The German government has expressed its rising anger over Britain's monitoring of global phone and internet traffic and has directly challenged the legality of the controversial surveillance project.
On Tuesday, justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger sent two letters to the British justice secretary, Chris Grayling, and the home secretary, Theresa May, demanding to know the extent to which German citizens have been targeted and warning that democracy could not flourish when states employ a "veil of secrecy" to obscure their actions.
Describing the revelations over GCHQ's surveillance operation as "like a Hollywood nightmare", Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger asked for clarification of the legal basis for Project Tempora and demanded to know whether the programme has been authorised by any judicial authority, according to the Guardian. She also asked for information on the specific nature of data that was collected and whether "concrete suspicions" triggered the data collection.
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The British inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, also waded into the controversy yesterday, accusing the West of hypocrisy and questioning the ability of governments to keep the personal data they have collected safe.
"In the Middle East people have been given access to the internet but they have been snooped on and then they have been jailed," he told The Times.
"Obviously it can be easy for people in the West to say 'Oh those nasty governments shouldn't be allowed access to spy', but it is clear that developed nations are seriously spying on the internet." Full story...
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On Tuesday, justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger sent two letters to the British justice secretary, Chris Grayling, and the home secretary, Theresa May, demanding to know the extent to which German citizens have been targeted and warning that democracy could not flourish when states employ a "veil of secrecy" to obscure their actions.
Describing the revelations over GCHQ's surveillance operation as "like a Hollywood nightmare", Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger asked for clarification of the legal basis for Project Tempora and demanded to know whether the programme has been authorised by any judicial authority, according to the Guardian. She also asked for information on the specific nature of data that was collected and whether "concrete suspicions" triggered the data collection.
(...)
The British inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, also waded into the controversy yesterday, accusing the West of hypocrisy and questioning the ability of governments to keep the personal data they have collected safe.
"In the Middle East people have been given access to the internet but they have been snooped on and then they have been jailed," he told The Times.
"Obviously it can be easy for people in the West to say 'Oh those nasty governments shouldn't be allowed access to spy', but it is clear that developed nations are seriously spying on the internet." Full story...
Related posts:
- GCHQ monitoring described as a 'catastrophe' by German politicians...
- If you think GCHQ spying revelations don't matter, it's time to think again...
- British spy agency GCHQ has secret access to the world's Facebook posts...
- Skype's secret Project Chess reportedly helped NSA access customers' data...
- Senators say NSA phone records played little role in stopping terror plots...
- The NSA snooping was only the beginning: meet the spy chief who is leading...
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