Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP - Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, UK HARDtalk

Thanks to Edward Snowden, America's cyber spy turned later we know US

intelligence agencies that by the British secretly monitor electronic

communications on of the world. In Britain his revelations prompted a

ferocious argument between self-styled spenders -- defenders of

liberty and pillars of the security establishment. My guest is a mark on

Rifkind, chairman of the UK Parliament's intelligence and

security committee. Is this security stage a potential threat to those it

is supposed to protect? Welcome to the programme. When those

revelations appeared in the Guardian newspaper based upon leaks from

Edward Snowden, all about the pervasive electronic surveillance

won by US intelligence backed by British intelligence as well, were

you surprised? First of all, we have intelligence agencies in Britain,

Russia, Germany, France, have intelligence agencies to do

intelligence, get secret information others wouldn't wish you to see.

Against that background one is not to be surprised the intelligence

agencies are doing what we pay them for. Where you being told for the

first time or did you know this incredibly extensive electronic

eavesdropping, monitoring, intelligence was taking place? The

technology is constantly changing. Our primary purpose as an

intelligence oversight committee is to satisfy ourselves that Britain's

intelligence agencies Bestival are keeping the law, secondly are

behaving in a responsible and acceptable fashion, and thirdly

helping protect the people of the United Kingdom and through our

alliances of other countries. Those are your duties. The technical

way in which they do it is not, we are not involved in the technical

way. If you are asking me, did we know that very large amounts of

information can be processed by modern computers and in order for

them to select the various needles in a haystack that might point you

towards terrorists or serious, Norse, of course we were aware of

that. If I may say so you are a lawyer and a man who has a renowned

reputation for passing his words very carefully. You just said we

knew they could do that. They have the capability, but did you know

they were actually doing it as a result hundreds millions of citizens

around the world were in effect having their communications

monitored by the National Security agency in the United States, and by

GCHQ in the UK? I am perfectly happy to say while we did not address the

technical way in which it was done, or the precise technology evolves,

we were certainly aware, as were quite a number of people, that it is

possible with modern technology and if it is possible the likelihood

intelligence agencies carry out what is for them their duty, to use the

best possible technology to fight terrorists, prevent terrorist

incidents or help the police catch terrorists is something has

happened. Forgive me if I don't go beyond that. As a member of the

intelligence and Security committee we received secret information. I am

not at liberty to share with you the secret information we have received.

But you are at liberty to decide and use your judgement to come to a few

as to what the public needs to know that was a gritty agencies are

doing? This is not the case, on this particular point, the public had

every right to know in general the US and UK intelligence and spy

agencies were now monitoring their communication. If there is where

could monitor it to all systems of course there would be no

justification for not disclosing all the information you are referring

to. The problem is that you cannot disclose information to the British

public without it becoming available to everyone else on the terrorists

we are dealing with, the whole of the British public are the

terrorists are pretty dumb and silly and foolish, some are incredibly

smart. Modern terrorists, because the problem is global terrorism, had

a global terrorists communicate? Globally, which means e-mails, phone

communication, social messaging and all the other options available stop

unless the intelligence agencies can beat them at their own game we do

not discover the terrorists until after they have killed many innocent

people. Do you believe is the leaks that came from Edward Snowden did

anything to jeopardise the security of the British people or any

security operation. We know is snowed in and stole tens of

thousands of secret documents. We don't know how many. He has never

disclosed that. He may have some have not yet arrived in the Guardian

or the New York Times. I've no doubt many documents marks ago, if they

did appear the public domain, wouldn't do any drastic damage. I am

equally clear there are at of a lot that would do tremendous damage. The

people at the moment you are deciding which of the stolen

documents appear or a mixture of Edward Snowden and various newspaper

editors. Neither of whom are qualified to make their judgement.

When Andrew Parker said the other day they gave the fanatics the

ability to evade intelligence agencies, and when the former head

of GCHQ said this was the most catastrophic loss to British

intelligence ever, I couldn't see one jot of specific evidence to back

up those claims. Let me try and help you and those interested. There were

allegations last week in the press I'm not commenting on whether they

would chew or not, that the intelligence agencies are able to

deal with encrypted material and find out what it really means. If

these allegations were correct, every terrorist becoming aware of

this immediately knows that material they are sending which they might

think is secure because it is encrypted actually may still be able

to be inspected. Maybe you are behind the curve on this.

Specialists in court geography -- geography, the argument exposing

these documents, a category can be hacked, the so-called back door.

There are doubles -- many levels of encryption. He says the argument of

exposing the documents helps the terrorists doesn't pass the laugh

test. You say I am supposed to accept his view, at the same time

you are quoting Andrew Parker who spent a lifetime dealing with

intelligence. They are so close to the centres of power they have a

clear vested interest in maintaining the secrecy that black power wants

to retain. He is an independent expert and if he says you believe

the terrorist stoked already assume even that they could messages can be

hacked into view are joking. Terrorists know as do general public

know some matters can be hacked into but they do not know what level of

sophistication exist. If they are told and if they believe allegations

that the levels of encryption that can be entered into a more

sophisticated than the previously understood, inevitably that has

consequences. The Guardian newspaper was very careful not to give that

level of detail. Is a process by which independent experts reported

and they sifted through everything republished to make sure they could

not jeopardise security. This shows a level of naivete I find

staggering. The idea that a newspaper editor in good faith and

various other riders -- advisers should be up to judge all the

material is not top-secret that somehow they are in the position to

know whether terrorists or criminals would benefit from publishing it in

the newspapers, if they believe that they are naive. This comes down to a

question of trust. The public has to decide who they can trust when it

comes to his documents, coming only rely upon the word of the

intelligence agency chiefs who say this has to be kept secret, do they

rely on the word of politicians such as yourself who to a certain extent

or able to see top-secret and confidential information and act as

tribunes of the people but not tell them what they have seen, or do they

in the end has to rely on information gatherers such as the

media who tell the public more than anybody else will about what is

going on. There is a real public debate on the balance between

security and privacy. The beginning of that debate is not Snowdon, it is

in a dogma Chrissy, do we believe even in a democracy, free society,

it is necessary in a modern world to have secrets about secret

intelligence agencies. Secret intelligence agencies must remain

able to have information that is secret. And not to put a branded

secrecy over anything? There isn't a blanket of secrecy. 30s get this

country didn't admit that MI6 existed, you didn't know where the

pretty fun. Not only do they exist, they operate under a legal framework

of oversight and constraints that does not exist in Russia or China.

One of the great ironies that Mr Snowden in the name of freedom,

Festa goes to China and then he goes to Russia. In both these countries

the intelligence agencies they have are there primarily, I have got to

make this point, are there to suppress political dissent, prevent

what we would call legitimate opposition to government. But they

don't have any oversight system and I would response the same way in the

Western democracies hold ourselves to a higher standard. That is what

our politicians do. That is the point I am making. We not only have

ministerial accountability which people might say that is not good

enough, we have the intelligence security which are all party,

bipartisan, no party divided the committee, I just think my own

views, on behalf of nine members of parliament, Labour, Conservative,

Liberal Democrat, in addition to that we have judges who are

intelligence commissioners who are able to scrutinise every warrant the

Secretary of State signs to make sure it was done properly and for

the right person and we are used for which it was intended. None of these

safeguards exist in authoritarian societies and it is against that

background your initial question about trust, what is the level of

trust has to take into account we are a democratic society, where

newspapers do indeed report allegations of alleged abuse by

intelligence agencies in the way they don't do in Moscow or Beijing.

We know for a fact in the past hour and British intelligence services

have abuse their powers. They have used their powers to so veiled

political movements which was... I'm going back to the 1980s. Much more

recently we have had in the United States I am loosely lumping the UK

and the United States together, a director of intelligence and the

United States, Congress he was not surveilling... He told a lie. We now

know that top officials in intelligence lies. Politicians as

well. Politicians are sometimes very strong vested interest in

maintaining the status quo. Jack Straw, the Labour Party, senior

figure, he was Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary, he has said he

now knows because the intelligence services have said so, he was

monitored, spied upon by the intelligence services, his own

family was investigated, his sexual proclivities were investigated, and

he says he finds that neither surprising nor shocking. We need

politicians who would find that both surprising and shocking and

unacceptable. I am interested at all the examples you have given given

were before legislation was introduced for the first time giving

statutory control over our intelligence agencies. Until the

1990s, 1990s, until then, the intelligence agencies operated under

authority from the Secretary of State. There was no legal basis on

which they operated. Operated. Now there is an act of Parliament which

says what the law is is to what they can do, the authority they require

to proceed, and when they will be committing a criminal offence if

they do not go by that. Since then judicial commissioners,

commissioners, and other commissions have been established in the past 20

or 30 years. Since the events you mention. I bet you cannot give a

single example since then of political interference in the United

Kingdom interfering with Ordinariate British citizens going about their

business because of their alleged political views or other

proclivities. There may have been abuses in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s

when there were no legal frameworks. What I can point to, and this comes

from politicians on your own site, like David Davis, saying that that

the legislation as it stands, as you say it was passed in the 1990s,

1990s, he says that it is incapable of protecting citizens from this new

brand of pervasive digital surveillance. I have read what he

has said and what he speaks about. The Intelligence and Security

Committee which I chair has had its powers, powers, its budget, its

resources doubled... Your budget is over ?1 million. For years it was

six or ?700,000. A spit in the bucket, if I may say so compared

with the task that that faces you in monitoring the fast changing world

of electronic and digital surveillance. Apart from the United

States, which is in a league of its own, we have more resources and

manpower dealing with intelligence agencies than any other country in

the world. Secondly, in the last year, Parliament has agreed that

that for the first time in history, we will have the power to require

the intelligence agencies to provide as with the information we need. Up

until now it has been voluntary on their part. Now they are required.

Only the Prime Minister and Secretary of State can stop us and

they have to justify it, it would have to be exceptional

circumstances. For the first time Parliament has given the

intelligence committee oversight of the intelligence operation

committees. In the last couple of weeks, weeks, our staff, who are not

employed by the intelligence agencies, agencies, have got into

the intelligence agencies and have had access to some of their most

secret files to ensure that when we are carrying out investigations we

will see not just what the agencies choose to show us but what we deem

to be relevant to our enquiry. It has never happened before. Never

before have they had people not their own stuff going into their

offices and seeing their files. In a few weeks will have the first ever

public session of taking evidence from the intelligence agencies, the

heads of MI6, MI5, GCHQ, will be taking evidence from the committee.

A couple of quick questions. Before we end this phase, has what we have

learned from Edward Snowden in any way changed the degree of trust you

are prepared to put in the intelligence services? No. Not at

all? I will give you a quick answer. The allegations in this country was

that the GCHQ was circumventing the law by using the NSA rather than

going through a British legal procedure. It was investigation we

found out it was an unjustified allegation. It is whether it is the

law itself can be usefully looked at from time to time to see whether it

is keeping up to date with modern technology. The intelligent security

committee has said publicly that is part of the Work Programme we are

looking and will continue to look at the legal basis under which the

agencies operate. There is the difference between the agencies

acting legally and with full integrity under the law they have

been told as law and whether that law itself can be looked at to see

whether improvements may be needed. A final point, point, will there be,

as a result of what we have learnt, new and tougher legislation in this

area to ensure tighter oversight? That is for the government, not my

committee. Do you believe there is now a need for new legislation? We

are going to see whether that might be... I want to know your personal

opinion. I'm sorry, until we carry out the work I do not tell you that.

You were very confident of the way in which Britain is still seen

around the world as a paragon of creed and transparency... Those were

your words. As said as a matter of fact oversight structures and powers

are broadly similar to the United States and more substantial than any

other country in the world. In the course of these revelations some

specific detail came out about surveillance of foreign nations by

the US and the UK. GCHQ was behind spying on the Turkish finance and is

to in preparation free G20 meeting. The Turkish Prime Minister said that

it is going to be scandalous to the United Kingdom at a time when

international cooperation, more than ever, depends on mutual trust. These

revelations have been damaging for Britain's international standing. I

would point out that Turkey has very impressive intelligence agencies.

You must come during conclusion whether these occasionally spy on

some of their neighbours. What do you think? I am going to continue

the thought about Turkey by switching to Syria. One key area is

Syria. You sit on the Security intelligence committee. You listen

closely to the debate about Syria. You participate in it. You have

called for the arming of the Syrian rebels and for military intervention

during that some discussion in Washington and London. London. Do

you know except, as we see things unfold in Syria, both of those

things military intervention and proactive arming of the rebels would

have been a mistake? I do not. The circumstances are different to what

they were 1.5 years ago. One of the reasons I came to the idea that

military assistance was essential was because one saw the jihadi

terrorists becoming more and more powerful. This last summer you are

still arguing for arming the rebels... Precisely. They are

becoming more and more influential. The Free Syrian Army said the

Islamist are still taking over and you still want to send arms. The

Free Syrian Army did not say that. This point I'm seeking to put across

to you is that if you want a moderate secular opposition to

become the future government of Syria, then we are in an impossible

situation that has become worse where the Assad regime has all the

weapons it could want from Russia and Iran and the jihadi terrorists

are are getting from their sympathisers in in parts of the

world. He said soon there would be no FSA, the Islamic groups a

takeover. The change has been in that direction. You now saying

saying it is too late? That your previous stance was the right and

just thing to do cannot now happen. I am saying that the war in Syria

will only come to an end when both sides know they cannot win

militarily. Assad because the weapons he has been getting from

Iran and Russia and because the help eager has polite has believed he has

been been on a roll. He thinks he can win militarily. I think it is is

important that the modern Syrian opposition opposition be given the

tools with which which to defend their communities and and force

Assad to the negotiating table. Table. Given the intelligence

estimates we hear and the head of MI5 in the UK said recently hundreds

of of fighters, he believes, areleaving to fight in the Syria,

and they represent a real threat to Britain. You still think even in

that context with that radicalisation that sending arms to

Syria is still a good idea. You cannot cannot guarantee where those

arms will end up. The people who do not have decent arms are the Syrian

moderate opposition. The idea that if if you provide them with the

equipment they need they will hand them over to their sworn enemies,

the the jihadi terrorists, who are massively massively over, is quite

unrealistic. . Thank you very much indeed.