Inside Menwith Hill: The NSA’s British Base at the Heart of US Targeted Killing

>The second is called OVERHEAD, which uses U.S. government satellites orbiting above targeted countries to locate and monitor wireless communications on the ground below — such as cellphone calls and even WiFi traffic.

Is this really the case/possible? I know low power transmissions can go a long way, but seems insane to me that you could pick up meaningful cell/wifi traffic.

I grew up near Menwith Hill in the 80s. They did tours of the facility - not inside the golf balls or the other secret bits, but they had a bowling alley, all kinds of fun things for bored servicemen.

Everyone living nearby knew what the base was and what it was for. When I asked my dad about it, he said "We use it to watch Mr. Gorbachev eating his cornflakes". Now 'we' use it to watch Mr. Al-Baghdadi eating his cornflakes instead.

Don't make the mistake of thinking the majority of the British public disapproves of NSA/GCHQ's capabilities and actions. They're more likely to be proud of them.

I remember in the mid 90's I used to post all my Usenet messages with a signature containing all the wrong keywords (terrorism, nuclear, Bin Laden, etc) plus greetings to the NSA spies...