Karma Police (usually capitalised as KARMA POLICE) is the

code name A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...

for an Internet

mass surveillance Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizati ...

and data collection programme operated by the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

Government Communications Headquarters Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Un ...

(GCHQ). In 2015, documents obtained by ''

The Intercept ''The Intercept'' is an American left-wing news website founded by Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Laura Poitras and funded by billionaire eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar. Its current editor is Betsy Reed. The publication initially reported ...

'' from U.S.

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

whistleblower

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...

revealed that GCHQ had carried out the KARMA POLICE operation since about 2008. The KARMA POLICE operation swept up the

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...

of Internet users visiting websites. The program was established with no public scrutiny or oversight. KARMA POLICE is a powerful spying tool in conjunction with other GCHQ programs, because IP addresses could be cross-referenced with other data. The goal of the program, according to the documents, was "either (a) a web browsing profile for every visible user on the internet, or (b) a user profile for every visible website on the internet." Karma Police was apparently named after the

Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass) ...

song "

Karma Police "Karma Police" is a song by English alternative rock band Radiohead, released on 25 August 1997, as the second single from their third studio album, '' OK Computer'' (1997). It reached number one in Iceland and number eight on the UK Singles ...

", which includes the lyric "This is what you’ll get when you mess with us".

References

{{Reflist Privacy of telecommunications Secret government programs Mass surveillance Surveillance scandals War on terror GCHQ operations Internet in the United Kingdom Intelligence agency programmes revealed by Edward Snowden

See also

References