Snowden leaked docs outline surveillance on WikiLeaks

Edward Snowden has released some documents that were classified that outline the surveillance the US and British governments had in place on the website WikiLeaks. The documents outline the surveillance that the NSA and the British NSA counterpart performed on WikiLeaks and the visitors to the site.

The documents show that the groups led a campaign of international pressure aimed at WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The documents also tip that the NSA was targeting what is called "the human network that supports WikiLeaks."

The documents also outline ways the agencies planned to target Pirate Bay and hackers like Anonymous. One of the documents was from the British Government Communications Headquarters, which is a British spy agency. That document says that the GCHQ used surveillance systems to monitor visitors to the WikiLeaks website.

The surveillance system used the agency's ability to tap into the fiber optic backbone of the internet and collect IP addresses of visitors in real time. The surveillance was also able to capture the search terms used to reach WikiLeaks from search engines like Google. Documents also show that the Obama administration had placed pressure on foreign allies to file criminal charges against Assange after WikiLeaks published Afghanistan war logs.

SOURCE: Firstlook