The Five Eyes: "Supra-national intelligence organization that does not answer to the known laws of its own countries" - Edward Snowden (2013 Whistleblower, former NSA Contractor)
The Five Eyes Law Enforcement Group, aka FVEY or Five Eyes, is an intelligence alliance between the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. These countries are parties to the UKUSA Agreement - the United Kingdom-United States Intelligence Communications Act.
Five Eyes was created in 1946 as a result of the 1941 Atlantic Charter of WWII, a joint agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States establishing postwar goals. In more simpler terms, the major spy organizations of these five countries spy on the citizens of each others' countries - creating one large, illegal spy blob.
Instead of spying for safety measures, the Five Eyes illegally spy on citizens' private lives, communications, and accounts in order to exchange information and keep their authoritative power as "Big Brother". Because surveillance of citizens without probable cause is completely illegal under the Constitution, the United States uses the Five Eyes to find a loophole in its own security measures. If the United Kingdom is spying on US citizens (and exchanging that information with the United States), then the US government is technically not gaining information illegally according to its own laws.
The first security program created under the Five Eyes was ECHELON which was used to intercept communication between the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies during the Cold War. This project was OFFICIALLY established in 1971 and was defined as "A global network of electronic spy stations that can eavesdrop on telephones, faxes and computers. It can even track bank accounts. This information is stored in Echelon computers, which can keep millions of records on individuals. Officially, however, Echelon doesn't exist " by The Guardian paper in Great Britain. After this paper, the first official ECHELON whistleblower was Perry Fellwock, under the code name Winslow Peck. This former NSA analyst revealed the real intention behind ECHELON to Ramparts magazine in 1972. By the end of the 20th century, ECHELON was used to monitor private conversations between each of the countries' citizens, not just for foreign government intel.
ECHELON - The NSA's Global Spying Network
After the 9/11 terrorist attack, Five Eyes expanded their surveillance to the entire World Wide Web on the Internet in response to the War on Terror. With this increase in illegal surveillance, the Five Eyes became the most comprehensive espionage alliance in history. In 2010, and continuing into today, the Five Eyes has access to the United States government's classified Internet sources - allowing for spying to occur through device, human, geospatial, and signal methods. Although this is obviously a breach in citizens' privacy and fundamental, personal rights, there are some actions being taken on the flip side which seem to point toward a more secure future - the International Court of Justice ordered Australia to stop spying on East Timor in March 2014, resulting in the first restriction to ever be placed on the Five Eyes Law Enforcement Group.
Sources
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/suspicion-creeps-five-eyes
https://privacyinternational.org/learn/five-eyes
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