Fact check
Is it true: MUSCULAR: NSA tapping Google/Yahoo inter-DC links (revealed 2013)?
Yes — this is confirmed.
Confirmed by NSA and GCHQ slides published by the Washington Post in October 2013. MUSCULAR tapped unencrypted fibre-optic links between Google and Yahoo data centres without company knowledge, collecting approximately 181 million records in a single 30-day period. The programme operated outside FISC legal process. Both companies subsequently encrypted their internal backbone traffic in direct response.
The claim
The MUSCULAR programme, revealed by the Washington Post in October 2013 based on Snowden documents, showed that the NSA and GCHQ had secretly tapped the unencrypted fibre-optic links connecting Google
Key evidence
NSA/GCHQ slides published by Washington Post confirm programme
NSA characterised interception as lawful foreign intelligence collection
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