{"id":42493,"date":"2014-05-05T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2014-05-05T11:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=42493"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:35:02","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:35:02","slug":"british-spy-chiefs-secretly-begged-to-play-in-nsas-data-pools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/05\/british-spy-chiefs-secretly-begged-to-play-in-nsas-data-pools\/","title":{"rendered":"British Spy Chiefs Secretly Begged to Play in NSA\u2019s Data Pools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Britain\u2019s electronic surveillance agency, Government Communications Headquarters, has long presented its collaboration with the National Security Agency\u2019s massive electronic spying efforts as proportionate, carefully monitored, and well within the bounds of privacy laws. But according to a top-secret document in the archive of material provided to The Intercept<\/em> by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, GCHQ secretly coveted the NSA\u2019s vast troves of private communications and sought \u201cunsupervised access\u201d to its data as recently as last year \u2013 essentially begging to feast at the NSA\u2019s table while insisting that it only nibbles on the occasional crumb.<\/p>\n

The document<\/a>, dated April 2013, reveals that GCHQ requested broad new authority to tap into data collected under a law that authorizes a variety of controversial NSA surveillance initiatives, including the PRISM program.<\/p>\n

PRISM is a system used by the NSA and the FBI to obtain the content of personal emails, chats, photos, videos, and other data processed by nine of the world\u2019s largest internet companies, including Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Skype. The arrangement GCHQ proposed would also have provided the British agency with greater access to millions of international phone calls and emails that the NSA siphons directly from phone networks and the internet.<\/p>\n

The Snowden files do not indicate whether NSA granted GCHQ\u2019s request, but they do show that the NSA was \u201csupportive\u201d of the idea, and that GCHQ was permitted extensive access to PRISM during the London Olympics in 2012. The request for the broad access was communicated at \u201cleadership\u201d level, according to the documents. Neither agency would comment on the proposed arrangement or whether it was approved.<\/p>\n

Last June, in the wake of the Guardian<\/em>\u2018s PRISM disclosures<\/a>, British Foreign Secretary William Hague issued a lengthy statement<\/a> declaring that \u201cthe arrangements for oversight and the general framework for exchanging information with the United States are the same as under previous governments.\u201d Warrants to intercept the communications of any individual in the United Kingdom, the statement read, must be personally signed by a cabinet secretary.<\/p>\n

Likewise, the British Intelligence and Security Committee reported in July<\/a> that, after reviewing \u201cGCHQ\u2019s access to the content of communications, the legal framework which governs that access, and the arrangements GCHQ has with its overseas counterparts for sharing such information,\u201d the spy agency\u2019s collaboration with the NSA was within the bounds of British law.<\/p>\n

But the broader access secretly sought by GCHQ only months earlier appears to have been unprecedented \u2013 and would have placed fewer restrictions on how the NSA\u2019s surveillance data is obtained and handled by British spies.<\/p>\n

In response to the revelation, British member of Parliament Julian Huppert has accused government officials of issuing statements intended to \u201cdeliberately mislead\u201d about GCHQ\u2019s surveillance programs and called for an overhaul of the current system of oversight.<\/p>\n

Eric King, head of research at London-based human rights group Privacy International, said that the latest disclosure raised \u201cserious concerns\u201d about whether GCHQ has pushed for the ability to sift through data collected by the NSA in a bid to circumvent British laws restricting the scope of its surveillance.<\/p>\n

\u201cGCHQ\u2019s continued insistence that it is following the law becomes less credible with every revelation,\u201d King told The Intercept<\/em>, adding that he believed the agency was \u201cstretching its legal authorities with help from international partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

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GCHQ\u2019s request is outlined in an NSA memo<\/a> marked \u201ctop secret\u201d and \u201cnoforn\u201d \u2013 agency jargon for \u201cno foreigners.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was prepared last year for Gen. Keith Alexander, then director of the NSA, in advance of a visit by Sir Iain Lobban, chief of GCHQ. Lobban was scheduled to attend a dinner at Alexander\u2019s home on April 30, 2013. The following day, the two spy chiefs were to have a \u201cone-on-one discussion,\u201d and Lobban was to be given a tour of NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, complete with demonstrations of the agency\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n

The memo includes talking points for Alexander on issues related to Syria and Iran, and also warns that GCHQ is being \u201cchallenged with their activities and operations being subject to increased scrutiny and oversight from their government (and public).\u201d Alexander was told that Lobban might ask about the safeguards in place to prevent any data that GCHQ shared with the NSA from being handed to others, such as Israel, who might use it in \u201clethal operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the heading\u00a0 \u201ckey topic areas,\u201d the document notes that gaining \u201cunsupervised access\u201d to data collected by the NSA under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act \u201cremains on GCHQ\u2019s wish list and is something its leadership still desires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Section 702 of FISA<\/a> grants the NSA wide latitude to collect the email and phone communications of \u201cpersons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States.\u201d It authorizes PRISM and several other programs \u2013 with codenames such as BLARNEY and STORMBREW \u2013 that covertly mine communications directly from phone lines and internet cables.<\/p>\n

The memo adds: \u201cNSA and SID [Signals Intelligence Directorate] leadership are well aware of GCHQ\u2019s request for this data, and the steps necessary for approval. NSA leadership could be asked whether we\u2019re still supportive of this initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n

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GCHQ was previously reported<\/a> to have had some level of access to PRISM since at least June 2010, generating 197 intelligence reports from the data in 2012. However, the British agency appears to have been unsatisfied with limits placed on its use of the system.<\/p>\n

While GCHQ\u2019s ultimate aim was to gain \u201cunsupervised\u201d access to the NSA\u2019s FISA databases, as of April 2013 it had already successfully lobbied for increased access to the trove \u201csupervised\u201d <\/em>by the NSA. The newly disclosed Snowden document indicates that GCHQ was close to concluding a deal to gain the supervised access to communications collected under FISA as part of a program called \u201cTriage 2.0.\u201d This deal, under unspecified conditions imposed by the NSA, was \u201cawaiting signature\u201d from the British agency in April 2013, according to the document.<\/p>\n

In addition, the top-secret memo notes that the NSA had separately agreed with GCHQ to share data on a broader \u201cunsupervised\u201d basis as part of a program called Olympic Option.<\/p>\n

Olympic Option was a surveillance program operated during the London Olympics in 2012, under which at least 100 GCHQ operatives were given access to the PRISM system \u201cthroughout the Olympic timeframe,\u201d ostensibly to identify potential terror threats. In a single six-day period in May 2012, according to a top-secret PowerPoint slide<\/a>, GCHQ received 11,431 \u201ccuts of traffic\u201d from communications intercepted using PRISM. (\u201cCuts\u201d is a term used by the NSA to describe extracts of conversations that it collects.) The memo prepared for Alexander describes the British request for unsupervised access to FISA 702 data as \u201cin a manner similar to Olympics Option [sic<\/em>].\u201d<\/p>\n

The data sharing between the agencies during the Olympics, though, was not isolated to PRISM. It also encompassed large volumes of metadata \u2013 such as the \u201cto\u201d and \u201cfrom\u201d details from an email but not the content of the message itself \u2013 as part of a more expansive Olympics surveillance effort. The NSA was funneling troves of intercepted data to GCHQ from a system called GHOSTMACHINE<\/a>, a massive cloud database used by the NSA to analyze metadata and store, according to one document in the Snowden archive, \u201c100s of billions of entries.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The NSA declined to answer a series of questions from The Intercept<\/em> about its surveillance cooperation with GCHQ or comment on whether the arrangement has involved sharing information on Americans\u2019 communications.<\/p>\n

In a statement, NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines said that the agency is legally barred from sharing intelligence collected under PRISM and similar programs \u201cunless the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has first approved minimization procedures, which must comply with the Fourth Amendment and limit the collection, retention and dissemination of information about U.S. persons.\u201d Vines added that, in response to a \u201cgenuine threat of terrorist attack\u201d surrounding the 2012 Olympics, the U.S.intelligence community \u201ctook steps authorized by law and consistent with the Constitution to protect Americans and citizens of other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, GCHQ refused to answer any questions on the record about the documents. The agency issued its boilerplate response to inquiries, insisting that its work \u201cis carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework, which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, a report<\/a> by the U.K. government\u2019s communications interception commissioner deemed GCHQ\u2019s arrangements with the NSA to have been within the law and said that the agency was not engaged in \u201cindiscriminate random mass intrusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the newly revealed documents raise questions about the full extent of the clandestine cooperation \u2013 key details about which appear to have been withheld from lawmakers.<\/p>\n

Huppert, the member of Parliament, served on a committee that reviewed<\/a> \u2013\u00a0and recommended against \u2013\u00a0a push from the British government for more powers to access private data before the Snowden materials became public last year.<\/p>\n

At no point during that process, Huppert says, did GCHQ disclose the extent of its access to PRISM and other then-secret NSA programs. Nor did it indicate that it was seeking wider access to NSA data \u2013\u00a0even during closed sessions held to allow security officials to discuss sensitive information. Huppert says these facts were relevant to the review and could have had a bearing on its outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is now obvious that they were trying to deliberately mislead the committee,\u201d Huppert told The Intercept<\/em>. \u201cThey very clearly did not give us all the information that we needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Decrying the process as a \u201cgood example of how governments should not behave,\u201d the Liberal Democrat parliamentarian is calling for significant reform of the U.K.\u2019s current surveillance regime.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to see much greater clarity on how we have oversight, because it is currently not fit for purpose,\u201d he says. \u201cWe need much more transparency about what is happening. And we need to revise our laws, because our laws clearly have too many loopholes in them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Documents published with this article:<\/em><\/p>\n