US spy chief Clapper defends Prism and phone surveillance

[David Guyatt]

Typical Tory tosh if you ask me:

GCHQ revelations may be treasonous, MP claims

The Guardian newspaper may be guilty of treason after revealing the existence of a secret web surveillance programme, a Conservative MP has claimed.


Edward Snowden Photo: EPA



By Matthew Holehouse

6:33PM GMT 31 Oct 2013



The Guardian newspaper may be guilty of treason after publishing details of an internet surveillance programme, a Tory MP has claimed.

Julian Smith claimed the decision to publish details of British and American web interception programmes had threatened national security and undermined the investigation of internet paedophiles.

Files obtained by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, had been shared online by Guardian journalists, and their so-called data dumps had come to the attention of hackers, Mr Smith told MPs. The newspaper should tell the government whether it holds the names of intelligence officials and how the information is guarded, he said.

The NSA's penetration of TOR an online network that grants web users anonymity had helped catch paedophiles but that ability had been compromised by the newspaper's reports, he said at a Westminster Hall debate in Parliament today.

"I think we are in a situation where the Guardian, which had every right to report on this issue, which has raised important topics of debate, which had done so in a digital, global way with good journalism, has threatened the security of our country and today stands guilty potentially of treasonous behaviour."

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But Dominic Raab MP, a former Foreign Office lawyer who sits on the right of the Tory Party, said the legal justification for Tempora, one of the programmes exposed by the Guardian, is "thin at best".
Claims by Andrew Parker, the director general of MI5, that the exposing the spy programmes had handed terrorists a "gift" and helped them drop off the radar are "shrill and unsubstantiated", Mr Raab said.
"Any serious terrorist group assumes their phones, emails and internet use will be monitored. Learning that western spies drain the swamp of their own citizens' data does not aid terrorists in any tangible way," he said. The state had left itself vulnerable by letting hundreds of thousands of junior employees, including Mr Snowden, access the files and had been embarrassed.
"The bold assertion of national security' cannot be used to guillotine all debate," he added. The Intelligence and Security Committee, the Parliamentary body which oversees spies, lacks the tools and independence to do its job properly, he added.
Tom Watson, the MP for West Bromwich East, said the Guardian and Edward Snowden had acted "courageously" in exposing Tempora, a GCHQ programme which intercepts personal data by tapping into fibre optic cables.
"The Tempora programme has been mining our internet communications data without public knowledge on a colossal scale," he said.
"This is the secret state laid bare, the Government acting without the knowledge or permission of its citizens, a flagrant breach of an individual's moral and probably legal rights for what it believes is the common good. Just like when they take away the votes of the misguided, the common good is not a defence," he said.
He added: "I ask you to please remember an individual's data is just like his or her vote - almost insignificant by itself, privately expressed, but massively powerful when aggregated."
Martin Horwood, the MP for Cheltenham, where GCHQ is based, said its staff had been left angered by suggestions they break the law or act in bad faith.
Edward Snowden had "in effect" handed thousands of pages of top secret documents to foreign intelligence services and terrorists by speaking to the Guardian.
"Had he not used the media as a medium no-one would have hesitated to call him a traitor," Mr Horwood said. "If you cast too much sunlight on these things they stop working."
Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP, chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, said claims of "sinister" mass surveillance are unfounded because the programmes exposed by the Guardian use algorithms to automatically sift emails for certain words. All but 0.01 per cent are discarded, and the contents of the rest can only be inspected with the permission of the Home Secretary. "Pretty much everyone in this room is not having their emails intercepted or read," he said.
A "cultural revolution" means the ISC now has the power to send officials into the GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 and inspect files, giving Britain unrivalled oversight of its intelligence agencies, he said.
Asked by Michael Meacher, a former minister, why the committee was left in the dark about the surveillance programmes, Mr Rifkind said: "The right honourable gentleman does not have any idea whether the committee was aware of programmes of any kind. When we are given classified information we don't announce it."
Richard Graham MP, a former British diplomat in China, says the debate had been marked by "hysteria and naivete" and he said he believed GCHQ operates with "upmost morality". "Intelligence agencies do eavesdrop," he added.

Telegraph