Nothing But The Truth

"I am not going to compound the damage by being specific in public. We do not spend our time listening to the telephone calls or reading the emails of the majority."
Iain Lobhan, chief, British GCHQ

"What I can tell you is that the leaks from Snowden have been very damaging, they have put our operations at risk. It is clear that our adversaries are rubbing their hands with glee. Al-Qaeda is lapping it up."
John Sawers, MI6 chief

A  historic parliamentary hearing underway in London heard testimony from the heads of the country's three spy agencies, M5, MI6, and GCHQ. Their jobs, singly and collectively, to protect the country from terrorist attacks emanating from within and from outside Britain was now "far, far harder", than it had been five months earlier.

Director General of MI5, Andrew Parker informed the intelligence and security committee that no fewer than 34 terrorist actions against Britain had been stopped since the 7/7 attack in London in 2005. But, he stressed, "several thousand" extremists remained in the country. And his spies were human, the attributes of "James Bond" were not invested in them.

And their time-honoured tools of investigation have now been revealed in the kind of detail that has rendered them inoperable. And which has placed them in danger, along with the country. Since the leaks contained in files stolen from the U.S. National Security Agency by former contract employee Edward Snowden, had exposed vital data to the eyes of enemies of the state.

That has resulted in a situation whereby "it becomes more difficult to acquire the intelligence that this country needs. What we have seen over the last five months is near daily discussion amongst some of our targets", emphasized Mr. Sawers. Their corroboration of the claims by U.S. authorities that the leaks were aiding enemies of the West about how they might avoid detection, effectively put.

All three reiterated their respective agencies operate strictly within the law. They gave guarantee to the parliamentarians hearing them out that their operational work was legal and proportionate. Scanning the Web is like looking in an "enormous hayfield", for a misplaced needle. But the scan is required to detect "fragments of needles", leading to potential warnings of impending attacks.

Mr. Lobban of GCHQ mentioned his agents had "seen low hundreds of people from this country go to Syria", some of them having returned to the U.K. Consonant with warnings from Western intelligence that the war in Syria between the regime and rebels had attracted foreign fighters from European countries joining hard-line Islamic jihadists.

And concerns that the returning Islamists bring back with them the violent ideology and jihadist martyrdom tendencies give comfort to no one.