Privacy International Says UK Spy Agency Hacked Computers Without Warrants
Documents released Tuesday show that U.K. spy agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is hacking computers without getting individual warrants, said London-based Privacy International in a news release. The group said the documents “contain previously unknown details and defenses” of the…
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agency’s use of “thematic warrants.” They show GCHQ confirmed that the U.K. secretary of state doesn’t sign off on most overseas hacking operations, which also don’t require authorizations to name or describe a piece of equipment or name the equipment’s individual user. Privacy International also said the GCHQ’s intelligence services commissioner began formally reviewing individual targets overseas only in April, and the Intelligence and Security Committee report released in March called the failure of intelligence agencies MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service to keep accurate records of overseas hacking activities “unacceptable.” Privacy International General Counsel Caroline Wilson Palow said "the light touch authorization and oversight regime that GCHQ has been enjoying should never have been permitted. Perhaps it wouldn't have been if parliament had been notified in the first place that GCHQ was hacking.” In an email, GCHQ replied "it would be inappropriate to comment on ongoing legal proceedings," but "all of GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework, which ensures that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous independent oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. All our operational processes rigorously support this position." Privacy International and seven Internet service and communications providers filed a legal complaint in July 2014 seeking an end to GCHQ’s hacking, which they called illegal and “destructive.”