2013 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
Section 5
Media Disclosures and Public Concerns
5.1
During the second half of 2013 (and since then) there were a series of disclosures
in the media said to be derived from Edward Snowden, who was a contractor working at
the United States (US) National Security Agency (NSA). Much of what has been reported
concerned the alleged operational practices and activities of the NSA or other agencies
in the US. Other disclosures concerned alleged UK operational activities, in particular by
or relating to GCHQ. Relevant public and parliamentary debate followed and raised a
number of legitimate questions.
5.2
Some of the media disclosures and questions concern the interception of
communications and, to that extent, I have regarded these matters as within the scope
of my statutory oversight responsibility. Obviously, if interception agencies or others are
acting unlawfully under RIPA 2000 Part I, I have a duty to report it to the Prime Minister.
Other questions may have overtones of policy, which is not perhaps within the literal
terms of my statutory function, but there are instances where the borderlines are blurred.
5.3
I have undertaken extensive investigations into the subject matter of the media
disclosures with two objectives in mind:
•
•
to investigate and be able to report on the lawfulness (or otherwise) of
relevant interception activities which UK interception agencies may undertake
or have undertaken.
to address and report on a variety of concerns which have been expressed
publicly in Parliament or in the media arising out of the media disclosures.
I have distilled my understanding of a number of those concerns and will
address them in this report.
Before doing that there are a few introductory matters.
5.4
Report to President Obama. I have read in full the Report and Recommendations
of The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies
“Liberty and Security in a Changing World” of 12 December 2013. The Group was
established and their review commissioned on 27 August 2013 in the wake of Snowden
disclosures. It addresses issues some of which are generically much the same as some of
those which I have addressed in this report.
5.5
The United States (US) Report necessarily addresses concern in the US with
reference to US law and statute and to US intelligence and law enforcement agencies. It
is clear that the relevant circumstances in the US are substantially different from those
in the United Kingdom. Unsurprisingly, the broad approach to safeguarding freedom
and privacy in a democratic society, and at the same time protecting national security
and preventing and detecting crime, correspond in each country. But the detailed
manifestation and application of these broad requirements diverge, such that it is not
appropriate to extrapolate recommendations from the US report into UK circumstances.
This is not to detract in any way from the value and interest of the report: rather to
acknowledge that relevant UK questions need to be addressed in a UK context.
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