Snowden handed another set of slides over to the largest newspaper in Germany as well as a public broadcasting service. These slides include the names of telecoms that were involved in GCHQ's dragnet program.

The crème de la crème:
Verizon Business, Codename: Dacron, British Telecommunications ("Remedy"), Vodafone Cable ("Gerontic"), Global Crossing ("Pinnage"), Level 3 ("Little"), Viatel ("Vitreous"), Interoute ("Streetcar").

Many of these are customers of DE-CIX, the world's largest IXP, whose operators were adamant in their claim that no foreign service has access to their infrastructure -- no word about their corporate lackeys, understandably so.

And you gotta love how brazen they are in their admission that GCHQ's work is in the best interest of Britain's economy -- yes, economy.

And while we're at it: public broadcast journalists dug out a list of 207 US companies that are involved in intelligence gathering on German soil. Best comment was by the CEO of DE-CIX: these providers (re: Level 3) work in accordance with US law, even in Frankfurt. Not German law, US law.

Maybe we can still beat Puerto Rico in the race to become your 51st state.

I grew up watching Dr. Who on the good ol Public Broadcasting Service. Before the interwebs, PBS was the place to be (in America) if you wanted entertainment and education. Thank you Lyndon B. Johnson!