British spy agency tapped emails from journalists all over the world, says report

Britain’s electronic spy agency GCHQ tapped the emails of journalists at some of the world’s top media organisations, according to the Guardian. The report said GCHQ gathered emails from journalists at the BBC, the Guardian, Le Monde, NBC, the New York Times, the Sun, Reuters and the Washington Post. The emails were gathered in one of many taps of the fiber-optic cables that form the Internet’s backbone, and were available for viewing by any cleared staff on GCHQ’s intranet, according to the report. The spy agency considers journalists as “a potential threat to security” according to internal security advice cited by the Guardian, with investigative journalists listed as a threat alongside terrorists and hackers.

All classes of journalists and reporters may try either a formal approach or an informal approach, possibly with off-duty personnel, in their attempts to gain official information to which they are not entitled.

From a GCHQ document

Prime Minister David Cameron renewed calls for increased powers of surveillance in the wake of attacks by extremists in Paris that left 17 dead, saying terrorists should be denied a “safe space” to communicate. Over 100 editors of British newspapers published a joint letter on Monday calling on the government to stop law enforcement officials viewing journalists’ phone records without a warrant from a judge.

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