By Jack Doyle and Steve Nolan
The Government's eavesdropping agency GCHQ is to give a parliamentary committee full details of its links to a controversial US internet monitoring programme, it has been revealed.
The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) will receive a report on claims that it received material through the secret Prism scheme 'very shortly', according to chairman Sir Malcolm Rifkind.
He said: 'The ISC is aware of the allegations surrounding data obtained by GCHQ via the US Prism programme.
'The ISC will be receiving a full report from GCHQ very shortly and will decide what further action needs to be taken as soon as it receives that information.'
MPs from the ISC will also seek reassurances from Washington that US spies are not snooping on the emails of British webs users on a trip to the US next week.
Sinister powers: Britain's Government
Communications Headquarters, based in Cheltenham, Gloucs., is largely
responsible for monitoring the phone calls and emails of terror suspects
The development comes after it was claimed yesterday that British spies had access to the Prism system.
Secret documents published yesterday suggest the US National Security Agency (NSA) has direct access to data held by internet giants including Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, YouTube, Skype and Apple.
The documents – which appear to be slides from a 41-page training presentation for intelligence agents – suggest the agency can access email, photographs, social network information, chat records and other ‘stored data’ held by the companies, as part of its ‘Prism’ project.
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- Cameron to attend secretive Bilderberg conference (but will not say who he meets)
- Inside America's $1.9billion data mine: How all your private details will soon be stored in this vast NSA nerve center in Utah Valley
- Horrible timing: National Security Agency lists 'Digital Network Exploitation Analyst' internship opening as controversy swirls over digital snooping scandal
The project generated nearly 200 intelligence reports in the 12 months to May 2012, a 137 per cent increase on the previous year.
It is unclear whether other agencies, such as MI5 and MI6, were also involved, meaning the true extent of the snooping could be higher.
A GCHQ spokesman said ‘we do not comment on intelligence matters’, but added: ‘Our work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework.’
Privacy campaigners warned that the revelations suggested the creation of a ‘Snooper’s Charter by the back door’.
They come after a proposed plan to pay internet companies to collate user data from UK computers was dropped only last month in the face of opposition from Tory backbenchers and Liberal Democrats.
Pressure: The disclosure will pile pressure on
David Cameron to explain how much he knew about the intrusion as he
prepares to attend the secretive Bilderberg conference today, a
closed-door meeting that conspiracy theorists already believe is where
leaders plot world domination
I know what you're doing this summer: The Obama
administration defended the order on Thursday, calling it 'a critical
tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats'
'Reprehensible': Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper branded the program 'reprehensible' and said
it risks Americans' security
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: 'It is important for the UK intelligence community to be able to gather information from abroad including from the United States, particularly in the vital counter-terror work they do.
'However, there also have to be legal safeguards in place, including proper protection for British citizens' privacy, proper oversight and checks and balances to make sure intelligence powers are not misused.
'And the public need confidence that their privacy is being properly respected and protected.
'That is why the Prime Minister, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary, and all the intelligence agencies should provide full information to the Intelligence and Security Committee as swiftly as possible, and the ISC should have full support to pursue this and report.'
The Guardian said it obtained the slides from a whistleblowing intelligence officer worried about invasions of privacy.
According to the newspaper, the Prism programme appeared to allow GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required to obtain personal material, such as emails, photographs and videos, from internet companies based outside the UK.
Reports by the paper and The Washington Post suggested the FBI and the NSA can tap directly into the central servers of nine leading internet companies.
But a number of them, including Google, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook denied the government had ‘direct access’ to their servers.
Microsoft said it does not voluntarily participate in any government data collection and only complies ‘with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers’.
Yet one slide appears to be a timeline of when the companies began to participate in Prism, starting with Microsoft in September 2007 and ending with Apple in October 2012.
According to the reports, Prism was established under President Bush in 2007 and has grown ‘exponentially’ under President Obama.
Bombshell: NSA and FBI have been extracting
audio, video, photos, e-mails, documents and other data from Apple,
Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Skype, AOL and PalTalk
Key source: PRISM has been described by NSA
officials 'as the most prolific contributor to the president's Daily
Brief,' providing analysts with a wealth of 'raw material'
Classified: The particulars of the PRISM
data-mining program have been outlined in a top-secret PowerPoint
presentation for senior intelligence analysts, which ended up being
leaked
Participants: This graph shows when each of the
nine tech companies joined PRISM, with Apple being the latest addition
in October 2012
Spying: The NSA has been getting millions of
phone records from Verizon on a daily basis for months without any
justification for the order, that was only revealed today
Plundered: The NSA and FBI have been pulling
personal data directly from the mainframes of top US tech giants,
including YouTube, Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Verizon for
the past six years
Emma Carr, of Big Brother Watch, said: ‘We already have laws which allow law enforcement officials to request information about British citizens using American services.
‘If these laws are being circumvented by using these NSA spying arrangements then that would be a very serious issue.’
Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil rights group Liberty, said: 'These reports suggest a breach of trust on the grandest scale with the US Government, Internet Service Providers and our own UK intelligence community showing contempt for privacy, legality and democracy itself.
'Don't we still believe that spies should be accountable to the public they serve and protect?
'This is the kind of arrogance behind the attempted "snoopers' charter". Have those who failed to persuade in the Parliament chamber decided to smuggle blanket surveillance in through the back door?'
Revelations about the snooping programme follow separate reports about the NSA being allowed to collect all telephone user data from Verizon, one of the largest telephone firms in the US, for three months.
NSA IN THE USA: HOW AGENCY HAS TAPPED ITS OWN CITIZENS
Set up by Harry Truman in 1953, the NSA is the eyes and ears of America across the globe, intercepting 1.7 billion emails, phone calls a day’.
It is the the secretive body that serves the military and intelligence communities by collecting all forms of foreign communications to prevent attacks on the US.
It was prohibited by law from intercepting domestic communications without a warrant until George W. Bush issued a caveat in the wake of 9/11 under the controversial 'terrorist surveillance program'.
Nonetheless, over the years the NSA has been engulfed in a number of snooping scandals.
They include President Nixon's illegal wiretapping, through the NSA, of five members of his national security staff, two newsmen, and a staffer at the Department of Defense in a bid to uncover who was leaking information about his plans for the Vietnam War.
In 2005 it was revealed George W Bush had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans calling abroad without warrants in a bid to thwart terrorism. He strenuously denied the allegations until he finally conceded he had committed an impeachable offense.
And in 2009, under President Obama, the US Department of Justice acknowledged the NSA had gone beyond its remit in tapping the phonelines of American citizens, including a Congressman, but claimed that the acts were unintentional and had since been rectified.
Last month, it was accused of building an £800million cyber base to keep tabs on American citizens.
The state-of-the-art data centre in the Utah desert – codenamed Bumblehive – is intended to bolster online security efforts.
But former employees say it could be used to monitor people’s private emails.
The NSA branded the allegations 'unfounded', adding that it remained 'unwavering' in its respect for U.S. laws and American citizens' civil liberties, and noted that it was subject to broad oversight by all three branches of government.
