Tag Archives: Prism

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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Britain, Government, Intelligence, United States

Whistleblower and ex-CIA operative breaks cover…

America’s most wanted man has broken cover to reveal why he decided to leak documents from one of the world’s most notorious spy organisations.

Edward Snowden, the former CIA worker, admitted he would be ‘made to suffer’ after triggering shockwaves across the globe by handing over top-secret files from the US National Security Agency (NSA).

The 29-year-old whistleblower, who reputedly earned £130,000 a year, exposed chilling details of how the covert agency, based in Maryland, gathers private information from people around the world –  including in Britain – using a programme called Prism.

The system gives officials easy access to data held by nine of the world’s top internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Skype.

Mr Snowden acted after becoming convinced the US government’s bid to harvest personal information from millions of individuals was a ‘threat to democracy’. He fears he will be kidnapped and returned to America to face espionage charges and possible life in jail.

Mr Snowden had been working at the NSA for the last four years as an employee of defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton after working for the CIA as a technical assistant, specialising in computer security. His role allowed him access to classified material. He fled the United States after handing reporters from the Guardian Newspaper and Washington Post numerous documents from the agency’s computers.

Mr Snowden said:

… I don’t want public attention because I don’t want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing.

… My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.

In shining a light on the NSA’s widening surveillance net the whistleblower has sacrificed a comfortable lifestyle because, as he says, he can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building. Mr Snowden insists the spy chiefs at the NSA are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them. It is this, he says, which poses a ‘threat to democracy’. He believes this will stifle intellectual exploration and creativity, with the US government granting itself power it is not entitled to.

Mr Snowden fled to Hong Kong on May 20 because of its spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent. The former UK colony, now part of China, could well resist the demands of the White House in apprehending him. However, it is possible that the Chinese government might seize him for questioning about US methods and secrets.

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