Spies

Britain's spy agencies have a budget of two billion pounds. Infact, they are one of the few government departments which has actually seen a rise in their budgets. GCHQ at Cheltenham is one of the biggest listening posts in Europe. It makes no secret of this fact. It spies on people to keep Britain safe. But why was everyone so surprised when so-called whistleblower, Edward Snowden, a former U.S. spy agency contractor, said that spy agencies actually spy on people? Surely, this is their job? The U.S. spies on Russia, Russia spies on the U.S., the Chinese appear to spy on everyone and Britain spies on its European allies, who are probably spying on Britain. So really Snowden hasn't said anything that anybody didn't really know but perhaps it is not politically correct to say so. What do people think GCHQ does? It is a spy centre which has helped the intelligence services abort numerous terror attacks on Britain and other allies. I think I am right in saying that Britain even has listening posts in Cyprus and one of the major roles of Britain's fleet of nuclear submarines is to sit on the bottom of the ocean “gathering intelligence” or spying, listening to telecommunications. The U.S. NSA has a massive spy network across the globe which works closely with GCHQ. Snowden has just stated the obvious and left the U.S. and Britain rather red faced. Not, because he gave away secrets but the fact that he went public. Spies are meant to be anonymous.