Britain's surveillance agency GCHQ, with aid from the US National Security Agency, intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing, secret documents reveal.
GCHQ files dating between 2008 and 2010 explicitly state that a surveillance program codenamed Optic Nerve collected still images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk and saved them to agency databases, regardless of whether individual users were an intelligence target or not.
In one six-month period in 2008 alone, the agency collected webcam imagery – including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications – from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts globally.
Years ago I told folks we in the
US were seeing the development of a police state.
I wrote then:
As I said on Twitter; I think a lot of people have an idea about what a police state is based on movies and from dictators in the middle east, etc. They fail to realize to recognize the purpose of a police state is population control. Particularly the control of dissident voices and actions within the population. it is the ability to track citizens against their wishes, and it usually accompanied by claims of security and safety. A soft police state is still a police state.
Yes, I said that in 2011.
A "soft" police state is still a police state.
[Update]
In regard to the following:
GCHQ does not have the technical means to make sure no images of UK or US citizens are collected and stored by the system, and there are no restrictions under UK law to prevent Americans' images being accessed by British analysts without an individual warrant.
It has long been known in certain circles that the US and Britain use each other to circumvent the rights and laws of the other country. If the NSA is barred from listening to communications it will get the Brits to do it and vice-versa. Old news to those of use who have been paying attention all these years.
