NSA Pays $150m in Secret Funding for U.K. Government Communications HQ

Editor’s Note: Did you know there was something called the “Five Eyes” electronic eavesdropping alliance which is comprised of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand?

Exclusive: NSA pays £100m in secret funding for GCHQ
The Guardian
August 1, 2013

• 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.

[…]

The funding underlines the closeness of the relationship between GCHQ and its US equivalent, the National Security Agency. But it will raise fears about the hold Washington has over the UK’s biggest and most important intelligence agency, and whether Britain’s dependency on the NSA has become too great.

[…]

Ministers have denied that GCHQ does the NSA’s “dirty work”, but in the documents GCHQ describes Britain’s surveillance laws and regulatory regime as a “selling point” for the Americans.

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