UK forced to pull out spies as Russia and China ‘crack Snowden f iles’
BRITAIN has had to withdraw spies from operations overseas amid fears Russia and China have access to secret information in files stolen by Edward Snowden.
Leaks by the US fugitive, who stole 1.7million documents from GCHQ and the US National Security Agency, have damaged intelligence agencies across the world including MI6, according to government sources.
UK security chiefs have been forced into rescue operations to move secret agents out of hostile countries, although Downing Street insiders made clear there was no evidence anyone had been harmed.
The classified files, some of which were published in this country by the Guardian newspaper, contain details which exposed intelligence-gathering techniques and could identify individual spies.
Vital safe houses had also been aban-
‘Blood on his hands’
doned in case they have been exposed. Security officials say they are working on the assumption that Moscow and Beijing had deciphered the top-secret cache of encrypted files.
MI6 bosses have removed agents from the field because of the risk they have been compromised. This is a significant setback because it means the UK has lost information-gathering capabilities which helped keep Britain safe and allowed the security services to keep track of terrorists, organised criminals and hostile nations.
A Home Office official said 31year-old Snowden, who is holed up in Russia after stealing the documents while working as a CIA contractor, had ‘blood on his hands’.
A Downing Street source said: ‘It is the case that the Russians and Chinese have information. It has meant agents have had to be moved and that knowledge of how we operate has stopped us getting vital information.’ A senior Home Office source said: ‘Why do you think Snowden ended up in Russia? [Russian president Vladimir] Putin didn’t give him asylum for nothing. His documents were encrypted but weren’t completely secure and we have now seen our agents and assets being targeted.’
A British intelligence source told the Sunday Times: ‘We know Russia and China have access to Snowden’s material and will be going through it for years.
‘Snowden has done incalculable damage. In some cases the agencies have been forced to intervene and lift their agents from operations to prevent them from being identified and killed.’ Sir David Omand, former director of UK intelligence agency GCHQ, said it was a ‘huge strategic setback’ for Russia and China to have access to Snowden’s material.
Professor Anthony Glees, of the University of Buckingham’s Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, said the leaking of the files had been ‘very, very damaging’.
He said: ‘From the documents that Snowden has it will be possible to identify those very brave people in countries where, if you spy for Britain, you get killed.’ Civil liberties campaigners questioned the timing of the revelations, days after UK terror laws watchdog David Anderson QC published a report calling for a shake-up of the surveillance powers used by the security services and police to combat terrorism and serious crime.
Ministers want to give MI5, MI6 and GCHQ extended powers including the ability to access encrypted social media messages.
Mr Anderson said the UK needed clear new laws about the powers of security services to monitor online activity and concluded the current situation was ‘ undemocratic, unnecessary and, in the long run, intolerable’. Shami Chakrabarti, of Liberty, said: ‘David Anderson’s thoughtful report called for urgent reform of snooping laws – that would not have been possible without Snowden’s revelations.
‘Days later, an “unnamed Home Office source” is accusing him [Snowden] of having blood on his hands. The timing of this exclusive story from the securocrats seems extremely convenient.’
Snowden’s disclosures – and their publication in the Guardian – have also led to claims that jihadis now have the upper hand over the authorities in plots against Britain.
Yet more evidence emerges of the incalculable damage done to Britain’s ability to combat terrorism by US traitor edward Snowden and the Guardian newspaper, which published the secret intelligence files he stole.
mI6 says it has now had to pull British spies from ‘hostile’ countries for fear their identities may already be compromised and their lives placed in danger.
Withdrawing these key agents severely limits our intelligence-gathering capability just when we need it most, in an increasingly dangerous and unpredictable world.
What a shocking indictment of the Left that they continue to treat this contemptible back-stabber as some kind of hero.