New UK spy chief says tech giants aid terrorism, privacy not ‘absolute right’
Source: endthelie.com
Robert Hannigan, the new head of GCHQ
The new head of Britain’s GCHQ, the UK equivalent of the NSA in the U.S., said he believes privacy is not an absolute right and that tech giants must open themselves up to intelligence agencies.
“GCHQ is happy to be part of a mature debate on privacy in the digital age,” Hannigan said. “But privacy has never been an absolute right and the debate about this should not become a reason for postponing urgent and difficult decisions.”
Robert Hannigan said that internet companies are “in denial” about the role they play in global terrorism, saying that they in fact aid terrorists.
Internet giants are now “command-and-control networks of choice” for terrorists and criminals, according to Hannigan, who cited the example of the Islamic State as a group who exploits Western-run internet companies for propaganda purposes.
By not showing the recent beheadings of hostages David Haines and Alan Henning, who were British aid workers, the group “can stay just the right side of the rules of social media sites, capitalizing on western freedom of expression,” Hannigan said, according to The Independent.
Read the rest at endthelie.com
Twitter and Facebook are helping terrorists says new GCHQ chief: Fanatics using social media as ‘command and control networks
From: dailymail.co.uk
Global internet companies have become ‘the command and control networks of choice’ for terrorists, claims the new head of Britain’s electronic spying agency.
GCHQ director Robert Hannigan insisted some were ‘in denial’ about the way fanatics misuse their services.
He cited how Islamic State (IS) has exploited social media for recruitment and propaganda – using the likes of Twitter, WhatsApp and YouTube to promote beheadings. The terror group and its followers have also sent up to 40,000 tweets a day.
Mr Hannigan called on the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft to give greater co-operation to GCHQ and sister agencies MI5 and MI6.
He also said there was ‘no doubt’ young foreign fighters had benefited from the treasure trove of intelligence secrets leaked by fugitive CIA worker Edward Snowden.
‘GCHQ and its sister agencies… cannot tackle these challenges without greater support from the private sector, including the largest US technology companies which dominate the web,’ he said.
‘I understand why they have an uneasy relationship with governments. They aspire to be neutral conduits of data and to sit outside or above politics.
‘But increasingly their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism.
‘However much they may dislike it, they have become the command and control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals, who find their services as transformational as the rest of us.’
Officials say the job of spy agencies has become ‘much harder’ over the past 18 months as US firms become less willing to hand over data. Whitehall sources say the companies have changed how they behave in response to the Snowden revelations.
His exposure of how GCHQ and America’s National Security Agency were able to tap into online data has made companies nervous about protecting their own reputations, they said.
Writing in the Financial Times, Mr Hannigan said mobile technology and smartphones have increased the options available to terrorists ‘exponentially’.
Read more: dailymail.co.uk
