Daily Times

The US and UK are
under severe criticism from domestic and international privacy and human rights groups on their pushy methods of intelligence surveillance and spying on their own citizens. The CIA, National Security Agency (NSA) and Government Communications Headquarters’ (GCHQ’s) recent way of interception communication havebeen deeplyirksome to families and business communities in theUK. The GCHQ’s interception ofthe fibre-optic cable network, which is the digital equivalent of opening all the post going in and out of the UK, has become a central debate in print and electronic media. In the US, the issue of surveillance mechanism is very complicated. On August 27, 2013, notwithstanding civilian complaints against the violation of their privacy, President Obama announced the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies (RGICT), which was welcomed only by his friends whilethemajority members of civil society remained critical. During my recent study with the University of Stanford, Californiaand University of Maryland, Washington,I experienced many new thingsabout the operations of intelligence surveillance and geospatial intelligence mechanism in the US. What is happening behind the curtain is quite disturbing.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, former President Bush introduced the controversial Patriot Act, which caused many problems in and outside the country. Section 215 of the Surveillance Act was amended, which demands the business record, while the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) did not grant the government any authority to compel the production of such records. There are contradictions and many flaws in the US’s intelligence surveillance system, which continue to alienate the citizens from the state. Not all things are going in the right direction with the operational method of Executive Order 12333, Sections 215 and 702 of the Surveillance Act. FISA is not the only legal authority governing foreign intelligence activities; other statutes and executive orders also spread blankets, covering other facets of intelligence operations.

Executive Order 12333 is the strongest pillar of surveillance under FISA but many questions arise about its method of operation and implementation. According to a report by the President’s Review Group (2013) on Intelligence and Communications Technologies: “With respect to National Security Agency (NSA), for example, Executive Order 12333 designates NSA as the manager for Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) for the intelligence community and the attorney general’s guidelines define how SIGINT may be conducted for collection activities not governed by FISA.” The NSA locates targets for lethal drone strikes while a majority of Taliban and Islamic State (IS)commanders protecting themselves from the NSA purposely distribute different SIM cards among their fighters in order to elude their trackers. When they go to meetings, they take out their SIM cards, put them in a bag and mix them up. Executive Order 12333, which instructs intelligence agencies to collect information and data, notes: “Accurate and timely information about the capabilities, intentions and activities of foreign powers, organisations or persons and their agents is essential to informed decision making in the areas of national defence and foreign relations.”

In the UK, we are living under open skies and a shining moon, exposed badly to everyone. Our privacy has become a joke as our surveillance system (TEMPORA) is evolving with different faces. We are more exposed than the US. In the UK, there are dozens of surveillance laws, reverberations and the big drum (TEMPORA), which has many eyes, hears us with dozens ofears, and watches us from a distance.It also has the membership of Five Eyes, an intelligence alliance between Australia, the US, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. Three weeks ago, here in the UK, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) termed the regulations covering access by Britain’s GCHQ to emails and phone records intercepted by the NSA asA breach of the human rights law.“This is a historic victory in the age-old battle for the right to privacy and free expression,” said Rachel Logan, Amnesty International UK’s legal programme director. Until last year, this way of stealing data and information from email was illegal but, this year, UK surveillance agencies started violating surveillance and human rights laws with impunity. This is the critical judgement of the IPT since its inception in 2000. According to the IPT argument, “The regime governing the soliciting, receiving, storing and transmitting by UK authorities of private communications of individuals located in the UK, which have been obtained by US authorities contravened Articles 8 or 10 of the European convention on human rights.”

In 2013, newspapers reported the GCHQ routine intercept of submarine fibre-optic cables containing the private communications of millions of UK residents. A recent research report by theDon’t Spy on Us Campaignnoted: “The Snowden revelations regarding the scope of GCHQ surveillance under TEMPORA have highlighted the use of warrants for the interception of so-called ‘external communications’ under section 8(4) RIPA (Regulations of Investigatory Power Act, 2000. It is now clear that section 8(4) warrants have been used as the basis for the mass interception by the GCHQ of millions of private communications as well as its bulk collection of communications data.”

On February 16, 2015, interestingly, The Guardian reported that a man from Liverpool had been charged with attempting to obtain a chemical weapon. The 31-year-old Muslim was arrested following a joint raid by the North West Counterterrorism Unit (NWCTU) and Merseyside police. Muhammad Ammer Ali of Prescott Road, Liverpool, was produced at the Westminster magistrate’s court on February 17, 2015. He was accused of attempting to have a chemical weapon in his possession between January 10 and February 12, 2015 contrary to the Criminal Attempts Act, 1981 and the Chemical Weapons Act, 1996. Police seized a number of items during searches at five addresses in Merseyside on February 11. Now the question is: notwithstanding the multifaceted surveillance from the skies and on the earth, and the blanket of TEPORA, why had this manbeen in possession of chemical weapons for the last two months? The answer is that many things are not going in the right direction in the UK.

The writer is the author of Punjabi Taliban and can be reached at zai.musakhan222@gmail.com