(Left to right) Mi6 chief Andrew Parker, Mi6 chief Sir John Sawers and GCHQ chief, Sir Iaian Lobban

Today, the three chiefs of the British intelligence agencies have made an unprecedented public televised appearance in front of the intelligence and security committee of MP’s where they will seek to justify the legitimacy of the agencies activities. The public hearing featured the chief of Mi6, Sir John Sawers, chief of Mi5, Andrew Parker and the chief of GCHQ, Sir Iain Lobban.

The hearing comes as a result of former leaks from former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden. Snowden disclosed classified information of not only top secret United States mass surveillance programs to The Guardian, but also programmes conducted by Israeli, French, British and other governments. Snowden has taken up political asylum in Russia, and has been labelled as a fugitive by American authorities who have already charged with him espionage and theft of government property.

Former NSA contractor and whistle blower, Edward Snowden

In close partnership with Britain’s GCHQ intelligence agency, the German, Spanish, French and Swedish intelligence agencies have developed methods of mass surveillance of internet and phone traffic over the past five years. The surveillance is carried out through tapping into fibre optic cables and development of relationships with telecommunications companies. Ironically, phone networks in Europe are awfully easy to tap largely because they were designed on the advice from continental spy agencies. The leaked documents by Snowden reveal that Britain’s GCHQ played a major role in advising its European associates how to work around national laws intended to restrict the surveillance power of intelligence agencies. The UK government was warned by German justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger that free and democratic societies could not flourish when states shielded their actions in a “veil of secrecy”.

Head of GCHQ, Sir Iain Lobban claimed that mass surveillance programmes did not necessarily mean the intelligence agencies were reading everyone’s emails or listening to their calls, which in some respects is true. Although, NSA’s surveillance program, PRISM has collected and stored information for over 5 years from companies such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo and several more. This means that you have never actually permanently deleted anything from Facebook, it’s all stored somewhere, and the capacity of the storage increases by 21 petabytes of internet data each day. He further added that if you are a threat or you are in contact with someone who is a threat, you will potentially be monitored. Perhaps the biggest lie mentioned during the hearing was when Lobban claimed the agencies did not do anything outside the law. The intelligence gathering agencies have breached basic articles of the EU treaty, such as articles 4.3 on “sincere co-operation” as well as privacy clauses in the EU charter of fundamental values, and in the European charter of fundamental rights.

Sir John Sawers, head of Mi6 has stated that national security has been so badly damaged by Snowden’s leaks that those who wish to do harm to Britain have been “rubbing their hands with glee” and al-Qaeda is “lapping it up”. Terrorist groups in the Middle East and Afghanistan have the upper hand and the leaks could help paedophiles avoid detection; the three chiefs were unwilling to provide anymore examples of the damage caused by the leaks.

After being asked why the public were not informed of the mass surveillance before discovering them via Snowden’s leaks to The Guardian, Lobban claimed some things were “necessarily secret” and “should remain secret”. He added to his bold statement, secrets did not mean sinister.  He’s correct, secrets don’t necessarily mean sinister, but I’m certain we’ve all heard the saying “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”.

Sawers continued to deny Mi6 spied on everyone, claiming there were only a few countries where covert operations were conducted. To defend the mass surveillance programmes, Parker stated there were some terrorist plots during the London 2012 Olympics, but they were disrupted by intelligence agencies. He added, in total there have been 330 prosecutions for international terrorism since the events on 9/11 and 34 terrorist plots have been foiled since the London 7/7 bombings, Parker reiterated UK intelligence work defends freedom. Arguably, the reckless mass surveillance undermines freedom and democracy.
Lobban said the types of people employed by GCHQ were concerned about combating terrorism and criminals, and if they were asked to spy on innocent citizens, they would “walk out”. Parker said “the work we did is addressing directly threats to this country, to our way of life and to the people who live here”, Sawers was quizzed by the committee about why, despite this effort put into mass surveillance, did security services fail to predict the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, events of 9/11 in 2001, 7/7 2005 bombings and the Arab Spring. His response was it’s not his responsibility.