Tag Archives: NSA

Britain, Intelligence, National Security, United States

US bankrolling of GCHQ in return for influence…

INTELLIGENCE GATHERING

It has been claimed that Washington gave Britain’s spying and intelligence gathering centre at GCHQ more than £100 million over the last three years, raising questions over how much the U.S. has been influencing the work of British intelligence.

According to documents released into the public domain by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the British eavesdropping agency was expected to ‘pull its weight’.

One document states that weaker regulation for British spies than American agents is one of the intelligence services’ ‘selling points’ for the U.S.

Such leaks will raise yet more questions for GCHQ and government ministers who oversee it operationally, particularly in relation to the extent to which the United States makes pressing demands of Britain in its intelligence-gathering activities.

In a document from 2010, GCHQ said the US National Security Agency had ‘raised a number of issues with regards to meeting (its) minimum expectations’, and GCHQ ‘remains short of the full NSA ask’.

A classified cache leaked to The Guardian reveals the UK’s biggest fear is that… ‘US perceptions of the […] partnership diminish, leading to loss of access, and/or reduction in investment to the UK’.

A copy of a temporary document to allow US fugitive and whistleblower Edward Snowden to cross the border into Russia.

A copy of a temporary document to allow US fugitive and whistleblower Edward Snowden to cross the border into Russia.

These latest revelations leaked by Mr Snowden, a former NSA contractor, and who has been charged with espionage in the U.S., left Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport yesterday were he has been since June after exposing PRISM, a U.S. intelligence gathering project that snoops on private individuals accounts, emails and telephone calls. Snowden has now been granted refugee status in Russia amid Western concerns he is now in the embrace of Moscow’s secret services. The granting of refugee status pending his application for temporary political asylum is certain to spark fury in Washington which had urged President Putin to deport him to the US to face espionage charges.

Previously, GCHQ was criticised after Mr Snowden claimed British intelligence agents used the PRISM system to bypass UK laws.

Last week Parliament’s spy watchdog called for an investigation into the laws on intelligence eavesdropping, saying they ‘may not be fit for purpose’.

The latest documents reveal the NSA gave GCHQ £22.9million in 2009, £39.9million in 2010, and at least another £34.7m in 2011-12.

The 2010 payment included £4million to support GCHQ’s work for NATO forces in Afghanistan, and £17.2million to fund the agency’s Mastering the Internet project, which gathers and stores vast amounts of ‘raw’ information ready for analysis.

Also funded by the NSA was redevelopment of GCHQ’s sister site in Bude, Cornwall, to the tune of £15.5million. The site intercepts transatlantic cables that carry internet traffic.

In return, the documents suggest GCHQ has to take the American view into account when deciding what to prioritise.

The money has been an important source of income for the British agency as it has been forced to cut costs and has shed more than 300 of its 6,000 staff.

Documents show GCHQ is heavily investing in harvesting personal information from mobile phones and apps, and wants to be able to ‘exploit any phone, anywhere, anytime’.

Some GCHQ staff have expressed concern about ‘the morality and ethics of their operational work, particularly given the level of deception involved’.

Shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander MP said…

… The vital work of the intelligence agencies requires effective and thorough oversight by the Intelligence and Security Committee on behalf of Parliament, and by ministers, and in the case of GCHQ, by the Foreign Secretary.

… The latest reports in the Guardian only underline the importance of the Foreign Secretary and the Intelligence and Security Committee being able to assure the public that the legal framework within which our intelligence agencies operate is both being adhered to and is fit for purpose.

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Britain, Intelligence, National Security, United States

Britain’s Spy watchdog rules on GCHQ eavesdropping…

INTELLIGENCE & SECURITY COMMITTEE

The Westminster Parliament’s spy watchdog has called for an investigation into Britain’s laws on intelligence eavesdropping as it cleared GCHQ of flouting the existing rules.

The Intelligence and Security Committee ruled on Wednesday that the listening station in Cheltenham acted with ministerial backing when it requested electronic intercepts from the US National Security Agency’s PRISM programme.

But the committee has raised questions about whether there is a need for new laws.

GCHQ has faced criticism after NSA whistleblower and US fugitive Edward Snowden claimed that British intelligence used PRISM by circumventing British laws.

The committee said the claims were ‘unfounded’ and that in each case where GCHQ sought information from the US, an intercept warrant signed by a minister was already in place. Crucially, however, it has not yet investigated what happened when the NSA handed over unsolicited intelligence.

And, in dealing with only the ‘content of private communications’, the committee has not examined the vast majority of the intelligence generated by PRISM – data which reveals who sends emails and other messages, to whom they send them, at what time and from where.

The watchdog suggested that the ‘law has not caught up with technology’ that allows the listening post to tap millions of emails.

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European Union, Government, Intelligence, National Security, United States

U.S. spying report on EU offices has angered European officials…

A report by the U.S. National Security Agency that suggests it spied on EU offices has infuriated European officials.

The European Union has warned that if the report is accurate it will have tremendous and wide reaching repercussions. Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament, said he was deeply worried and shocked about the allegations and has stressed that if the allegations prove to be true it would have a severe impact on EU-US relations. Acting on behalf of the European Parliament, Mr Schulz has demanded full clarification and is seeking further information from the U.S. authorities on these allegations.

Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, the German Justice Minister, said that if the accusations were true that would be reminiscent of the Cold War. The German minister has also asked for an immediate explanation from the United States.

Citing information from secret documents obtained by former NSA employee Edward Snowden, the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported that several U.S. spying operations targeted EU leaders.

Der Spiegel says the documents from Snowden describe how the National Security Agency bugged EU officials’ Washington and New York offices and conducted an ‘electronic eavesdropping operation’ that tapped into an EU building in Brussels.

Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic operations in the White House, said he had not seen the report and would not comment on unauthorised disclosures of intelligence programs. Mr Rhodes did say, though, that the United States does work very closely with its European partners and has very close intelligence relationships with Europe.

Michael Hayden, a former director of the CIA and NSA, whilst having been out of government for some five years, said he didn’t know whether the report was true. Mr Hayden was clear, however, on a number of points confirming that the United States does conduct espionage and, that in relation to the US’s Fourth Amendment, which protects the privacy of Americans, does not amount to an international treaty. The former CIA director was also reticent about Europeans looking first to what their own governments are doing in respect to international espionage.

Der Spiegel’s report comes at a particularly sensitive time. The first round of negotiations for a trans-Atlantic trade agreement between the United States and the European Union are set to start next month in Washington.

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