The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Unprecedented public hearing sees spy chiefs claim 'very damaging' Snowden press leaks have given terrorists ammunition

By Chris Boffey

November 7, 2013 | 7 min read

In an unprecedented public hearing, the director general of MI5 Andrew Parker, GCHQ director Sir Iain Lobban and MI6 chief Sir John Sawers were grilled by MPs today and for all to see on television. Chris Boffey questions whether their claims that leaks in the press have empowered terrorists really stand up to scrutiny.

Today at the Intelligence Select Committee

It took an hour and 10 minutes before the name of Snowden was invoked at the Intelligence Select Committee. Like Harry Potter’s nemesis, Lord Voldomort, his name was never dared mentioned until Sir John Sawers, the dashing Mi6 chief, finally blurted it out.

“The leaks from Snowden have been very damaging. Our opponents have been rubbing their hands with glee.”

Even John Parker, the Mi5 director general, did not mention You-Know-Who when he told the committee that newspaper revelations were a gift to terrorists and that detecting their communications was a task made even harder.

Sir Iain Lobban, the director of GCHQ, the government cyber spying operation, went further saying much of the intelligence agencies' success relied upon terrorists being unaware of just what was going on.

And in the only bombshell moment in the appearance of all three UK security operations before the committee, he added that over the last five months his agency had specific evidence of terrorists discussing the leaks in the press in specific terms and moving on to “other communications packages.. a direct consequence of what has been referred to in the press".

“Uncovering terrorist cells, revealing people shipping materials or expertise around the world, battling online sexual exploitation of children, all that is in a much weaker place than it was before the revelations.”

When asked to give specific examples, Sir Iain said he could not do so during a public session of the committee but promised to give the peers and MPs who made up the committee all the details in private.

Of course there was no one from any of the media to refute the claims by the spy agency chiefs, although the committee chairman, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, attempted to play devil’s advocate, even though as a former foreign secretary he had been line manager to the head of Mi6.

Sir Malcolm said that what had appeared in the press had given no names and only mentioned general capability.

Sir John never used the phrase “mere journalists” but it was strongly implied when he replied that he was not sure that reporters with the information were placed to make those judgements.

His answer was in similar tone to those by Glenn Greenwald, the lead Guardian investigator of the Snowden files, who attempted to put the Today presenter Evan Davies in his place a few hours earlier by accusing him of knowing nothing about the practice of good journalism.

Sir John, with his decades as a diplomat, managed to get away with his sneer but Greenwald came across as pompous and crass and never realised that Davies not only let him dig the hole but in later questions continually handed him a bigger spade.

During the committee hearing, which was televised and subject to a two-minute delay in case any secrets were blurted out, Sir Iain became increasingly vocal about the role of the GCHQ.

He defended its work and the people employed at the headquarters near Cheltenham.

“I do not look at the surrounding hay”, he said, using the metaphor of looking for a needle in a haystack. “If you are a threat or you are in contact with someone who is a threat you may be monitored.. If I asked staff to snoop, they’d leave the building.”

When questioned about why the public did not know about surveillance, he said that “secret did not mean sinister,” and added that an “active debate” had been going on even before the Snowden revelations about where the line of secrecy needed to be.

He claimed that the oversight framework was robust saying that if parliament chose to have a debate and change the laws, that was “fine by him”.

Mi5 director general Parker expressed frustration that this oversight was never made public and reeled of his many closed-door meetings with the home secretary, the ISC and the intelligence commissioners.

Sir Malcolm said the committee hearing, the first of its kind, was “a very significant step forward in the transparency of our intelligence agencies”.

In the early stages of the committee Sir John said that there was “no doubt at all that the threat is rising” of terrorist attacks against British citizens and interests around the world.

Since the July 7 attacks in London in 2005, there have been 34 plots disrupted in the UK, some of which were “aimed at mass casualties” and the majority of which were thwarted by the actions of the intelligence and security agencies using cyber technology.

Parker agreed that the civil war in Syria had been a magnet for hundreds of British nationals looking for the opportunity for “jihadi” activity, many of whom have come into contact with al-Qaeda-supporting groups before returning to the UK.

“We’ve seen low hundreds of people from this country go to Syria for periods and come back - some large numbers are still there - and get involved in fighting,” he said.

“This is partly because of the proximity of Syria and the ease of travel there, but also because it is attractive as what they would see as a jihadi cause.”

Parker said that since 9/11 the bulk of plots directed at British interests emanated from the “almost monolithic phenomenon” of al-Qaeda in south Asia. Increasingly since the July 7 attacks, however, the direct threat from al-Qaeda had spread and diversified to include threats from areas like Africa and Yemen.

“I want to make clear that this diversification of threat is not a shift or a displacement from one area to another. It’s the growth of the al-Qaeda phenomenon... in north and west Africa, in east Africa, in Yemen and most recently in Syria, where the al-Qaeda ideology has started to take root with pre-existing groups there that were mostly national or regional Islamist extremist groupings.”

Chris Boffey is a former news editor of the Observer, Sunday Telegraph and the Mirror and onetime special adviser to the Labour government

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +