Martin Caton
Main Page: Martin Caton (Labour - Gower)Department Debates - View all Martin Caton's debates with the Home Office
National Security (The Guardian)
Martin Caton Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Julian Smith
I will not, sorry. No one has applied to make an intervention, which is usual in this sort of debate.
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
Order. If someone wished to make a speech in a half-hour debate, they would have to seek your permission and that of the Minister, but whether you allow an intervention is completely up to you.
Julian Smith
I am not taking any more interventions.
We are in unique times since 9/11, and the intelligence game has changed. Thousands of people—
Mr Winnick
On a point of order, Mr Caton. An orchestrated campaign is being launched against The Guardian, to undermine that newspaper and to give the totally false impression that it is giving ammunition to terrorists. I also ask that the hon. Gentleman gives way in the usual manner—
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
Order. As the hon. Gentleman knows, that was not a point of order—but a point was made.
Julian Smith
Thousands of people working for British intelligence, GCHQ and other Government bodies have worked tirelessly over the years to repress attacks, in particular after 7/7 in London. With technology changing apace, they have kept track of and repelled many potential terrorist attacks. Think of where we were after 9/11 and where we are now: still vulnerable, but with much stronger awareness of the threats and much damage done to those who seek to hurt us. I want to pay tribute to all in our intelligence community, who work so hard and who have done so under pressure and bearing a great burden of responsibility. The fact that those women and men are unable to speak out is one of the reasons that I have initiated this debate.
It seems highly likely that The Guardian has risked our nation’s security several times over: first, in the detail that it has gone into in many of its reports, revealing the minutiae of programmes, showing PowerPoint images and laying out to those who seek to harm us in great detail the techniques that we use to counter them. Reports in The Guardian earlier this summer went way beyond responsible journalism, giving away key details of UK intelligence strategy and operations. Take a look at the detail in those reports in June—parading as public interest, it was in fact commercial interest.
Moreover, The Guardian often seemed to publish not only for commercial gain, but out of fear. Jacob Appelbaum, angered that The Guardian’s story on the Tor network was being held up, threatened to publish compromising e-mails between him and Guardian reporter James Ball. Days later, The Guardian published details of the GCHQ attempt to decrypt parts of the Tor network, which is used to trade child abuse images, hardcore drugs and arms—
“an intelligence technique which should have remained secret”,
according to David Omand, ex-head of GCHQ.
In an online question-and-answer section, The Guardian claimed that it checked with US authorities before each of its reports was published. That did not happen in the UK before the Government’s intervention.
Secondly, and more chillingly, The Guardian has taken detailed security files and information and sent them all over the world. US editor Janine Gibson boasted that by far “the hardest challenge” has been the “Secure…movement of materials” and that
“we’ve had to do a great deal of flying people around the world”.
Where now is the earlier pretence to other British papers that David Miranda was merely a journalist’s husband?
In spite of the actions taken by Her Majesty’s Government in August to destroy the files held in The Guardian’s London office, those files are out there, highly vulnerable to terrorist infiltration. Not only that, those detailed files on GCHQ operations are now being handed to an infinite number of extra eyes via American journalists and even bloggers. Each person multiplies the risk to this country. It is unclear whether the information contained names, but it seems a strong possibility. From the reports on GCHQ, we know that The Guardian had detailed information about staff there, including the clubs and organisations that they were part of, and even reported on the sexuality of GCHQ gay and lesbian staff and on internal network chats.
Over the summer, The Independent also saw the Snowden files and wrote a highly damaging report on a middle eastern UK base. Similar to The Guardian, The Independent did not adequately balance journalism and the national interest. Unlike their Guardian colleagues, however, the Independent journalists soon stopped, stating:
“In August, we too were given information from the Snowden files. It pertained to the operation of the security services, was highly detailed, and had the capacity to compromise Britain’s security.”
Glenn Greenwald explained on Twitter on 10 September: “As for” The New York Times,
“I had no role at all in that—those were 1 set of docs only about UK that G”—
The Guardian—
“had. They made that choice without me.”
I must underline that point. The Guardian focused on sending abroad revelations not about the American National Security Agency, or whistleblowing; it chose to distribute information on our own intelligence agents at GCHQ, on programmes and people that it had admitted over and over again were legal—programmes that protect Guardian employees and their families.
To the Daily Mail last week, The Guardian denied only that it had revealed the names of spies, not of any GCHQ personnel. To communicate—not only to publish—any identifying information about GCHQ personnel is a terrorist offence under the Terrorism Act 2000. Mr Rusbridger has boasted that he is above the law, and said of co-operation with the Government:
“But once there was an explicit threat to go to law something changed”,
adding that he would not allow reporting to be limited “by judges”.
Finally, as if all that was not enough, The Guardian continues to threaten national security months after the Government intervened. It boasted online about how it has taken protections to avoid penetration by intelligence services and, as far as I know, has been far from helpful in assisting the intelligence services in their quest to work out what the damage potential is. That is not press freedom; that is The Guardian’s devastating impact on national security. The Guardian wrote its initial stories without any consultation with Government; The Guardian trafficked files on GCHQ around the world; and The Guardian has dragged its feet as the Government, police and intelligence services seek to limit the damage.
The 2000 Act is clear about the illegality of communicating information about our intelligence staff and, specifically, GCHQ. The Official Secrets Act is equally clear about the illegality of communicating classified information that the recipient knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, to be to the detriment of national security. Last week, I wrote to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to ask him to investigate whether The Guardian has breached those two Acts. I urge the Minister to do everything possible to ensure that the police expedite their investigation. In particular, I ask him to ensure that The Guardian has been asked for a decrypted copy of all files to which it has access, so that we may protect our agents and operations.
For the sake of Britain’s national security and for those who protect it, we must pursue the issue that we have discussed today. If we do not, we risk grave consequences, major risks for those who seek to protect us and the setting of a terrible precedent—that hiding behind the cloak of journalism gives carte blanche to risk the state’s most important secrets, free of consequence and outside the law. In an age of the internet, blogging and self-publishing, that is a serious precedent to set.
Mr Winnick
On a point of order, Mr Caton. I seek your guidance. I know that in half-hour debates there is often not a lot of interest other than from the hon. Member whose debate it is and the Minister. However, on such a controversial issue, whatever the rights and wrongs of the speech we have just heard from the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), would it not be appropriate for the Minister to give way from time to time?
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
Order. That is not a subject for me to rule on. As a very experienced Member, Mr Winnick, you know that it is entirely in the gift of the person speaking to give way. The Minister has said that he has limited time and wants to make progress.
James Brokenshire
In his witness statement to the High Court during the judicial review of the police’s decision—
Paul Flynn
On a point of order, Mr Caton. You are the guardian of the reputation of this debate, and so far it has demeaned Parliament’s reputation, because we have had two speeches that were written and read with no attempt to engage us in debate. This is McCarthyite scaremongering that disgraces Parliament.
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
Order. My response is exactly the same as the one I gave to Mr Winnick.
James Brokenshire
In his witness statement to the High Court during the judicial review of the police’s decision to stop David Miranda at Heathrow airport in August, deputy National Security Adviser Oliver Robbins also spoke of the damage caused by the disclosures. He noted that the material seized from Mr Miranda is highly likely to describe techniques that have been crucial in life-saving counter-terrorist operations and other intelligence activities vital to UK national security. If those techniques were compromised, it would do serious damage to national security and ultimately risk lives. Those releasing this material would do well to understand that the types of capability they are writing about are those we have relied on in recent years to stop terrorist plots, disrupt organised crime and put cyber-criminals, including those exploiting children or illegally proliferating arms, behind bars. Once an adversary knows if and how we can read their communications, they will change their behaviour. When it was revealed that the US could read Osama Bin Laden’s communications in the late 1990s, we did not hear from him again until September 2001.
I cannot go into more detail of the damage done and the future damage, but we expect to lose coverage of some very dangerous individuals and groups. The threat remains very real, and only through the tireless efforts of the police and intelligence agencies do we keep at bay those who wish us harm. If we are to protect the British public, we need to be a step ahead of the terrorists and the criminals. Secret intelligence gives us that edge and, regardless of whether Snowden is thought to be a whistleblower or a traitor, revealing our capabilities destroys it.
Paul Farrelly
On a point of order, Mr Caton. I seek guidance from you, as the Chair of such an important debate, on how parliamentarians may put on the record words spoken by none other than President Obama today about the disclosures. A White House statement said that some of them
“raise legitimate questions for our friends and allies about how these capabilities are employed”.
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
Order. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do the various ways of putting things on the record in this House.
Mr Winnick
Further to that point of order, Mr Caton. How can we make the point that much of what appeared in The Guardian, which has been the subject of this debate, has led, certainly in the United States, to a wide-ranging inquiry into intelligence-gathering? What The Guardian published was certainly in the national interest.