Terrorism & the InternetHead of U.K. surveillance agency: U.S. tech companies have become terrorists' “networks of choice”

The new director of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the U.K. intelligence organization responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance to the British government and armed forces, said that privacy has never been “an absolute right.”

Robert Hannigan used his first public intervention since becoming head of Britain’s surveillance agency to charge U.S. technology companies of becoming “the command and control networks of choice” for terrorists.

Hannigan said a new generation of freely available technology has helped groups such as Islamic State (ISIS) to hide their activities from Western security services. He accused major U.S. technology firms of being “in denial,” and went even further than his predecessor in claiming that Edward Snowden’s leaks have aided terror networks.

Hannigan argued that GCHQ and other agencies, including MI5, cannot effectively address the challenges posed by terrorists without more support from the private sector, “including the largest U.S. technology companies which dominate the Web.”

Hannigan argued in an opinion piece (“The web is a terrorist’s command-and-control network of choice,” Financial Times, 3 November 2014) that GCHQ needed to enter into the debate about privacy, Hannigan said: “I think we have a good story to tell. We need to show how we are accountable for the data we use to protect people, just as the private sector is increasingly under pressure to show how it filters and sells its customers’ data.

“GCHQ is happy to be part of a mature debate on privacy in the digital age. But privacy has never been an absolute right and the debate about this should not become a reason for postponing urgent and difficult decisions.”

The Guardian reports that Hannigan, who was born in Gloucestershire, not far from GCHQ’s base, has advised the prime minister on counterterrorism, intelligence, and security policy. He was a senior Foreign Office official before succeeding Sir Iain Lobban at the Cheltenham-based surveillance agency.

Hannigan does not name any company in particular, but he writes: “To those of us who have to tackle the depressing end of human behavior on the internet, it can seem that some technology companies are in denial about its misuse.

“I suspect most ordinary users of the internet are ahead of them: they have strong views on the ethics of companies, whether on taxation, child protection or privacy; they do not want the media platforms they use with their friends and families to facilitate murder or child abuse.”