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"reading people's email before/as they do": GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications at G20 summits:

17 June 2013

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Exclusive: phones were monitored and fake internet cafes set up to gather information from allies in London in 2009 (Guardian, link)

"One document refers to a tactic which was "used a lot in recent UK conference, eg G20". The tactic, which is identified by an internal codeword which the Guardian is not revealing, is defined in an internal glossary as "active collection against an email account that acquires mail messages without removing them from the remote server". A PowerPoint slide explains that this means "reading people's email before/as they do". [emphasis added]

Tony Bunyan, Statewatch Director, comments: "These revelations come as no surprise to those who have tracked US-UK intelligence-gathering since the 1946 UKUSA agreement setting up global cooperation between the NSA and GCHQ. Intercepts by GCHQ are routinely forwarded to the Cabinet Office and then onto Ministries like the Foreign Office and have always given UK Ministers and officials the inside track in EU and international negotiations. Secondly, this confirms that a technological capacity of "reading people's email before/as they do" can be used not only to spy on other governments but also on organisations and individuals in civil society."

Background: UK-USA: National Archive publishes details of the 1946 UKUSA agreement for first time (Statewatch database)

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