https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/freedom_watch/snowden_us_and_germany_in_bed_together
For weeks now, officials at intelligence services around the world have been in suspense as one leak after another from whistleblower Edward Snowden has been published. Be it America's National Security Agency, Britain's GCHQ or systems like Prism or Tempora, he has been leaking scandalous information about international spying agencies. In an interview published by SPIEGEL... Snowden provides additional details, describing the closeness between the US and German intelligence services as well as Britain's acquisitiveness ....
In Germany, reports of the United States' vast espionage activities have surprised and upset many, including politicians. ...
The NSA, for example, provides "analysis tools" for the BND [Germany's foreign intelligence service] to monitor signals from foreign data streams that travel through Germany. Among the BND's focuses are the Middle East route through which data packets from crisis regions travel. BND head Gerhard Schindler confirmed the partnership during a recent meeting with members of the German parliament's control committee for intelligence issues....
The 30-year-old also provides new details about Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). He says that Britain's Tempora system is the signal intelligence community's first "full-take Internet buffer," meaning that it saves all of the data passing through the country. ....
Asked if it is possible to get around this total surveillance of all Internet communication, he says: 'As a general rule, so long as you have any choice at all, you should never route through or peer with the UK...'
Those in possession of metadata can determine who has communicated with whom. And using the metadata, they can determine which data sets and communications content they would like to take a closer look at. 'The metadata tells you what out of their data stream you actually want,' Snowden says.
It is becoming increasingly clear to recognize the way in which surveillance programs from the NSA and GCHQ - including Prism, Tempora and Boundless Informant - cooperate. ...[W]ith the touch of a button they can then retrieve or permanently collect the full content of communications that have already been stored for a specific person or group, or they can collect future communications. But a person can also be selected for targeting based on, for example, your Facebook or webmail content."