The Five Eyes relationship is so close that member governments place the NSA’s desires above the privacy of their own citizens. The Guardian reported on one 2007 memo, for instance, describing an agreement “that allowed the agency to ‘unmask’ and hold on to personal data about Britons that had previously been off limits.” Additionally, the rules were changed in 2007 “to allow the NSA to analyse and retain any British citizens’ mobile phone and fax numbers, emails and IP addresses swept up by its dragnet.”
