Snowden docs reveal British spies snooped on YouTube and Facebook

The British government can tap into the cables carrying the world’s web traffic at will and spy on what people are doing on some of the world’s most popular social media sites, including YouTube, all without the knowledge or consent of the companies.

Documents taken from the National Security Agency by Edward Snowden detail how British cyber spies demonstrated a pilot program to their US partners in 2012 in which they were able to monitor YouTube in real time and collect addresses from the billions of videos watched daily, as well as some user information, for analysis. At the time the documents were printed, they were also able to spy on Facebook and Twitter. Documents taken from the NSA by Edward Snowden detail how British cyber spies demonstrated a pilot program to their US partners in which they were able to monitor YouTube in real time. Click on the image to read the documents in pdf form. Representatives of Facebook and Google, which owns YouTube, said they hadn’t given the British government permission to access data and were unaware the collection had occurred. A source close to Google who asked not to be identified when discussing company policy said the company was “shocked” to learn the UK could have been “grabbing” its data. National security experts say that both the US and British operations are within the scope of their respective national laws.