Tempora: British tapping transatlantic cable for internet monitoring

While the excitement about the American secret listening program “Prism” has not yet subsided, there is already information about the possibly even more extensive espionage program “Tempora”. The GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarter), the British intelligence agency, has used this program to tap the TAT-14 optical fiber cable, which transmits a large portion of the American overseas communications (telephone and Internet)

This is evidenced by the secret documents that the former US secret service staff and present Whistleblower had provided Edward Snowden’s media. There are apparently large telephone corporations in the technical handling of the abolition. It will be about Vodafone and the British telecommunications act. While Vodafone emphasizes the need to comply with the laws in force in the respective countries and rejects further declarations, British Telecommunication has so far not given an opinion.


In politics, the usual reactions now appear between more or less genuine astonishment and indignation, as well as more or less fundamental, legal or political considerations and demands.