other information, according to accounts of documents leaked by former agency contractor Edward J. Snowden.
In partnership with the British agency known as Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, the NSA has apparently taken advantage of the vast amounts of data stored in and traveling among global data centers, which run all modern online computing, according to a report Wednesday by The Washington Post. NSA collection activities abroad face fewer legal restrictions and less oversight than its actions in the United States.
Google and Yahoo said Wednesday that they were unaware of government accessing of their data links. Sarah Meron, a Yahoo spokeswoman, said that the company had not cooperated with any government agency for such interception, and David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, expressed outrage.
"We have long been concerned about the possibility of this kind of snooping, which is why we have continued to extend encryption across more and more Google services and links," Drummond said in a statement. "We do not provide any government, including the U.S. government, with access to our systems. We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform."
Note EU-Digest: the other question which obviously arises and needs to be addressed by the EU Parliament and Commission is how Britain, a member of the EU, has (is) participating willingly with the NSA in these matters without the EU Commission or the EU member states having any knowledge of it.
Read more: National Security Agency broke into Yahoo, Google, Facebook, MS Hotmail - The Economic Times
In partnership with the British agency known as Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, the NSA has apparently taken advantage of the vast amounts of data stored in and traveling among global data centers, which run all modern online computing, according to a report Wednesday by The Washington Post. NSA collection activities abroad face fewer legal restrictions and less oversight than its actions in the United States.
Google and Yahoo said Wednesday that they were unaware of government accessing of their data links. Sarah Meron, a Yahoo spokeswoman, said that the company had not cooperated with any government agency for such interception, and David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, expressed outrage.
"We have long been concerned about the possibility of this kind of snooping, which is why we have continued to extend encryption across more and more Google services and links," Drummond said in a statement. "We do not provide any government, including the U.S. government, with access to our systems. We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform."
Note EU-Digest: the other question which obviously arises and needs to be addressed by the EU Parliament and Commission is how Britain, a member of the EU, has (is) participating willingly with the NSA in these matters without the EU Commission or the EU member states having any knowledge of it.
Read more: National Security Agency broke into Yahoo, Google, Facebook, MS Hotmail - The Economic Times
No comments:
Post a Comment