BACKGROUND
President Obama's most senior intelligence official admitted on Thursday that the US Government had been directly accessing the servers of internet companies such as Google, Facebook and Apple to spy on foreigners overseas. The spying programme, known as 'Prism', was disclosed in a leak of a top-secret document to the Washington Post by a whistleblower who was horrified at its capabilities. "They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type," said the whistleblower, described as a career intelligence officer. Read more >>
THE CARTOON
The cartoon by Adams from The Telegraph contrasts spying methods from the past with those used nowadays. On the left, we can see a stereotypical spy in a raincoat sitting on a park bench pretending to read a newspaper. However, the newspaper has holes in in so that the spy can spy on people. On the right, we just have a computer with the Google logo on its screen. The 'O's in the logo are drawn as eyes just like those of the spy on the bench, symbolizing the fact that Google is spying on its users.
MORE SPYING CARTOONS
• Snoop Obama (The English Blog)
• NSA Snooping (Cagle.com)