Tempora, said to be run by GCHQ, intercepts information and telephone information passing through fibre-optic cables.
These could allow a hacker to intercept information moving between a user and a service like Gmail that appeared to be secure.
The timing of the arrest warrant, she later learned, arose from the need to protect her: the D.E.A. had intercepted information that Boy George, presumably fearing she would turn state's evidence, had put out a contract on her life.
"Yes, it is one boat, but if one more person had been out there to intercept information about the terrorist attack on 9/11, then we might have been able to stop it," said Lt. Cmdr.
Senior intelligence sources confirmed to News Corp Australia that spy, police and counter-terrorism agencies had intercepted information regarding a possible attack on Parliament House, and there were concerns the prime minister and other senior officials could be targeted.
Facebook engineer Mike Shaver noticed that Superfish installs a "man in the middle" certificate, which allows companies to intercept information as it is passed between a users' computer and a website.
"Secondly, the idea you need a more targeted article 8, section 1 warrant to intercept information about someone in the UK has not been true for a long time, and plainly wrong in the face of GCHQ programs like Tempora that are automatically intercepting, filtering and analysing a huge number of our communications on a daily basis".
In an important First Amendment decision weighing personal privacy against the public's right to know, the Supreme Court ruled today that the press may not be held liable for publishing illegally intercepted information as long as the subject is one of "public importance" and the press itself did not participate in the interception.
In addition, a concurring opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer and joined by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor warned that privacy protections will generally prevail when illegally intercepted information passed on to a paper or broadcaster is purely personal and lacks "high interest and importance to the public".
