Well, this partnership has been known for a while now, certainly before Snowden. The _original_ deal was made during World War II (the 1943 BRUSA [1] agreement)

Well, this partnership has been known for a while now, certainly before Snowden. The _original_ deal was made during World War II (the 1943 BRUSA [1] agreement) and was then superseded by the UKUSA [2] agreement (or Five Eyes) which also included Canada and Australia/New Zealand. This definitely continued until 1956, by which time the Cold War was the main reason for co-operation. It's been publicly available since June 2010, which is when the full contents of the original document were released to the UK National Archives in Kew, and simultaneously declassified by NSA [4]. It is generally assumed that the arrangement is still active, and is being updated on an ongoing basis by the participating agencies. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_BRUSA_Agreement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_BRUSA_Agreement [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement [3] http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukusa/ http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukusa/ [4] http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/ukusa.shtml http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/ukusa.shtml