‘Russia and China break spy codes’
US and Britain forced to withdraw agents after Snowden file leaks
AN international espionage crisis was revealed at the weekend after Russia and China cracked top-secret information in files leaked by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The Sunday Times in London said Britain had pulled out agents from live operations in “hostile countries”.
Security service MI6, which operates overseas and is tasked with defending British interests, has removed agents from certain countries, the newspaper said.
It cited unnamed officials at the office of British Prime Minister David Cameron, the Home Office (interior ministry) and security services. Snowden downloaded more than 1.7 million secret files from security agencies in the US and Britain in 2013, and leaked details about mass surveillance of phone and internet communications.
Snowden fled the country and was eventually granted asylum in Moscow in 2013.
He went to Russia via Hong Kong, and although he claimed in 2013 that the encrypted files remained secure, Britain believed both Russia and China had cracked documents which contain details that could allow British and American spies to be identified, the newspaper said.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Snowden had done a huge amount of damage to the West’s ability to protect its citizens.
“As to the specific allegations this morning, we never comment on operational intelligence matters so I’m not going to talk about what we have or haven’t done in order to mitigate the effect of the Snowden revelations, but nobody should be in any doubt that Snowden has caused immense damage,” he told Sky News.
But an official at Cameron’s office was quoted as saying there was “no evidence of anyone being harmed”. Cameron’s office declined to comment later in the day.
One official source told the newspaper that Russian President Vladimir Putin did not grant Snowden asylum for nothing.
“His documents were encrypted but they weren’t completely secure and we have now seen our agents and assets being targeted,” the source said.
A British intelligence source said Snowden had done “incalculable damage”.
“In some cases the agencies have been forced to intervene and lift their agents from operations to stop them being identified and killed,” the source said. Security agencies declined to comment. The Russian and Chinese governments were not immediately available for comment. The revelations about the impact of Snowden on intelligence operations comes days after Britain’s terrorism law watchdog said the rules governing the security services’ abilities to spy on the public needed to be overhauled.
Conservative MP and former minister Andrew Mitchell said the timing of the report was “no accident”.
Cameron has promised a swathe of new security measures, including more powers to monitor Britain’s communications and online activity in what critics have dubbed a “snoopers’ charter”.
The current system had been described as “undemocratic, unnecessary and – in the long run – intolerable”. – Reuters