Five Eyes Burgers and Fries

     As American citizens, most people have heard of the National Security Agency (NSA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other fancy government acronyms. My question here is what do we actually know about these agencies outside of how your favorite true crime show depicts them?
One of the most famous cases regarding the NSA happened only in 6 years ago in 2013 when Edward Snowden, a CIA contractor leaked a multitude of highly classified documents the NSA had on American citizens that he found disturbing. Without this leak, the average American would not know that the government collected certain pieces of information about them at all, let alone that that information could legally be shared with other countries.

     How is this private information shared legally you ask? Great question!! It is through an intelligence alliance called Five Eyes, mainly between five countries- Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and of course the United States. This intelligence sharing began with the UKUSA agreement that was signed in 1946 and was later extended to include Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These nations collect data through global communication monitoring and signal intelligence (i.e., electronic intelligence and foreign instrumentation signals). In regular English, this means the government can monitor emails, fax, telephone, and internet communications of their citizens AND its all legal AND can be shared with other nations too.

     This intelligence sharing can be beneficial insomuch that there is a common understanding that one government will not target another's, citizens or persons. It has also created a uniquely open and close relationship between these countries where they can lean on each other or ask for advice when needed. These pros may be beneficial in some ways, but countries in the past did not property minimize identity information before sharing it with other countries, giving them full access to our private information that we may not even want our own government to have. Not only is private information shared among Five Eyes, but there are also 9 Eyes, 14 Eyes and 41 Eyes involving other countries in intelligence sharing.