Panopticon of global surveillance

[Peter Lemkin]

NSA chief knew of Snowden file destruction by Guardian in UK

Revelation contrasts markedly with White House efforts to distance itself from UK government pressure to destroy disks!

• James Ball
  
  
• theguardian.com, Friday 11 July 2014 11.10 BST
  

General Keith Alexander, who was NSA director at the time the Guardian destroyed files from Edward Snowden. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

General Keith Alexander, the then director of the NSA, was briefed that the Guardian was prepared to make a largely symbolic act of destroying documents from Edward Snowden last July, new documents reveal.
The revelation that Alexander and Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, were advised on the Guardian's destruction of several hard disks and laptops contrasts markedly with public White House statements that distanced the US from the decision.
White House and NSA emails obtained by Associated Press under freedom of information legislation demonstrate how pleased Alexander and his colleagues were with the developments. At times the correspondence takes a celebratory tone, with one official describing the anticipated destruction as "good news".
On 20 July 2013, three Guardian editors destroyed all copies of the its Snowden material held in London (video), under the supervision of two GCHQ staff following a period of intense political pressure in the UK.




Link to video: Revealed: the day Guardian destroyed Snowden hard drives under watchful eye of GCHQ The decision to destroy the UK copies of the material was taken in a climate of advancing legal threats from Cabinet Office and intelligence officials. The Guardian and its publishing partners, which included the New York Times and the not-for-profit news organisation ProPublica, held other copies of the material in the US, and continued reporting revelations from the documents.
When the Guardian revealed it had destroyed several computers a month later in August, the White House spokesman Josh Earnest initially remarked it was hard to "evaluate the propriety of what they did based on incomplete knowledge of what happened" but said it would be hard to imagine the same events occurring in the US.
"That's very difficult to imagine a scenario in which that would be appropriate," he concluded.
However, heavily redacted email correspondence obtained by AP reporter Jack Gillum shows senior NSA officials celebrating the destruction of the material, even before it had occurred.
An email to Alexander from Rick Ledgett, now deputy director of the NSA, has the subject line "Guardian data being destroyed", and is dated 19 July, a day before the destruction of the files. Most is heavily redacted, but Ledgett remarks: "Good news, at least on this front."
A day later, hours after the material was destroyed, Alexander follows up with Ledgett, asking: "Can you confirm this actually occurred?"
Later that day, Clapper emails Alexander under the same subject line, saying: "Thanks Keith … appreciate the conversation today".
The remainder of the emails are redacted, including the subject lines in many cases, meaning it is unclear who from the British government briefed the senior NSA and White House staff on the destruction, or whether US officials had any input to the decision to encourage destruction of journalistic material.
A spokeswoman for the Guardian said the revelation of the US-UK correspondence on the destruction was disappointing.
"We're disappointed to learn that cross-Atlantic conversations were taking place at the very highest levels of government ahead of the bizarre destruction of journalistic material that took place in the Guardian's basement last July," she said. "What's perhaps most concerning is that the disclosure of these emails appears to contradict the White House's comments about these events last year, when they questioned the appropriateness of the UK government's intervention."
The NSA and GCHQ declined to respond to AP's requests for comment on the email exchange.

[David Guyatt]

When we in the UK learned a week or two ago that the three main political parries had cut a secret deal to rush through an emergency surveillance bill, the conclusion as to why seemed quite obvious.

Back in April the European Court of Justice had struck down existing powers that allowed telephone and internet data to be collected. This was followed by a three month stasis when nobody seemed to give a toss. Then suddenly this new law was announced and is being rushed through Parliament --- with the bloody lying Cameron scaring the natives by saying that he was "protecting the public" from terrorists and paedophiles (yes, he actually said that the lying bastard).

Why would something like this happen so quickly when a week earlier no one seemed to care a jot? I can only conclude that the Americans told Cameron that unless he did this, they would withdraw the intelligence sharing arrangement. What else could it be? They want access to the UK's access to telephone and internet communications. For me, that would be the only reason that would bring all three political parties to the table with their knees knocking sufficiently to make them so timid and compliant.

And so to this Guardian article:

Edward Snowden condemns Britain's emergency surveillance bill

Exclusive: NSA whistleblower says it 'defies belief' that bill must be rushed through after government ignored issue for a year

• Ewen MacAskill
  
• Follow @ewenmacaskillFollow @guardian
  
• The Guardian, Sunday 13 July 2014 17.33 BST
  
• Jump to comments (1488)
  

Link to video: Edward Snowden: rush to pass British surveillance law is extraordinaryThe NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has condemned the newsurveillance bill being pushed through the UK's parliament this week, expressing concern about the speed at which it is being done, lack of public debate, fear-mongering and what he described as increased powers of intrusion.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian in Moscow, Snowden said it was very unusual for a public body to pass an emergency law such as this in circumstances other than a time of total war. "I mean we don't have bombs falling. We don't have U-boats in the harbour."
Suddenly it is a priority, he said, after the government had ignored it for an entire year. "It defies belief."
He found the urgency with which the British government was moving extraordinary and said it mirrored a similar move in the US in 2007 when the Bush administration was forced to introduce legislation, the Protect America Act, citing the same concerns about terrorist threats and the NSAlosing cooperation from telecom and internet companies.
"I mean the NSA could have written this draft," he said. "They passed it under the same sort of emergency justification. They said we would be at risk. They said companies will no longer cooperate with us. We're losing valuable intelligence that puts the nation at risk."
His comments chime with British civil liberties groups who, having had time to read the small print, are growing increasingly sceptical about government claims last week that the bill is a stop-gap that will not increase the powers of the surveillance agencies.
David Cameron, searching for cross-party support, assured the Liberal Democrats and Labour that there would be no extension of the powers.
But internal Home Office papers seen by the Guardian appear to confirm that there would be an expansion of powers. Campaigners argue that the bill contains new and unprecedented powers for the UK to require overseas companies to comply with interception warrants and communications data acquisition requests and build interception capabilities into their products and infrastructure.
The interview with Snowden, in a city centre hotel, lasted seven hours. One of only a handful of interviews since he sought asylum in Russia a year ago, it was wide-ranging, from the impact of the global debate he unleashed on surveillance and privacy to fresh insights into life inside theNSA. The full interview will be published later this week.

Edward Snowden with a framed piece of a computer that was destroyed in the Guardian basement at the request of the British government. Photograph: Alan RusbridgerHis year-long asylum is due to expire on 31 July but is almost certain to be extended. Even in the unlikely event of a political decision to send him to the US, he would be entitled to a year-long appeal process.
During the interview, Snowden was taken aback on learning about the speed at which the British government is moving on new legislation and described it as "a significant change". He questioned why it was doing so now, more than a year after his initial revelations about the scale of government surveillance in the US, the UK and elsewhere around the world, a year in which the government had been largely silent.
He also questioned why there had been a move in the aftermath of aruling by the European court of justice in April that declared some of the existing surveillance measures were invalid.
He said the government was asking for these "new authorities immediately without any debate, just taking their word for it, despite the fact that these exact same authorities were just declared unlawful by the European court of justice".
He added: "Is it really going to be so costly for us to take a few days to debate where the line should be drawn about the authority and what really serves the public interest?
"If these surveillance authorities are so interested, so invasive, the courts are actually saying they violate fundamental rights, do we really want to authorise them on a new, increased and more intrusive scale without any public debate?"
He said there had been government silence for the last year since he had exposed the scale of surveillance by the NSA and its British partnerGCHQ. "And yet suddenly we're told there's a brand new bill that looks like it was written by the National Security Agency that has to be passed in the same manner that a surveillance bill in the United States was passed in 2007, and it has to happen now. And we don't have time to debate it, despite the fact that this was not a priority, this was not an issue that needed to be discussed at all, for an entire year. It defies belief."
It is questionable how much impact his comments will have on parliamentarians, even though he is an expert witness, with inside knowledge of the surveillance agencies.
Snowden has become a champion for privacy campaigners. But, though his revelations prompted inquiries by two parliamentary committees, he has won little vocal support among parliamentarians.
The Conservatives deny there is any need for a debate on surveillance versus privacy. Labour and Liberal Democrats have been hesitant too about joining the debate, fearful of a backlash in the event of a terrorist attack.
Even backbench MPs who think the intelligence agencies have a case to answer hold back from public expressions of support for a whistleblower sought by the US government.
The British government is justifying the proposed new legislation on the grounds not only of the European court ruling but of US intelligence fears of a terrorist attack, in particular concerns of an attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner said to be emanating from an alleged al-Qaida bombmaker in Yemen linked to hardline Islamist groups in Syria and Iraq.
Snowden said the Bush administration had used the threat of another terrorist attack on America after 9/11 to push through the Protect America Act. The bill had to be brought in after the New York Times disclosed the surveillance agencies had been secretly engaged in wiretapping without a warrant.
Snowden said: "So what's extraordinary about this law being passed in the UK is that it very closely mirrors the Protect America Act 2007 that was passed in the United States at the request of the National Security Agency, after the warrantless wire-tapping programme, which was unlawful and unconstitutional, was revealed."
He said the bill was introduced into Congress on 1 August 2007 and signed into law on 5 August without any substantial open public debate. A year later it was renewed and the new version was even worse, he said, granting immunity to all the companies that had been breaking the law for the previous decade.

[Peter Lemkin]

GCHQ has tools to manipulate online information, leaked documents show

Documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal programs to track targets, spread information and manipulate online debates

• James Ball
  
  
• theguardian.com, Monday 14 July 2014 19.22 BST
  

The leaked document details a range of programs designed to collect and store public postings from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ and to make automated postings on several of the social networks. Photograph: Greg Blatchford/Barcroft Media

The UK intelligence agency GCHQ has developed sophisticated tools to manipulate online polls, spam targets with SMS messages, track people by impersonating spammers and monitor social media postings, according to newly-published documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The documents which were published on First Look Media with accompanying analysis from Glenn Greenwald disclose a range of GCHQ "effects" programs aimed at tracking targets, spreading information, and manipulating online debates and statistics.
The disclosure comes the day before the UK parliament is due to begin up to three days' debate on emergency legislation governing British surveillance capabilities. With cross-party support the bill is expected to be voted through this week.
Among the programs revealed in the document are:
GATEWAY: the "ability to artificially increase traffic to a website".
CLEAN SWEEP which "masquerade[s] Facebook wall posts for individuals or entire countries".
SCRAPHEAP CHALLENGE for "perfect spoofing of emails from BlackBerry targets".
UNDERPASS to "change outcome of online polls".
SPRING BISHOP to find "private photos of targets on Facebook".
The document also details a range of programs designed to collect and store public postings from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, and to make automated postings on several of the social networks.
Capabilities to boost views of YouTube videos, or to boost the circulation of particular messages are also detailed.
GCHQ has also, the document suggests, developed capabilities to scan and geolocate the IPs of entire cities at a time.
The document does not detail the legal restrictions on using any of the programs, nor state how often any were deployed. Several of the programs, though, are described as being at "pilot" stage.
GCHQ declined to provide First Look Media with a detailed statement, but told the outlet all its programs were "in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework" with "rigorous oversight".
Greenwald characterised the GCHQ statement as "questionable" in his article.

[David Guyatt]

Intelligence services 'creating vast databases' of intercepted emails

Government told internet surveillance tribunal that gathering material 'may be permissible', say human rights groups

• Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent
  
• Follow @owenbowcott Follow @guardian
  
• The Guardian, Friday 18 July 2014 19.19 BST
  
• Jump to comments (61)
  

The headquarters of GCHQ in Cheltenham. Human rights groups are bringing a case against it and other intelligence services over internet monitoring. Photograph: Alamy

The intelligence services are constructing "vast databases" out of accumulated interceptions of emails, a tribunal investigating mass surveillance of the internet has been told.
The claim emerged during a ground-breaking case against the monitoring agency GCHQ, MI5, MI6 and the government at the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT).
Matthew Ryder QC, for Liberty and other human rights groups, told a hearing the government had not disputed "that databases gathering material that may be useful for the future is something that may be permissible under Ripa [the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act2000]".
If they are deemed under the legislation to be "necessary", he said, that may mean their use "can stretch far into the future".
Ryder added: "The government is now conceding it can gather such databases."
The court heard that the intelligence services might be accumulating databases in that way about persistent security threats. Lawyers for the government would not confirm nor deny this but conceded it would be permissible under Ripa.
Developing such a capability, human rights groups argue, was explicitly rejected by parliament when the communications data bill, nicknamed the snooper's charter, was defeated last year.
Ryder said: "There must be accessible guidelines in relation to how both the content and communications data [of any email] are treated … The [government] is setting up vast databases of all our communications that have been collected.
"What we may have now is a database system which is far beyond what was envisaged. Is there sufficient constraint in law if that is what is going on?"
Ben Jaffey, for Privacy International, said Ripa had ceased providing the significant safeguards it once guaranteed against interception of communications without an individual warrant.
"A statute which in 2000 afforded quite strong protection no longer affords such protection," Jaffey said. The law has stayed the same, he added, but had lost its force because more and more internet traffic involved being routed through foreign websites and online servers.
The government's senior security advisor, Charles Farr, has submitted a lengthy defence of interception surveillance policy, explaining that emails, online searches and communications that touch foreign servers are deemed to be external, not internal, and so do not require an individual warrant to be intercepted.
Jaffey said: "[That fact] was kept confidential until Mr Farr's witness statement was produced."
The case has been brought by Privacy International, Liberty, Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union and other overseas human rights groups following revelations by the US whistleblowerEdward Snowden.
It is the first of dozens of GCHQ-related claims to be examined by the IPT, which hears complaints against British intelligence agencies and government bodies that carry out surveillance under Ripa.
The civil liberties organisations are concerned that their private communications have been monitored under GCHQ's electronic surveillance programme Tempora, whose existence was revealed by Snowden. They also complain that information obtained through theNSA's Prism and upstream programmes may have been shared with the British intelligence services, side-stepping protections provided by the UK legal system.
The five-day hearing has fought its way through the dense undergrowth of overlapping clauses and subsections of Ripa. One member of the tribunal bench described the act as a "difficult if not impenetrable statute". James Eadie, QC, for the government, admitted that it is "convoluted legislation".
The different levels of regulatory protection afforded to those who communicate only inside the UK and those whose emails are deemed to go overseas as they roam the internet has raised concerns over whether the legislation might be discriminatory.
If the IPT rejects the NGOs' complaints, they may take their claims to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg.
The IPT has been asked by government lawyers to hold a secret hearing, from which the claimants and the media will be excluded, before the tribunal delivers its judgment.
That session would consider the secret codes of practice and internal arrangements regulating the way in which MI5, MI6 and GCHQ staff carry out interceptions. Government lawyers say "they cannot be safely put into the public domain".
Written submissions for the government have accepted that, under the "alleged" Tempora operation: "The claimants' [the civil liberty organisations'] communications might in principle have been intercepted in the UK … and at least some of those intercepted communications might in principle have been read, looked at or listened [to]."
Judgment was reserved.

.

[Carsten Wiethoff]

http://porkinspolicyreview.wordpress.com...ry-barlow/

Multiple ways that Pierre Omidyar and Snowden are connected via different organizations and people laid out in this podcast. I also recommend Pearse Redmonds other podcasts about various political or cultural issues.

[Peter Lemkin]

http://porkinspolicyreview.wordpress.com...ry-barlow/

Multiple ways that Pierre Omidyar and Snowden are connected via different organizations and people laid out in this podcast. I also recommend Pearse Redmonds other podcasts about various political or cultural issues.

Interesting and potentially disturbing. I think it is worthy of further research and his 'take' would not be beyond the possible. I think the reality might be something part way between the commonly held belief and what he discusses on this interesting and well-researched show....that some of the persons are being used, rather than 'conspirators' per se...but time will tell. As for the organizations involved, they are more likely than not guilty of promoting general fear and furthering the wishes of the power elites and their Praetorian Guards [including intelligence agencies]. Well worth a listen and then decide for yourself. What a dangerous and sinister World we live in now!

[Peter Lemkin]

NSA Whistleblower: Agency's Prime Concerns are Money & Power, US is "Totalitarian"

By Deutsche Welle / August 31st, 2014

Binney: The NSA's main motives: power and money'

Whistleblower William Binney recently made headlines when he told the German parliament that the NSA, his former employer, had become "totalitarian." DW spoke to him about NSA overrreach and the agency's power.

DW: In your testimony, you described the NSA as "totalitarian," and many commentators say that Germany's Stasi history has made the country more sensitive to NSA revelations. But others have suggested this comparison is too easy. After all, the Stasi also targeted intellectuals and general writers opposed to the East German regime.
Sure, they haven't gone that far yet, but they tried to shut down newspaper reporters like Jim Risen [who is fighting legal action by the Department of Justice to testify against an alleged source - the eds.]. Look at the NDAA Section 1021, that gave President Obama the ability to define someone as a terrorist threat and have the military incarcerate them indefinitely without due process. That's the same as the special order 48 issued in 1933 by the Nazis, [the so-called Reichstag Fire Decree]. Read that it says exactly the same thing.
These were totalitarian processes that were instituted. And it's not just us it's happening around the world. Totalitarianism comes in the form first of knowledge of people and what they're doing, and then it starts to transition into using that power against people. That's what's happening in terms of newspaper reporters, in terms of crimes. That's a direct violation of our constitution.
But surely the difference is that there was an ideological regime behind the Stasi and the Nazis.
You mean like putting people like John Kiriakou in prison for exposing torture [the former CIA officer was the first to discuss waterboarding of terrorism suspects with the press. He is serving a 30-month prison term for leaking the name of an undercover agency operative to a reporter - the eds.], and giving the torturers immunity? That's what our country's coming to. That's what we did. That's disgraceful. The motives of totalitarian states are not exactly the same every time, but they're very similar: power, control and money.
What's changed in the NSA's methodology since you were working there, until 2001?
We're focusing now on everyone on the planet that's a change from focusing on organizations that were attempting to do nasty things. When you focus on everybody, you're moving down that path towards population control.
But is that the intention, or just a consequence of the new methods?
Well, otherwise you don't have secret interpretations of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, or Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, nor do you use Executive Order 12333 in a general way, which says you can collect and keep data on US citizens if you're acquiring them in the process of investigations for terrorism or international dope-smuggling. And they're collecting this data incidentally, but they're allowed to keep it according to their interpretation of that executive order. Which means they copy everything in the pipe. That means everybody and all their content.
You argue that mass data collection is a very inefficient way to catch terrorists, but can't the NSA legitimately argue that mass data collection works?
They've had it for 13 years and they haven't done it [caught terrorists]. Not in the mass domestic collection in the targeted approach, yes. If you separate out all the targeted individuals, what did the rest contribute to anything? The answer is zero. It contributes to law enforcement, not intelligence against terror. That's the whole point. When you do the things that they do dictionary select, like a Google query, you throw a bunch of words in and get a return. And if you do that for terrorism, you get everything in the haystack that has those words. So now you're buried by orders of magnitude worse than you used to be. So you don't find them.
So why do they keep doing it?
Money. It takes a lot of money, you have to build up Bluffdale [the location of the NSA's data storage center, in Utah] to store all the data. If you collect all the data, you've got to store it, you have to hire more people to analyze it, you have to hire more contractors, managers to manage the flow. You have to start a big data initiative. It's an empire. Look at what they've built! Have you ever looked around all the buildings they've built up because of 9/11?
So that's what it's all about, expanding the budget for the intelligence community?
If you have a problem, you need money to solve it. But if you solve that problem, you no longer have the justification to get money. That's the way they view it keep the problem going, so the money keeps flowing. Once you build up this big empire, you have to sustain it. … Look at the influence and power the intelligence community has over the government. They [the government] are giving them everything they want, they're trying to cover up all their tracks and their crimes. Look at the influence and power they're gaining.
This was presumably the reason why you left the NSA. How long did it take you to decide to leave? You left very quickly after the new programs were introduced following 9/11.
The acquisition of data was such that it was pretty clear that I couldn't stick around at that point, but the slow process, starting in 80s and going into the 90s, was seeing the focus more on acquiring money to get contracts to build up the empire, as opposed to actually doing the mission. I watched that evolution from an organization that was unified all skills were unified, then in the late 60s/early 70s they separated them operations was here, technology moved over here. That created two separate camps with two different motives. One motive was to answer the questions in real life and deal with crises that was the operations. On the other hand, you had the technology people who wanted to play around in the lab and build things. But the focus became getting money, because you need money to get contracts to buy equipment.
As someone who was instrumental in designing the NSA's programs, do you sometimes feel like the man who invented the atom bomb?
No, because I designed it to do a proper job. These people subverted it. They corrupted it to violate the law and the constitution. The design I did followed all that … and I was open with Congress about what I was doing. … These cowards downtown in DC are changing our constitution they're scrapping the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments primarily. If you want to change the constitution, there's a process to do that. That process means putting a proposal in Congress, get Congress to pass it and then you pass it around all the states, and if 75 percent of the states ratify it, then it's a Constitutional Amendment. That's the process. These cowards are doing it all in secret.
William Binney had a 30-year-career at the National Security Agency, which culminated in becoming its technical director. He resigned from the agency in October 2001 and became an outspoken critic of his former employers.

[Peter Lemkin]

Fake Cell Phone Towers, Many on Military Bases, are Intercepting Calls Across the U.S.
By NORVELL ROSE / Western JournalismSeptember 22nd, 2014

BY NORVELL ROSE
Have you ever stopped to think that your cell phone conversations might be intercepted by so-called "fake" or "interceptor" cell towers? Could domestic surveillance and law enforcement agencies be using such towers to spy on people?

According to a recent investigative piece on newsweek.com, the answer is "yes" cell towers operated by, or in service of, the government could well be messing with your private communications.

The Internet is abuzz with reports of mysterious devices sprinkled across Americamany of them on military basesthat connect to your phone by mimicking cell phone towers and sucking up your data. There is little public information about these devices, but they are the new favorite toy of government agencies of all stripes; everyone from the National Security Agency to local police forces are using them.

Now the Washington Times reports that suspicious cell towers have been discovered not where they could be used by the government, but could present a real threat to government operations as well as to national security.

According to the Times article, experts have identified interceptor towers near locations where privileged communications are extremely sensitive the White House and the U.S. Capitol. And who's secretly doing the listening? Probably foreign agents, says one expert.

Cell Phone Tower Keithius Fake Cell Phone Towers, Many on Military Bases, are Intercepting Calls Across the U.S."It's highly unlikely that federal law enforcement would be using mobile interceptors near the Senate," ESD America CEO Les Goldsmith told the technology website Venture Beat on Thursday.

The towers are also capable of loading spyware onto a mobile device before passing off a victim's call to a legitimate network.

"My suspicion is that it is a foreign entity," he told Venture Beat.

The reason Mr. Goldsmith doesn't suspect U.S. agencies of placing the interceptors is that the federal government already has the capability of tapping directly into the carriers.

After a separate investigation, theblaze.com says that mysterious intercept devices not necessarily large towers have been located around the Russian embassy.

"In several locations including on Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown D.C. someone is operating a full-blown intercept where whenever you walk past they actually break open your communications and look at what's going on on the device," [Aaron Turner, an expert in mobile security] said.

…it could be anyone "sitting up in an apartment building, it could be a device embedded in a copy machine inside of an office, these cell towers' don't have to be big, they don't have to be sitting on top of a roof. They can be embedded in another piece of equipment or be inside of a wall."


http://www.westernjournalism.com/fake-ce...12D3K8D.99

[Peter Lemkin]

GCHQ head says tech firms 'in denial' on extremism

US technology companies have become "the command and control networks of choice" for extremists, the new head of GCHQ has claimed.
Writing in the Financial Times, Robert Hannigan says some US tech companies are "in denial" about how their services are being misused.
He also said UK security agencies needed support from "the largest US tech companies which dominate the web".
Extremist groups in Syria and Iraq had "embraced the web", he added.
Mr Hannigan argues that the big internet firms must work more closely with the intelligence services, warning that "privacy has never been an absolute right".
"However much they may dislike it, [US technology companies] have become the command and control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals, who find their services as transformational as the rest of us," he writes.
"The challenge to governments and their intelligence agencies is huge - and it can only be met with greater co-operation from technology companies.
"GCHQ and its sister agencies, MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service, cannot tackle these challenges at scale without greater support from the private sector, including the largest US technology companies which dominate the web."
The debate about whether security agencies should be allowed to access personal data through social-networking sites like Google and Facebook was brought to the fore in 2013 after Edward Snowden leaked details of alleged internet and phone surveillance by US intelligence.
Mr Snowden, who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia, faces espionage charges over his actions.

Analysis
Gordon Corera, BBC security correspondent
This is a hard-hitting article from the new GCHQ director in his first move on taking up the role. His aim is clear - to pressure tech companies to work more with government.
Following the Edward Snowden disclosures last year, some of those companies have been less willing to share data with intelligence and law enforcement and more inclined to encrypt it - making it harder for authorities to gain access.
Tech companies may be surprised by the ferocity of the attack. And they - and privacy activists - may also argue that the spies started this fight with the scale of their intelligence collection and by hacking into some of those companies.
But Robert Hannigan has wasted no time in wading into the debate over security and privacy and making clear he will not shy away from a fight.

Mr Hannigan goes on to say that Islamic State (IS), also known as Isil, has a different approach to using the internet than other extremist groups have had.
"Where al-Qaeda and its affiliates saw the internet as a place to disseminate material anonymously or meet in 'dark spaces', Isis has embraced the web as a noisy channel in which to promote itself, intimidate people, and radicalise new recruits."
He also says most internet users "would be comfortable with a better and more sustainable relationship between the [intelligence] agencies and the tech companies".
Brent Hoberman, founder of lastminute.com, said he thought there should be a compromise.
He said: "We need more trust in the security services, I agree, and there were too many people that had access to Snowden files - 800,000 people or something - that's too many for high level security.
Mr Hannigan was appointed as the new director of GCHQ in April
"But if we had enough confidence that they were only under due process with a warrant that was specific in limited cases - I want the security services to be able to get into my phone."
Rachel O'Connell, a former chief security officer at social networking site Bebo, said the security services were taking a "polarised position".
She said this was the case "particularly post-Snowden, where we were realising that there was a suspicion, in some cases substantiated, that the security services have total access to whatever is happening online.
"And that's a situation that's untenable if you are thinking about a democracy."
Hashtags strategy Earlier in the year an investigation by the Guardian revealed how IS was using popular hashtags - including ones used during the Scottish Referendum - to boost the popularity of its material on Twitter.
Security minister James Brokenshire met recently with representatives from technology companies - including Google, Microsoft and Facebook - in Luxembourg to discuss ways to tackle online extremism.
The government's Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), set up in 2010, has removed more than 49,000 pieces of content that "encourages or glorifies acts of terrorism" - 30,000 of which have been removed since December 2013.
Scotland Yard's head of counter-terrorism, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, has previously said that officers are removing more than 1,000 online postings a week, including graphic and violent videos and images.

[Peter Lemkin]

A new report reveals the Justice Department is sweeping up data from vast swaths of the population by flying planes equipped with devices that mimic cellphone towers. According to The Wall Street Journal, the seven-year-old program, run by the U.S. Marshals Service, allows the government to trick tens of thousands of cellphones into reporting their location and identifying information over the course of a single flight. While the program is designed to target criminal suspects, it is reportedly ensnaring massive numbers of innocent Americans. The device can also interrupt calls on certain phones.