They are known as the Five Eyes, AKA FVEY, an anglophone intelligence alliance comprising of the following countries:
- United States (co-creator 1946)
- United Kingdom (co-creator 1946)
- Canada (accepted 1948)
- Australia (accepted 1956)
- New Zealand (accepted 1956)
They spy on one another’s citizens and share the collected information with each other in order to circumvent restrictive domestic regulations on surveillance of citizens.
These countries are parties to the multilateral agreement for joint cooperation in signals intelligence.
A system called ECHELON is currently used to monitor billions of private communications worldwide. The system is not a secret and is seen as a protective measure against terrorism.
It is a global system capable of collecting massive amounts of private and commercial communications, including internet, telephone, e-mail, radio and other types of data traffic.
Reality Decoded 
Okay… but who dares spy on the spies?
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And when I say “okay”, I really mean NOT okay
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Agreed
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Russia and China
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I remember my ex-Marine talking about ECHELON. He was a SIGINT and knew about it. Military involvement.
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Echelon was originally an American system designed to monitor the British Royal family prior to and during WWII. The Duke of Windsor, the abdicated King, was an admirer and close friend of Hitler. The system evolved into various scanning systems and is now called Data Mining administered by the National Security Agency of America, but, some would allege, not fully controlled by an elected government.
The internal arm of this surveillance has allowed Washington to spy on millions of emails, web histories, phone records and other personal data directly from telephone companies and internet firms around the world. The external aim behind the Data Mining was to create a programme whereby global hacking of international countries, both friendly or not, was both feasible and operational. Included in this was the mobile telephones of various world politicians, notaries and those thought to have terrorist connections.
As you are reading this you are most likely to be monitored.
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Honestly man, totally not surprised.
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Sick! especially since I’m in Australia. But, as 007 said, not that surprising.
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