Across three sites, communications – including telephone calls – are tracked both by satellite dishes and by tapping into underwater fibre-optic cables.
And sure enough, Cenk delivered a report about an article from The Atlantic, titled "The Creepy, Long-Standing Practice of Undersea Cable Tapping," in which reporter Olga Khazan writes, among other things, that the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is tapping into underwater fiber optic cables in order to intercept communication data.
To that end, the United States also sent a few specially equipped submarines into Soviet seas to dispatch divers, who tapped into underwater communications cables and retrieved pieces of Soviet test missiles.
In 1981, after a nuclear-powered American submarine, the Seawolf, sneaked into the Sea of Okhotsk on an extraordinarily secret mission -- to tap an underwater communications cable and retrieve pieces of Soviet missiles -- it was stuck in the sand for nearly two days before it could power its way off the seabed.
Based on the post by The Atlantic, Cenk reported that, yes, the GCHQ taps into underwater cables and subsequently shares its intelligence with NSA.
As hard as you try, you will not see it, but I have all this documentation and research that points to the fact that it exists in this giant tap on an underwater cable," Paglen said.
There's tap-dancing, keytars, underwater tracking shots, and a stagey, dialogue-free closing sequence that might just be one of the most impressive moments caught on film this year.
To the credit of both Cenk and The Atlantic, each made sure to mention that underwater cable-taps have been occurring for decades.
The station is able to tap into and extract data from the underwater fibre-optic cables passing through the region.
