American and British Spy Agencies Intercepted Mobile Phone Data On Commercial Flights

An image of Inmarsat’s “unparalleled broadband experience in the sky.” Source: Inmarsat.com

The Intercept: American and British Spy Agencies Targeted In-Flight Mobile Phone Use

IN THE TROVE of documents provided by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden is a treasure. It begins with a riddle: “What do the President of Pakistan, a cigar smuggler, an arms dealer, a counterterrorism target, and a combatting proliferation target have in common? They all used their everyday GSM phone during a flight.”

This riddle appeared in 2010 in SIDtoday, the internal newsletter of the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate, or SID, and it was classified “top secret.” It announced the emergence of a new field of espionage that had not yet been explored: the interception of data from phone calls made on board civil aircraft. In a separate internal document from a year earlier, the NSA reported that 50,000 people had already used their mobile phones in flight as of December 2008, a figure that rose to 100,000 by February 2009. The NSA attributed the increase to “more planes equipped with in-flight GSM capability, less fear that a plane will crash due to making/receiving a call, not as expensive as people thought.” The sky seemed to belong to the agency.

Read more ....

More News On American and British Spy Agencies Intercepting Mobile Phone Data On Commercial Flights

U.S. and UK intelligence target airborne phone calls: report -- Reuters
British and Americans spy on in-flight phone calls 'in real time', leaked Snowden files reveal -- The Telegraph
US, UK spies snooped on Air France inflight phone calls, report -- RFI
Snowden leaks reveal GCHQ and NSA have been intercepting mobile phone data on commercial flights -- International Business Times
Government spies can see everything you’re doing with your phone on a plane -- Quartz