LONDON(Reuters) - Twitter and Facebook are soimportant to militant groups that the technology giants should give security services greater access to their networks to allowgovernments to foil attacks, the head of Britains eavesdropping agency said.The new director of Britains GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, saidU.S. tech companies Twitter Inc, Facebook Inc and WhatsApp were in denial about their unintended role as thecommand and control networks of choice for terrorists.Islamic State militants are harnessing the power of theInternet to create a militant network with near global reachjust a quarter of a century since the creation of the World WideWeb, Hannigan said.The challenge to governments and their intelligenceagencies is huge -- and it can only be met with greaterco-operation from technology companies, Hannigan wrote in theFinancial Times newspaper.If they are to meet this challenge, it means coming up withbetter arrangements for facilitating lawful investigation bysecurity and law enforcement agencies than we have now.Twitter and Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, declined repeatedrequests for comment. GCHQ also declined to comment.Data compiled by Twitter showed it had received 78information requests from the British government in the firsthalf of 2014.Facebook says organisations with a record ofterrorist or violent criminal activity are not allowed tomaintain a presence on its site.Such a strong public warning from one of the Wests mostpowerful spies indicates the gravity of the perceived threat,and a sense of frustration felt by many spies about the damagedone by former National Security Agency contractor EdwardSnowden.Media reports based on previously top secret documentsstolen by Snowden, a U.S. citizen who now lives in Moscow, laidbare the extent of American and British surveillance, includingdemands spies made to telephone and technology companies.In the wake of the Snowden revelations, GCHQ, which standsfor Government Communications Headquarters, was accused byprivacy groups and some lawmakers of the widespread illegalmonitoring of electronic communications.British ministers denied any illegality and top spiesdismissed any sinister intent, saying they sought only to defendthe liberties of Western democracies.The director general of the MI5 Security Service, AndrewParker, warned last year that the revelations were a gift toterrorists because they had exposed GCHQs ability to track,listen and watch plotters.Young foreign fighters have learnt and benefited from theleaks of the past two years, Hannigan said.ISIS IT DEPARTMENTGCHQ, MI5 and Britains foreign spy service, MI6, needgreater support from the private sector, said Hannigan, whosingled out U.S. technology companies in particular. NoBritish-based companies were named.Prime Minister David Camerons office said the premieragreed with the spy chiefs comments.The prime minister very much shares the view that is beingexpressed there around the use of web-enabled, Internet accesstechnologies by violent and extremist groups amongst others andthe need to do more, a Downing Street spokesman said.Hannigan said Islamic State militants, who have seizedswathes of land in Syria and Iraq, were harnessing the power oftechnology in a new and dangerous way.While al Qaeda mainly hid in the shadows of the Internetusing it as a modern drop box or secret ink, Islamic State isnoisily using it to advertise itself, radicalise new recruitsand intimidate with grotesque videos of beheadings, he said.The ISIS (Islamic State) leadership understands the powerthis gives them with a new generation, Hannigan said, addingthat militants had used World Cup and Ebola hashtags on Twittermessages to pitch their views to a wider audience.The extremists of ISIS use messaging and social mediaservices such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp, he said.Hannigan cast GCHQ, which fishes for intelligence in theworlds cyber oceans from a futuristic building called thedoughnut in the western English spa-town of Cheltenham, ashindered by technology companies and a mistaken assumption thatprivacy was an absolute right.It can seem that some technology companies are in denialabout its misuse, he said. I suspect most ordinary users ofthe Internet ... do not want the media platforms they use withtheir friends and families to facilitate murder or child abuse.Rights activists said it was disappointing to see GCHQattack companies rather than addressing what they said was alack of confidence in the agency after revelations about thescope of its eavesdropping.Privacy never an absolute right in spook, translates asstate shall be able to invade privacy if convenient, withoutparticular reason, tweeted Caspar Bowden, a rights activistwho worked as chief privacy advisor for Microsoft Corp until 2011.Bowden has been critical of U.S. tech companies for failingto be more transparent about compromises they have made withgovernment surveillance agencies.Dunya News Tv
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 15:19:10 +0000
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