SurveillanceFormer head of MI6 calls for new surveillance pact between governments and ISPs
The former head of British intelligence agency MI6, Sir John Sawers, has called for a new surveillance pact between Internet companies and U.S. and U.K. security services. Both groups could work together as they had in the past to prevent a repeat of terror events such as the recent Paris attacks, he said. American and British law enforcement and intelligence agencies are urging major Internet companies to provide backdoors or access to encrypted e-mails and other forms of Web communications. “I think one benefit of the last eighteen months’ debate [since Snowden’s leaks were made public] is that people now understand that is simply not possible [to keep the public secure without surveillance] and there has to be some form of ability to cover communications that are made through modern technology,” Sawers said.
Speaking at the launch of a survey of international attitudes toward trust at the headquarters of the public relations firm Edelman in London, the former head of British intelligence agency MI6, Sir John Sawers, called for a new surveillance pact between Internet companies and U.S. and U.K. security services. Both groups could work together as they had in the past to prevent a repeat of terror events such as the recent Paris attacks, Sawers said.
TheGuardian reports that Sawers believes the Edward Snowden revelations damaged the informal relationships intelligence agencies had with the private sector. Internet service providers and search engines, including Google and Yahoo, faced a consumer backlash when it was reported that they were willing to, and in some cases did, cooperate with government security services.
“Snowden threw a massive rock in the pool. The ripples from that have still not died down,” Sawers said. “It was certainly a great concern for me that the, if you like, informal co-operation that worked well between most technology companies and communication companies and security services was broken by the Snowden revelations and has not been repaired.”
American and British law enforcement and intelligence agencies are urging major Internet companies to provide backdoors or access to encrypted e-mails and other forms of Web communications. Last October, FBI director James Comey called on Congress to support legislation which would order tech companies to build their devices and services with backdoors (see “FBI wants Congress to mandate backdoors in tech devices to facilitate surveillance,” HSNW, 20 October 2014; and “Head of U.K. surveillance agency: U.S. tech companies have become terrorists’ ‘networks of choice’,” HSNW, 5 November 2014).
British prime minister David Cameron, has vowed that if re-elected in May, he would seek to ban encrypted online messaging apps unless U.K. law enforcement is provided backdoors. “Are we going to allow a means of communications which it simply isn’t possible to read?” “The attacks in Paris demonstrated the scale of the threat that we face and the need to have robust powers through our intelligence and security agencies in order to keep our people safe,” Cameron said.
Sawers warns that some government access to private communications is critical to ensuring security, adding that a terrorist attack in London is not a matter of if, but when. “The security community has done a fantastic job keeping these threats at bay … but if I was to sit here and say: ‘Will the goalkeepers of the security services and police keep every single attempt to get the ball into the net out?’ No. At some point a threat will get through.”
The Snowden revelations gained traction among the general public because at the time, little was known about the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters’ and the U.S. National Security Agency’s surveillance of private communications. There have been some benefits from the debate ever since, Sawers said. The general public and technology firms support the monitoring of terrorists activities but they do not want their own activities open to surveillance. “I think one benefit of the last eighteen months’ debate is that people now understand that is simply not possible and there has to be some form of ability to cover communications that are made through modern technology,” Sawers said.
Renate Samson, chief executive of Big Brother Watch, disagrees with Sawers’ take on increasing surveillance powers to prevent terrorism. “To insist that it is simply not possible to conduct effective surveillance of suspects without having to observe the communications of the entire population is a worrying sign. It appears that the innocence of most citizens must come second to the guilt of the few.”
He adds that intelligence agencies already have a broad range of surveillance capabilities, including those that monitor specific individuals. “We are told that attacks are regularly prevented using these resources. Before more powers are given we must be sure that these existing resources continue to be used efficiently and correctly.”
