SNOWDEN Disclosure Prompts Backlash in Scotland
Jun 20, 2016 20:29:03 #
SNOWDEN Disclosure Prompts Backlash in Scotland
https://theintercept.com/2016/06/15/snowden-scottish-recording-centre-parliament-milkwhite/
TOP GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS in Scotland are under pressure to explain their knowledge of a secretive police surveillance unit that was exposed in documents leaked by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
On Tuesday, cabinet secretary for justice Michael Matheson was grilled in the country’s parliament about the so-called Scottish Recording Centre and its previously undisclosed involvement in covert surveillance operations.
As The Intercept revealed last week, the Recording Centre is one of several domestic organizations within the United Kingdom involved in a top-secret program named MILKWHITE, which has provided law enforcement agencies with access to “bulk” internet data intercepted by the British eavesdropping agency Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. Prior to the disclosure, few in Scotland knew the Recording Centre even existed — much less that it has been tapping into GCHQ’s troves of data.
In recent days, several Scottish media outlets have picked up the issue, increasing pressure on the government. Questioned about the revelations on Tuesday, Matheson told the Scottish parliament that the government “takes the protection of our citizens’ civil liberties extremely seriously and we are clear that investigatory powers should only be used when it is necessary and proportionate to do so. But we must always balance those fundamental civil liberties with the need to ensure our law enforcement bodies have effective powers to investigate and deal with serious organized crime.”
He declined to comment on any relationship with GCHQ and stated that police must obtain a warrant signed off by a government minister to intercept communications. However, documents about the MILKWHITE program show that it stores metadata about emails, instant messenger chats, and social media activity, meaning it contains information that could reveal the sender and recipient of an email or message, but not the written content. And police agencies in the U.K. do not require a warrant to access this kind of information. They only require a warrant when they want to monitor thecontent of a communication — for instance, the audio of a call or the body of an email....
https://theintercept.com/2016/06/15/snowden-scottish-recording-centre-parliament-milkwhite/
TOP GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS in Scotland are under pressure to explain their knowledge of a secretive police surveillance unit that was exposed in documents leaked by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
On Tuesday, cabinet secretary for justice Michael Matheson was grilled in the country’s parliament about the so-called Scottish Recording Centre and its previously undisclosed involvement in covert surveillance operations.
As The Intercept revealed last week, the Recording Centre is one of several domestic organizations within the United Kingdom involved in a top-secret program named MILKWHITE, which has provided law enforcement agencies with access to “bulk” internet data intercepted by the British eavesdropping agency Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. Prior to the disclosure, few in Scotland knew the Recording Centre even existed — much less that it has been tapping into GCHQ’s troves of data.
In recent days, several Scottish media outlets have picked up the issue, increasing pressure on the government. Questioned about the revelations on Tuesday, Matheson told the Scottish parliament that the government “takes the protection of our citizens’ civil liberties extremely seriously and we are clear that investigatory powers should only be used when it is necessary and proportionate to do so. But we must always balance those fundamental civil liberties with the need to ensure our law enforcement bodies have effective powers to investigate and deal with serious organized crime.”
He declined to comment on any relationship with GCHQ and stated that police must obtain a warrant signed off by a government minister to intercept communications. However, documents about the MILKWHITE program show that it stores metadata about emails, instant messenger chats, and social media activity, meaning it contains information that could reveal the sender and recipient of an email or message, but not the written content. And police agencies in the U.K. do not require a warrant to access this kind of information. They only require a warrant when they want to monitor thecontent of a communication — for instance, the audio of a call or the body of an email....
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