MI5 CHIEF: GUARDIAN HAS HANDED A GIFT TO TERRORISTS

Left-wing paper’s leaks ‘caused greatest damage to western security in history’

A MASSIVE cache of stolen top- secret documents published in The Guardian has handed a ‘gift’ to terrorists, the head of MI5 warned last night.

In a blistering attack, Andrew Parker said the publication of confidential files leaked by US fugitive Edward Snowden had caused huge ‘harm’ to the capability of Britain’s intelligence services.

Security officials say the exposé amounts to a ‘guide book’, advising terrorists on the best way to avoid detection when plotting an atrocity.

In Whitehall, it is considered to have caused the greatest damage to the Western security apparatus in history. In his first public speech since taking the job earlier this year, Mr Parker said the leaks handed the ‘advantage’ to terrorists and were a ‘gift they need to evade us and strike at will’.

He said there were several thousand Islamist extremists living in the UK who ‘see the British people as a legitimate target’. The security services were working round the clock to stop the fanatics, but MI5 was now

‘tackling threats on more fronts than ever before’. Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency, fled the US in May with thousands of classified documents about the NSA and GCHQ, which he gave to The Guardian.

The newspaper has since published tens of thousands of words on the secret techniques used by GCHQ to monitor emails, phone records and communications on the internet.

The first Guardian revelations came in early June, when it detailed how the NSA – which supplies intelligence to GCHQ, the organisation which gathers intelligence for MI5 and MI6 – had ‘direct access’ to the computer systems of AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Paltalk, Skype, Yahoo and YouTube.

The newspaper also revealed how GCHQ has access to a network of cables carrying international phone calls and internet traffic and is processing vast amounts of ‘personal information’.

By the time his identity as the source of the leaks emerged, Snowden had fled his home in Hawaii for Hong Kong. After a week in hiding, he travelled to Moscow, where he remains out of the reach of US authorities.

In August, police detained David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, for nine hours at Heathrow airport. Mr Miranda had been carrying intelligence files leaked by Snowden.

At the time it emerged David Cameron had authorised the destruction of computers at The Guardian offices. Security concerns were so acute that Mr Cameron sent Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood to demand that Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger destroy the files after warning they could fall into the hands of terrorists.

Members of GCHQ supervised the smashing of laptops and hard drives at the newspaper’s offices.

Mr Parker said: ‘What we know about the terrorists, and the detail of the capabilities we use against them, together represent our margin of advantage. That margin gives us the prospect of being able to detect their plots and stop them.

‘But that margin is under attack. Reporting from GCHQ is vital to the safety of this country and its citizens.

‘GCHQ intelligence has played a vital role in stopping many of the terrorist plots that MI5 and the police have tackled in the past decade.

‘It causes enormous damage to make public the reach and limits of GCHQ techniques. Such information hands the advantage to the terrorists. It is the gift they need to evade us and strike at will. Unfashionable as it might seem, that is why we must keep secrets secret, and why not doing so causes such harm.’

In a wide-ranging speech to the Royal United Services Institute thinktank, Mr Parker said the task of MI5 was ‘getting harder’. He pointed to the danger posed by British nationals

‘The threat has

shifted’

returning from fighting in Syria.

Mr Parker said: ‘The ability of Al Qaeda to launch the centrally directed large-scale attacks of the last decade has been degraded, though not removed.

‘We have seen the threat shift more to increasing numbers of smaller- scale attacks and a growing proportion of groups and individuals taking it upon themselves to commit acts of terrorism. It remains the case that there are several thousand Islamist extremists here who see the British people as a legitimate target. Overall, I do not believe the terrorist threat is worse now than before. But it is more diffuse. More complicated. More unpredictable.’

Mr Parker also warned that, in some quarters, there could be an ‘alarming degree of complacency’ that MI5 and the police could foil all attacks.

He said: ‘Terrorism, because of its nature and consequences, is the one area of crime where the expectation sometimes seems to be that the stats should be zero. Zero. Imagine applying the same target to murder in general, or major drugs trafficking. That is the stuff of “pre- crime” in the Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report.’

MI5 has attracted criticism for failing to stop individuals – including two of the July 7 bombers – who were on its radar. But Mr Parker, who replaced Jonathan Evans as director-general of the Security Service earlier this year, said: ‘With greater resources since 7/7 we have worked very hard to identify as many as possible of the people in the country who are active in some way in support of terrorism.

‘The idea that we either can or would want to operate intensive scrutiny of thousands is fanciful. This is not East Germany, or North Korea. Knowing of an individual does not equate to knowing everything about them.’

He also made the case for more powers to monitor emails and the internet. Mr Parker said: ‘Shifts in technology can erode our capabilities. There are choices to be made, including, for example, about how and whether communications data is retained. It is not, however, an option to disregard such shifts with an unspoken assumption that somehow security will anyway be sustained. It will not. We cannot work without tools.’

A Guardian News & Media spokesman said: ‘A huge number of people – from President Obama to the US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper have now conceded that the Snowden revelations have prompted a debate which was both necessary and overdue.

‘The President has even set up a review panel and there have been vigorous discussions in the US Congress and throughout Europe. Such a debate is only worthwhile if it is informed. That is what journalism should do.’