Report of the Independent Surveillance Review
47
ISR Panel understand that 58,000 of these classified files relate to GCHQ and UK security
and intelligence activity.3
3.8
The allegations made in the wake of the Snowden disclosures covered a range of
intelligence activities – though they were primarily concerned with the activities of the
NSA, given the closeness of the intelligence relationship between the US and UK, they
also covered many of the activities of British SIAs, particularly the work of GCHQ. The
British government has maintained its policy of neither confirming nor denying these
allegations; although the PRISM programme was avowed by the US government.4
3.9
Snowden’s disclosure of the NSA programme that collected data on the communications
of US citizens (under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act) created public anger in many
quarters in the US towards the federal government and the NSA on the grounds that
the programme violated the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution prohibiting
unreasonable searches, and has led to congressional efforts to constrain the NSA’s
operations. More than twenty legislative bills have been written since the NSA allegations
began, many with the goal of clarifying US government surveillance powers. The NSA’s
phone-spying programme was ruled illegal by a US appeals court in May 2015,5 ultimately
leading to significant reform under the USA Freedom Act. Enacted in June 2015, the Act
imposes new limits on the bulk collection of communications data on US citizens by US
intelligence agencies and requires US CSPs to collect and retain communications data
(similar to the current situation in the UK).
3.10
While the majority of the disclosures made by Edward Snowden relate to surveillance
practices in the US, they also allege that GCHQ were tapping fibre-optic cables carrying
vast amounts of global communications and sharing data with the NSA.6 The Guardian
newspaper suggests that the existing UK legislation was being very broadly applied,
and in ways the public were unaware of, to allow digital-intelligence operations on
a large scale.7
3.11
Representatives of The Guardian informed the ISR Panel that, out of the twelve main
stories based on the information provided by Snowden, only one was published
without notifying GCHQ beforehand. Its then editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, made the
newspaper’s position clear: there was an important public interest in revealing the scale
of surveillance and its implications for privacy, but that the paper would not, after taking
expert advice, publish information it believed would put intelligence officers in danger
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Oliver Robbins, ‘First Witness Statement of Oliver Robbins’, statement to the High Court,
CO/11732, 27 August 2013.
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, ‘Report on The Surveillance Program Operated
Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’, 2014.
Reuters, ‘NSA’s Phone Spying Program Ruled Illegal by Appeals Court’, 7 May 2015.
Ewen MacAskill et al., ‘GCHQ Taps Fibre-Optic Cables for Secret Access to World’s
Communications’, Guardian, 21 June 2013.
BBC News, ‘Edward Snowden: Leaks That Exposed US Spy Programme’, 17 January 2014.