Snowden leaks made paedophiles harder to trace, says ex-MI5 chief
‘Made it harder for the police’
THE intelligence leaks by US whistleblower Edward Snowden pushed paedophiles on to the ‘dark web’ and made it easier for them to stream live abuse online, a former head of MI5 has warned. Jonathan Evans said yester- day Snowden’s ‘damaging’ revelations about security service snooping had made it more difficult for police to tackle child abuse.
In chilling remarks, Lord Evans, who retired from MI5 in 2013 and is now a cross-bench peer, also warned that Britain faced the threat of Islamist terrorism for another 30 years.
Referring to Snowden’s leaks, he said: ‘The way in which the material was released meant that a lot of people who are misusing the internet were able to get away with things they shouldn’t have got away with. The revelations that Snowden made, made it harder for the police to stop people streaming live abuse.’
The dark web is part of the internet that is accessible only by using software which allows users to remain anonymous and untraceable.
Snowden’s leaks were published by the Guardian in 2013. Despite former GCHQ head Sir David Omand calling them the ‘most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever’, the newspaper continued to nurture the former CIA employee, with then-editor Alan Rusbridger visiting him in Moscow last year.
Lord Evans, who was director general of MI5 for six years, also said the Westminster Bridge attack earlier this year may have had an ‘energising effect’ on extremists. He warned the UK was ‘vulnerable’ to a dirty bomb attack and said the cyber threat was becoming more acute and devices connected to the internet needed to be made more secure.
The former spy chief said the terrorist threat was a ‘generational problem’ and the UK must ‘persevere’ with its efforts to defeat it.
He said the UK had faced threats from Islamic terrorists since the 1990s, telling BBC Radio 4: ‘On the terrorism side, we’re at least 20 years into this. My guess is that we will still be dealing with the long tail in over 20 years’ time. I think this is genuinely a generational problem. I think we are going to be facing 20 to 30 years of terrorist threat and therefore we need, absolutely critically, to persevere.’
Lord Evans warned of the threat of a cyber-attack against the ‘internet of things’ – the networking of physical devices, such as vehicles and domestic tools. Cyber security must be tightened because people’s daily lives were ‘dependent’ on it, he added.
Asked about comments made by his predecessor Eliza Manningham-Buller, who said it was ‘only a matter of time’ before there was a biological or chemical attack in the West, he said he was surprised the UK had not yet been hit by a dirty bomb.
Chemical weapons had been used in Iraq and Syria, he said, adding: ‘In principle there is a risk those could also be used in the West and in the UK.’
Lord Evans also gave a stark warning about the potential for Russian interference, saying the UK should be ‘alert’ to Russia’s interventions in the West.