Media spies: British snooping.

• Author: Shackford, Scott
• Position: Citings - Brief article

Citizens still may not know exactly how much information government spy agencies actually gather about them, but they are getting a better sense of what governments are capable of doing, thanks to the files leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

In January, The Guardian released new information from Snowden's documents that provides more detail about the bulk surveillance by Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the country's top spy agency. For 10 minutes in 2008, the agency captured emails to and from journalists at top media outlets in both the United States and the United Kingdom. In all, the agency harvested more than 70,000 emails as part of a test exercise. While a lot of the emails were spam or press releases, the...