According to new documents provided by Edward Snowden to The Guardian newspaper (but not, as yet, published in full), the British signals intelligence organization, known as the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), has the “ability to tap into and store huge volumes of data drawn from fibre-optic cables for up to 30 days so that it can be sifted and analysed.”

In addition, the newspaper also reported that GCHQ is sharing this information with its American counterpart, the National Security Agency (NSA). The operation, known as “Tempora,” has been running for 18 months. Documents about the program detail GCHQ's goal of "Mastering the Internet." The leak is just the latest in a string of documents disclosed to the paper by Snowden, a former NSA employee now on the lam in Hong Kong.

As The Guardian writes, "The documents appear to suggest the two agencies had come to rely on each other; with Tempora's 'buffering capability,' and Britain's access to the cables that carry Internet traffic in and out of the country, GCHQ has been able to collect and store a huge amount of information... The NSA, however, had provided GCHQ with the tools necessary to sift through the data and get value from it."

"It's not just a US problem. The UK has a huge dog in this fight," Snowden told The Guardian. "They [GCHQ] are worse than the US."

Not surprisingly, some of those in the UK intelligence establishment have a completely different view of the information-sharing that goes on. The Guardian cited a “a source with knowledge of intelligence,” who said that such data was being “collected legally” and was replete with “safeguards.”

Hundreds of GCHQ analysts—and hundreds more from the NSA—have apparently been assigned to work on this flood of data.

As the UK paper noted: