ISC exoneration of GCHQ makes a mockery of the UK legal system

The Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) believes that allegations of GCHQ illegally tapping global internet traffic and phone calls, and sharing it with US counterpart, the National Security Agency (NSA), are "unfounded".

The key word in the paragraph above is 'illegally'; the ISC has just assured UK citizens that the GCHQ's use of Prism surveillance data is legal. In other words, it is legal for GCHQ to tap all transatlantic network traffic, store it and share it with the NSA.

But that doesn't mean that what it has done is acceptable in any way.

"In effect there is, or was, a secret law that allows all governments to do what they think is in our interest," global law firm CMS said in a statement.

"This is profoundly wrong; transparency accompanied by democratic review and accountability is essential, and we should not accept anything less," it added.

The ISC claims it is "not a committee of parliament", and that it reports directly to the Prime Minister, David Cameron.

It says: "While the committee sends its reports to the Prime Minister, he cannot change the facts in them (as it is sometimes alleged) - they are published exactly as the committee has written them."

The ISC, which is made up of parliamentarians selected by the Prime Minister, oversees the intelligence and security activities of the UK, including the policies, expenditure, administration and operation of the MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, among other bodies in the UK intelligence community.

It has, in the past, been highly critical of the UK's cyber security efforts. In July 2011, it said that the government had shown "confusion and duplication of effort" in its approach to cyber security, and last year it suggested that UK cyber security was inadequate and needed work. This makes its apparent endorsement of snooping on innocent citizens all the more galling.

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ISC exoneration of GCHQ makes a mockery of the UK legal system

In its statement, the ISC claimed it had taken detailed evidence from GCHQ and pointed out that it selected the number of intelligence reports that were sent by GCHQ, so as to emphasise its position of power and impartiality.

But, alarmingly, although agencies are required under the Intelligence Services Act 1994 to disclose information to the committee, they can also withhold information in certain circumstances.

"There are provisions allowing the agencies, in rare circumstances, to refuse to disclose certain ‘sensitive' information," the ISC says on its website.

It adds that to date, no request for information made to the agencies by the ISC has been denied on these grounds, but whether this has been updated since the ISC statement on GCHQ has been published is unknown.

But whether GCHQ failed to cooperate on certain matters or not is not the key issue here. The main point is that the ISC has decided to tell the world that GCHQ has not broken any laws, making a mockery of the British legal system, and suggesting that UK citizens have no say on the matter. What's worse is that many people won't be aware of what is going on, and a large proportion of those that do, may now stop worrying about being snooped on, because the GCHQ's actions have been deemed to be legal.

The ISC's Chairman has gone on record to state that the committee is wary of revealing some secret information, as it can be read and acted upon by terrorists or criminals, and perhaps the industrial espionage element of the GCHQ storing all of this transatlantic data could be a reason to withhold further information from being released.

But at the moment, the GCHQ's Tempora programme is hanging on the 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa), which allows the Foreign Secretary to issue a certificate for broad interception of categories of material relating to terrorism or organised crime. The problem is, of course, that it is not just terrorist and criminal activity that is being looked at, but recordings of phone calls, content of email messages, entries on Facebook and internet browsing history of innocent people.