Canada Casts Global Surveillance Dragnet Over File Downloads - The Intercept

[A Perez]

Jan. 28, 2015

Canada’s leading surveillance agency is monitoring millions of Internet users’ file downloads in a dragnet search to identify extremists, according to top-secret documents.

The covert operation, revealed Wednesday by CBC News in collaboration with The Intercept, taps into Internet cables and analyzes records of up to 15 million downloads daily from popular websites commonly used to share videos, photographs, music, and other files.

The revelations about the spying initiative, codenamed LEVITATION, are the first from the trove of files provided by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden to show that the Canadian government has launched its own globe-spanning Internet mass surveillance system.

According to the documents, the LEVITATION program can monitor downloads in several countries across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and North America. It is led by the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE, Canada’s equivalent of the NSA. (The Canadian agency was formerly known as “CSEC” until a recent name change.)

Link Canada Casts Global Surveillance Dragnet Over File Downloads - The Intercept

 

[Mr. H.]

Thank goodness I only download soft porn. Not that extremist kind.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Not news. Been able to monitor downloads all along. When you download something it's going from the source through your ISP then on to you (basicly, more hops of course.) Can subpoena the ISP for those records and voila. How the child porn stings work.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Thank goodness I only download soft porn. Not that extremist kind.

If in the US, hardcore is legal. Only exception being the Max Hardcore series which got him tossed in prison for obscenity and child porn (involving actual children, not simulated content.)