Tempora, Prism's cousin across the pond.

Tempora is Brightens version of Prism, and it may be even worse then it's cousin across the pond. 

Rather than waste it's time going directly to sites like Facebook, Yahoo, and Google for their data, Tempora has found an easier way. It intercepts it on the world’s network of fiber-optic cables. According to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the British spy agency GCHQ has tapped 200 of the world’s fibre optic cables, and is surveilling more than 600 million “telephone events” a day. It can also intercept e-mails, check Internet users’ access of sites, and can keep tabs on what people are posting on Facebook, according to documents revealed by Snowden to the Guardian.

It has also been revealed that the Tempora program  is sharing it's data with 850,000 NSA employees and private contractors. Do you feel comfortable with that many people having access to your personal data?

Snowden’s documents indicate that GCHQ has built up It's capability over a five year time-span by signing secret agreements with data transmission companies to attach probes to the trans-Atlantic cables where they meet British soil.

A good chunk of what GCHQ is intercepting would be pretty difficult to understand, or use. Internet traffic can be encrypted, and the massive amount of data would be nearly impossible to decrypt in a useful time frame. However, much of the data would be in-the-clear, like metadata about phone calls, and more often then not, web browsing data about what sites you’ve visited. Your Facebook activity can also be sent unencrypted over ordinary HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol), although this can be fixed with a visit to Facebook’s security settings. You can enable secure browsing to encrypt your Facebook sessions, which would make them hard, but not imposable to understand.

When asked how many people Tempora has targeted, the agency’s lawyers replied that it would be impossible to say because “this would be an infinite list which we couldn’t manage.” Not very promising. 

How many other Countries also have equivalents to Prism and Tempora? 

Is there any way to protect our privicy?

                                        [Who's watching you?]