{"id":58724,"date":"2015-05-25T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T11:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=58724"},"modified":"2015-05-24T15:55:28","modified_gmt":"2015-05-24T14:55:28","slug":"apple-and-google-just-attended-a-confidential-spy-summit-in-a-remote-english-mansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/05\/apple-and-google-just-attended-a-confidential-spy-summit-in-a-remote-english-mansion\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple and Google Just Attended a Confidential Spy Summit in a Remote English Mansion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Graham<\/a>

Graham Barclay\/Bloomberg\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

22 May 2015 – <\/em>At an 18th-century mansion in England\u2019s countryside last week, current and former spy chiefs from seven\u00a0countries faced off with representatives from tech giants Apple and Google to discuss government surveillance in the aftermath of Edward Snowden\u2019s leaks.<\/p>\n

The three-day conference, which took place behind closed doors and under strict rules about confidentiality, was aimed at debating the line between privacy and security.<\/p>\n

Among an extraordinary list of attendees were a host of current or former heads from spy agencies such as the CIA and British electronic surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. Other current or former top spooks from Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Sweden were also in attendance. Google, Apple, and telecommunications company Vodafone sent some of their senior policy and legal staff to the discussions. And a handful of academics and journalists were also present.<\/p>\n

According to an event program<\/a> obtained by The Intercept<\/em>, questions on the agenda included: \u201cAre we being misled by the term \u2018mass surveillance\u2019?\u201d \u201cIs spying on allies\/friends\/potential adversaries inevitable if there is a perceived national security interest?\u201d \u201cWho should authorize intrusive intelligence operations such as interception?\u201d \u201cWhat should be the nature of the security relationship between intelligence agencies and private sector providers, especially when they may in any case be cooperating against cyber threats in general?\u201d And, \u201cHow much should the press disclose about intelligence activity?\u201d<\/p>\n

The list of participants included:<\/p>\n

From companies:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Richard Salgado, Google\u2019s legal director for law enforcement and information security; Verity Harding, Google\u2019s U.K. public policy manager and head of security and privacy policy; Jane Horvath, Apple\u2019s senior director of global privacy; Erik Neuenschwander, Apple\u2019s product security and privacy manager; Matthew Kirk, Vodafone Group\u2019s external affairs director; and Phillipa McCrostie, global vice chair of transaction advisory services, Ernst & Young.<\/em><\/p>\n

From the U.S.:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

John McLaughlin, the CIA\u2019s former acting director and deputy director; Jami Miscik, the CIA\u2019s former director of intelligence; Mona Sutphen, member of President Obama\u2019s Intelligence Advisory Board and former White House deputy chief of staff; Rachel Brand, member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board<\/a>; George Newcombe, board of visitors, Columbia Law School; David Ignatius, Washington Post columnist and associate editor; and Sue Halpern, New York Review of Books contributor.<\/em><\/p>\n

From the U.K.:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Robert Hannigan, current chief of British surveillance agency GCHQ; Sir David Omand, former GCHQ chief; Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former head of the British parliament\u2019s Intelligence and Security Committee; Lord Butler of Brockwell, member of the Intelligence and Security Committee; Dr. Jamie Saunders, director of the National Cybercrime Unit at the National Crime Agency<\/a>; Sir Mark Waller, Intelligence Services Commissioner; Peter Clarke, former head of Counter Terrorism Command at London\u2019s Metropolitan Police; Baroness Neville-Jones, House of Lords special representative to business on cyber security and member of the joint parliamentary committee on national security strategy; John Spellar, member of parliament; Duncan Campbell, investigative journalist; Gordon Corera, BBC security correspondent; and Professor Timothy Garton Ash, historian and author.<\/em><\/p>\n

From Europe:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ernst Uhrlau, former head of the German federal intelligence service, the BND; Christophe Bigot, director of strategy for French surveillance agency Directorate General for External Security; Ingvar Akesson, former director general of Sweden\u2019s surveillance agency, the FRA; Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union\u2019s counterterrorism coordinator; Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, chair of the EU\u2019s Article 29 Working Party<\/a>, which deals with data protection issues; Dr Giuseppe Busia, secretary general of the Italian data protection authority; and Jacob Kohnstamm, chairman of the Dutch data protection authority.<\/em><\/p>\n

From Australia and Canada:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

David Irvine, former chief of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation; Richard Fadden, Canadian government national security adviser and deputy minister at the Department of National Defense, former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service; Kent Roach, professor of law at the University of Toronto; and Jacques Fremont, president, Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission.<\/em><\/p>\n

The event was chaired by the former British MI6 spy chief Sir John Scarlett and organized by the Ditchley Foundation<\/a>, which holds several behind-closed-doors conferences every year at its mansion in Oxfordshire (pictured above) in an effort to address \u201ccomplex issues of international concern.\u201d The discussions are held under what is called the Chatham House Rule<\/a>, meaning what is said by each attendee during the meetings cannot be publicly revealed, a setup intended to encourage open and frank discussion. The program outlining the conference on surveillance told participants they could \u201cdraw afterwards on the substance of what has been said\u201d but warned them \u201cnot under any circumstances to reveal to any person not present at the conference\u201d details exposing what particular named individuals talked about.<\/p>\n

Investigative reporter Duncan Campbell, who attended the event, told The Intercept<\/em> that it was a \u201cremarkable\u201d gathering that \u201cwould have been inconceivable without Snowden,\u201d the National Security Agency whistleblower.<\/p>\n

\u201cAway from the fetid heat of political posturing and populist headlines, I heard some unexpected and surprising comments from senior intelligence voices, including that \u2018cold winds of transparency\u2019 had arrived and were here to stay,\u201d said Campbell, who has been reporting on British spy agencies over a career spanning four decades.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cPerhaps to many participants\u2019 surprise, there was general agreement across broad divides of opinion that Snowden \u2013 love him or hate him \u2013 had changed the landscape; and that change towards transparency, or at least \u2018translucency\u2019 and providing more information about intelligence activities affecting privacy, was both overdue and necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

One particularly notable attendee was GCHQ chief Hannigan, who stayed only for the first day of the discussions. Hannigan recently took over the top British eavesdropping job, and one of the first things he did in the post was to publicly accuse<\/a> U.S. tech companies of being \u201ccommand-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals,\u201d which is not likely to have gone down well with the likes of Google and Apple. (Neither Google nor\u00a0Apple had responded to requests for comment on this story at time of publication.)<\/p>\n

Hannigan may have viewed the event as an opportunity to rein in his rhetoric and attempt to gain the trust of the tech giants. The British spy chief has said<\/a> U.S. tech companies should provide \u201cgreater support\u201d to surveillance agencies and that he wants to see \u201cbetter arrangements for facilitating lawful investigation by security and law enforcement agencies than we have now.\u201d In the U.S., similar pressure<\/a> has been exerted on the companies, with federal agencies pushing for greater cooperation on surveillance amid an increased adoption of encryption technology that protects the privacy of communications.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of Snowden revelations showing extensive Internet surveillance perpetrated by British and American spies and their allies, Google and other companies have reportedly<\/a> become more resistant to government data requests. Google engineers were outraged by some of the disclosures and openly sent a \u201cfuck you<\/a>\u201d to the surveillance agencies while hardening Google\u2019s security. Meanwhile, Apple has expanded<\/a> the range of data that\u2019s encrypted by default on iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers, and CEO Tim Cook has vowed<\/a> never to give the government access to Apple servers, stating \u201cwe all have a right to privacy.\u201d But the Ditchley event is a sign that, behind the scenes at least, a dialogue is beginning to open up between the tech giants and the spy agencies post-Snowden, and relations may be thawing.<\/p>\n

_________________________<\/p>\n

Email the author: ryan.gallagher@theintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

22 May 2015 – At an 18th-century mansion in England\u2019s countryside last week, current and former spy chiefs from seven countries faced off with representatives from tech giants Apple and Google to discuss government surveillance in the aftermath of Edward Snowden\u2019s leaks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}