LONDON
Claims by Home Secretary Theresa May that the UK is not involved in a mass surveillance program against its own citizens have been criticized by privacy rights campaigners.
May told delegates in a speech at London's Mansion House that the mass monitoring of citizens' communications would be illegal and "oversight controls" would prevent it.
She said in her speech: “Let me start by saying this: there is no programme of mass surveillance and there is no surveillance state.
"Surveillance of this nature would be illegal, and I only ever sign warrants for limited and specific proposals. If anybody ever attempted any form of mass surveillance, internal controls and external oversight would detect it and stop it and the perpetrators would be prosecuted.”
Her comments were the first time the Home Secretary had addressed the subject in public since human rights organizations claimed that the UK government had a legal framework that justified secretly monitoring all internet traffic routed through foreign companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter.
But a spokesperson for Privacy International, Mike Rispoli, told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday: “We disagree with Theresa May’s assessment.
"We learnt from (counter-terrorism chief) Charles Far’s statement that they collect a huge amount of data that is considered as external.”
'Public misled'
The statement by Farr, the UK's Director General of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, disclosed that “indiscriminate” interception was legally permitted if messages were “external communications” through an overseas-based company.
Theresa May also said in her speech on Tuesday: “The public is at risk of being misled.
"It is important that people hear the truth about each of these allegations, because we cannot afford a loss of faith in the vital work of the security and intelligence agencies, and because we need public support and public trust if we are to win the argument about capability.”
She labeled the information on surveillance in the US and UK leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden as “theft".
May insisted that the security services acted within the law and that she had to sign off on surveillance requests.
Rispoli said May’s speech was “damage control” and flew “in the face of what Charles Far’s statement actually says”.
“The problem is that Far’s statement is so clear about how the government use surveillance and they recognized how much the public disagreed with their interpretation in what they say they are allowed to do,” he said.
May analysis rejected
May went on to reject calls for there to be a disclosure of UK capabilities and how terrorist attacks have been stopped and for these to be laid out in public.
She said, “We are asked to submit this information for scrutiny not in Parliament but in public; not by our elected representatives but by unelected, unaccountable and self-appointed arbiters of our national security; not with respect for the need for secrecy but with a cavalier and reckless transparency.”
“We cannot and will not do so,” she added.
Privacy International rejected May’s analysis of the Snowden leaks.
Mike Rispoli said: “It takes a tremendous amount of courage when you see very powerful governments carrying out unlawful activities - to blow the whistle on that is a very courageous act.”
He added: “What I think is dangerous is having governments interpret law in a secret manner or execute law in a secret manner or disregarding public debate in order to do whatever they wish.
Intelligence agencies alarmed
“I think what he Snowden documents have shown is that we are not having these open debates that are necessary in a democratic society about what a government can and cannot do."
He went on: "There exists a whole other secret government that is interpreting and executing the law as they see fit, completely away from the public’s eye.
"That is dangerous because that threatens and undermines the democratic process. The Snowden leaks allowed for that debate to take place. The public disagrees with what they are doing.”
Snowden last year leaked files containing revelations about the scope and nature of the NSA's largely illegal surveillance activities around the globe, which caused alarm among the US and UK intelligence communities.
He has been hailed as a hero around the world for exposing to the global public the mass surveillance activities employed by the US' intelligence body the NSA and the UK's GCHQ communications monitoring center.
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