As per the reports on Channel 4 News , Cable and Wireless Worldwide, which is now owned by Vodafone, even went as far as providing traffic from a rival foreign communications company, handing information sent by millions of internet users worldwide over to spies. Channel 4 writes, The new documents point out towards the existence of a secret British spy base located at Seeb on the northern coast of Oman, a strategic position that allows the GCHQ to tap several undersea cables passing through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian/Arabian Gulf. Which means that all the data passing from Asia to the western hemisphere was being regulated/wiretapped by the British intelligence under the Mastering the Internet program. The program was so entrenched into the system that the company carried out tests on equipment used to carry out the surveillance, it came up with suggestions on how the spies could go about tapping its network. GCHQ even had a full time employee working within the company on this project. And a 2011 document reveals that Cable and Wireless went further. The company rented space on a cable owned by Indian telecoms company Reliance Communications that stretched from Asia across the Middle East and landed in Porthcurno in Cornwall. Reliance’s transatlantic cable lands in Sennen Cove six miles to the north. And the two cables come together at nearby Skewjack Farm. Documents show that in 2011, this allowed Britain’s spies to access all traffic from Reliance’s main cable and send it to the GCHQ base up the coast in Bude. Other document details the operations conducted in other major spy base located in Bude in Cornwall, in this plant the British intelligence access network feeds Internet data from more than 18 undersea cables coming into different parts of Britain either direct to GCHQ in Cheltenham.
