Vodafone Linked To GCHQ Mass Surveillance

Vodafone, one of the UK’s largest wireless carriers, has been linked with the Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) mass surveillance efforts. The information came from Edward Snowden, the ex-NSA contractor and now whistleblower.

Despite not being listed as the largest wireless provider, Vodafone has an extensive reach, being the third largest carrier in the world. This brings even more issues, reports say that the wireless carrier actively worked with the GCHQ, without battling against the surveillance group.
It looks like the GCHQ has been using the wireless carriers in much the same way as the NSA. Verizon Wireless and AT&T were both noted as partners in the NSA mass surveillance program.
Cable & Wireless worked on creating the wireless connection to GCHQ as far back as 2005. GCHQ started working with wireless networks on 2007 and has been steadily increasing the amount of surveillance ever since, going up to 46 billion events stored every day.
This insane number could be even higher, if other carriers are potentially involved. Snowden’s leaks only point to Vodafone as the active provider, but as we have seen in the U.S., sometimes other contracts and court orders are used to gain mass information from carriers.
The British government paid Cable & Wireless $9 million to create this network and has been funding the effort ever since. This would come before the Conservatives came into power, meaning Labour also worked with the GCHQ to target phone networks.
It does show that it does not matter which side of the party is in power, all support this type of surveillance. It is the same with the Republicans and Democrats, both seem to support the mass surveillance effort, even if it goes against public opinion.
In the UK, less has been done to stop the government from funding these efforts, due to apathy over mass surveillance. This has allowed the GCHQ almost unparalleled surveillance power.