Report: Electronic Eavesdropping Starts the Moment Passengers Board the Plane

An investigative report by a French newspaper finds that nearly every medium of inflight communication is closely monitored by state intelligence agencies.

Citing secret documents leaked by whistle-blower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, a Le Monde exposé reveals that US and UK spy agencies have systems in place to monitor and explore passengers’ electronic devices while in the air. In addition to personal information stored on laptop computers and mobile phones, the intelligence organizations are said to routinely monitor email and voice communications made while inflight.

According to the investigative report, the program to intercept phone calls, emails and personal information originating onboard commercial airline flights around the wold started as early as 2005 and continues to this day. The top secret programs to intercept passengers’ communications are tagged with codenames like “Homing Pigeon” and “Thieving Magpie” by the US government. Meanwhile, spy agencies in the UK dubbed a similar covert program to intercept passenger communications, “Southwinds”

Passengers don’t even need to connect to an airline-provided inflight network to open their personal information to government spying. Documents reveal that just powering up a mobile device can reveal private information including email addresses, personal identification numbers (PIN) and Facebook credentials to the intelligence agencies.

Responding to the allegations in the exposé, the NSA simply told Le Monde in a statement that all of the agency’s activities “complied with U.S. law and policy.” The NSA’s Briitsh counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), noted that the UK does not comment on intelligence matters, but insisted that all of its activities are “authorized, necessary and proportionate” as well as “entirely compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.”

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