48
A Democratic Licence to Operate
or prejudice the security of the public.8 Some note that journalists and media outlets
thereby acted as ‘risk analysts’, or as filters for the material, to avoid a similar ‘data
dump’ as was the case with WikiLeaks. Others have challenged the ability of journalists
to make such a judgement without the full, classified background to intelligence
operations. While GCHQ eventually agreed to have off-the-record discussions with
reporters to indicate what details were extremely sensitive and might cause harm, they
were unable to either confirm or deny the content of any story. This in theory presented
Box 1: The Snowden Disclosures
Many of the principal allegations that have emerged from the Snowden disclosures concern the
ability of intelligence agencies to collect and analyse Internet and international communications
data in bulk. Other allegations relate to the intelligence-sharing practices between agencies
in different countries, relationships between governments and communications service
providers, and methods for computer network exploitation (hacking). With the exception of
PRISM, a US programme avowed by the US government, the information contained in the
documents published has neither been confirmed nor denied by the UK government.
A number of the disclosures relate to the ability of the NSA and GCHQ to collect large volumes
of data. For example:
• PRISM was said to involve the collection by the NSA of various data (including e-mail,
photo, video and social-networking details) from the servers of nine US Internet
companies (Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and
Apple)
• The UPSTREAM programme was said to involve the collection by the NSA of
communications from fibre-optic cables and other infrastructure carrying Internet
traffic, rather than from the servers of Internet companies
• The TEMPORA programme related to GCHQ’s ability to intercept digital traffic flowing
through submarine fibre-optic cables landing in the UK
• The MUSCULAR programme was said to be a joint NSA–GCHQ programme which
intercepted internal fibre-optic cables used by Google and Yahoo to transmit
unencrypted data between their data centres
• Under the FASCIA programme, the NSA was said to track the movements of mobile
phones by collecting location data
• Developed by the NSA, the XKEYSCORE system was said to allow analysts to carry out
a search, using a search term such as an e-mail address or telephone number, across
three days’ worth of unfiltered data collected via a number of programmes such as
PRISM and UPSTREAM.
Source: Anderson Report, Annex 7
8.
Evidence to the ISR Panel, March 2014.