MR JUSTICE BURTON
Approved Judgment
Privacy Office Report of April 18, 2014 “NSA is subject to rigorous internal
compliance and external oversight”. For the purpose of this hearing the
information assumed to be supplied to the Respondents by the NSA is
assumed to have been lawfully obtained.
ii)
The United States is the principal hub of the world’s telecommunications
system, and a very substantial quantity of the world’s communications pass
through the United States: thus for example an email sent by a sender in the
UK to another email address in the UK may be routed via the United States.
iii)
As set out in paragraph 11 of the Respondents’ open Response:
“11. In order to pursue their statutory objectives, the
Intelligence Services need to share intelligence with foreign
Governments, including the US Government (with which the
Intelligence Services have particularly close ties).
Intelligence that foreign governments share with the
Intelligence Services (on a strictly confidential basis)
represents a significant proportion of the Intelligence
Services’ total store of intelligence on terrorists, organised
criminals and others seeking to harm national security.”
A British-US Communication Intelligence Agreement of 5 March 1946 which
was marked “Top Secret”, and remained so until its transfer to the National
Archive in 2010, governs the arrangements between the British and United
States authorities in relation to the exchange of intelligence information
relating to “foreign” communications, defined by reference to countries other
than the United States, the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. In his
witness statement Mr Charles Farr, the Director-General of the Office for
Security and Counter Terrorism (“OSCT”) at the Home Office since June
2007, says, after describing the threat from international terrorism, and
quoting from the National Crime Agency’s recent Strategic Assessment, that
“all of the most serious crime threats are transnational”:
“20. . . It is highly unlikely that any government will be able to
obtain all the intelligence it needs through its own activities. It
is therefore vital for the UK Government to be able to obtain
intelligence from foreign governments both to improve its
understanding of the threats that the UK faces, and to gain the
knowledge needed to counter those threats. . . . [He refers to
what is said in paragraph 11 of the open Response quoted
above, and continues]. This store of intelligence forms a
critical resource for the Government in seeking to take
preventative action to counter threats, and save lives.”
16.
The relief sought by the Claimants is summarised by Privacy as follows:
“(i) A declaration that the Secretary of State for the Foreign
Office and/or the Secretary of State for the Home Office
have unlawfully failed to ensure that there is in place a
regime which complied with Article 8 and 10 ECHR