
Cabinet ministers and members of the national security council were told nothing about the existence and scale of the vast data-gathering programmes run by British and American intelligence agencies, a former member of the government has revealed. Chris Huhne, who was in the cabinet for two years until 2012, said ministers were in "utter ignorance" of the two biggest covert operations, Prism and Tempora. The former Liberal Democrat MP admitted he was shocked and mystified by the surveillance capabilities disclosed by the Guardian from files leaked by the whistleblower Edward Snowden. "The revelations put a giant question mark into the middle of our surveillance state," he said. "The state should not feel itself entitled to know, see and memorise everything that the private citizen communicates. The state is our servant." Writing in Monday's Guardian, Huhne also questioned whether the Home Office had deliberately misled parliament about the need for the communications data bill when GCHQ, the government's eavesdropping headquarters, already had remarkable and extensive snooping capabilities. He said this lack of information and accountability showed "the supervisory arrangements for our intelligence services need as much updating as their bugging techniques". Over the past three months the Guardian has made a series of disclosures about the activities of GCHQ and its much bigger American counterpart, the National Security Agency. Two of the most significant programmes uncovered in the Snowden files were Prism, run by the NSA, and Tempora, which was set up by GCHQ. Between them, they allow the agencies to harvest, store and analyse data about millions of phone calls, emails and search engine queries. As a cabinet minister and member of the national security council (NSC), Huhne said he would have expected to be told about these operations, particularly as they were relevant to proposed legislation. "The cabinet was told nothing about GCHQ's Tempora or its US counterpart, the NSA's Prism, nor about their extraordinary capability to hoover up and store personal emails, voice contact, social networking activity and even internet searches. "I was also on the national security council, attended by ministers and the heads of the Secret [Intelligence Service, MI6] and Security Service [MI5], GCHQ and the military. If anyone should have been briefed on Prism and Tempora, it should have been the NSC. "I do not know whether the prime minister or the foreign secretary (who has oversight of GCHQ) were briefed, but the NSC was not. This lack of information, and therefore accountability, is a warning that the supervision of our intelligence services needs as much updating as their bugging techniques." Huhne said Prism and Tempora "put in the shade Tony Blair's proposed ID cards, 90-day detention without trial and the abolition of jury trials". He added: "Throughout my time in parliament, the Home Office was trying to persuade politicians to invest in 'upgrading' Britain's capability to recover data showing who is emailing and phoning whom. Yet this seems to be exactly what GCHQ was already doing. Was the Home Office trying to mislead? "The Home Office was happy to allow the NSC and the cabinet – let alone parliament – to remain in utter ignorance of Prism/Tempora while deciding on the communications data bill." The draft bill would have given police and the security services access, without a warrant, to details of all online communication in the UK – such as the time, duration, originator and recipient, and the location of the device from which it was made. The legislation was eventually dropped after splits in the coalition. Proper scrutiny of the intelligence agencies was vital, said Huhne, and surveillance techniques needed to be tempered. "Joseph Goebbels was simply wrong when he argued that 'if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear'. Information is power, and the necessary consequence is that privacy is freedom. Only totalitarians pry absolutely." Huhne, formerly the energy and climate change minister, was jailed this year after he admitted perverting the course of justice over claims his ex-wife took speeding points for him. In February he was sentenced to eight months in prison but was released after serving 62 days. His intervention comes as concern about the oversight and scrutiny of Britain's spy agencies grows. While former members of the intelligence community insist GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 operate with integrity and within the law, even they have questioned whether the oversight regime is fit for purpose following the Snowden revelations. Over the last few days a former member of parliament's intelligence and security committee, Lord King, a former director of GCHQ, Sir David Omand, and a former director general of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington, have questioned whether the agencies need to be more transparent and accept more rigorous scrutiny of their work. On Monday, a former legal director of MI5 and MI6 will add his weight to the calls for change. David Bickford told the Guardian Britain's intelligence agencies should seek authority for secret operations from a judge rather than a minister because public unease about their surveillance techniques is at an all-time high. Bickford said the government should pass responsibility to the courts because of widespread "dissatisfaction with the covert, intrusive powers of the UK intelligence and law enforcement agencies". "Whether this is based on perception or reality doesn't really matter," he said. "As long as government ministers continue to authorise the agencies' eavesdropping, telephone and electronic surveillance, and informant approval, the public will believe that there is an unhealthy seamless relationship between them." Bickford said it was time for ministers to "step out of the equation and leave the authorisation of these highly intrusive methods to the judiciary". Bickford was drafted in to MI5 and MI6 following a series of scandals, including the furore over the book Spycatcher, written by the senior former MI5 officer Peter Wright. He worked for almost a decade until 1995 and still advises governments on countering international organised crime and terrorist money laundering. Bickford said giving judges rather than cabinet ministers responsibility for authorising sensitive operations would "reduce the risk of perception of collusion … and limit the room for accusations of political interference." "Government may argue that all this is unnecessary as there is adequate oversight of the agencies. However, that cannot substitute for independent judicial authority at the coal face." Meanwhile, on Sunday, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) condemned the way the British government had threatened legal action against the Guardian newspaper unless it destroyed the copy of the Snowden files it had in London. "WAN-IFRA calls on democratic governments to recognise that acts of intimidation and surveillance against the press risk undermining the fabric of transparent, accountable governance," the organisation's board said in a resolution issued during its meeting on the eve of this week's World Publishing Expo in Berlin, Germany. 

	[CompassionateTory]
	So effectively, Chris Huhne is saying that even the people &quot;running the country&quot; don't really know who is running the country. Bloody marvellous. If Obama isn't really in control of the US and Cameron isn't really in control of the UK then who the fuck is? Whoever it is, they certainly weren't democratically elected to those positions.

		[MirandaKeen]
		Someone who can expose corruption and control the whole system? Wow, that's scary.It makes me wonder if the global crisis isn't orchestrated deliberately to remove that threat. Way above my head but I can see the potential now. Big brother is pulling their strings too.

		[Vocalista]
		&quot;They represent business and coerce the people through media and bare faced lies.&quot; ...and fake 'democracy'.

		[CompassionateTory]
		A pyramid for sure but I'm not sure it's necessarily the richest. It's someone who has focused not on becoming the richest but on usurping political power. And they've used modern technology to do it.

		[mikiencolor]
		That does indeed seem to be the question now. Who is really running the Five Eyes? The revolving door suggests a corporatocracy, and the Bilderberg Group a conspiracy of elites at the upper echelons.

		[kevmcgee]
		Welcome to the NEW WORLD ORDER.

	[EbbTide64]
	So who passed the law(s) which allows these programs? Is it just done on the say-so of a minister? Or a minister and a few others? The process for creating the authorisation for this snooping looks secretive in the extreme, and I don't think that making laws secretly is a good idea. If I don't know what they propose to do, then my MP cannot raise any objections that I (or any other constituent) may have, which seems very undemocratic. There seems to be an arrogance about this - it's as if they know what's best for us and nobody could possibly point out any flaws in their thinking, or highlight any problems with their proposal. I think this snooping will be found to be illegal by the ECHR. I doubt that that would stop them from doing it, though. Have Labour pledged to stop the mass snooping? No, didn't think so. They are all as bad as each other.

		[unaszplodrmann]
		I think this snooping will be found to be illegal by the ECHR   Would the security establishment have been so secretive if that were not a distinct possibility? They must know better than anyone that terrorists already suspected such systems were in place, so that is unlikely to be the reason for secrecy.

	[SinisterLord]
	Does anybody know who actually made the decision to spy on the whole populace yet? The fact that we in the UK are so far behind in the debate compared to the US is depressing beyond words. We really need some answers here.

		[brettjudy12]
		Trialed in 2008, who sanctioned it, who financed it? Any answers Mr. Brown?

		[Vectron]
		The security services have never been under full cabinet control in the UK and never should be. Cabinet is too big and too leaky

		[irredentistdentist]
		If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.

		[317east]
		But who does the foot belong to?

	[sefertzi7]
	It is appalling if members of the National Security Committee were unaware of these programs. What's the point of elections if our representatives have no influence over the unelected secret state within the state?

		[rustynutts]
		ha ha ah aha - do you really believe the people you vote for are in control ?

		[sefertzi7]
		Hi rustynutts do you really believe the people you vote for are in control Obviously not, dimwit.

	[araalij]
	How can a Cabinet & NSC member not have known about Prism & Tempora? Who is governing us?

		[MartinRDB]
		Absolutely!    Who is governing us? I am surprised so many CiFers seem to have missed this fundamental question.

		[NickDaGeek]
		sadly I agree with you.

		[Forthestate]
		Who is governing us?    I am surprised so many CiFers seem to have missed this fundamental question.  If indeed we are sleepwalking into totalitarianism, the rank stupidity that allows us to do that is at least recorded on these threads. That people bothering to comment on this subject in a supposedly liberal newspaper aren't bothered by the fact that we appear to have a state within a state that is wholly unaccountable to our elected representatives shows us where the problem really lies: there are far too many British people who are actually too stupid to deserve either privacy or freedom, and they're well represented here.

	[Councillor]
	Why would the security services inform the Cabinet? When we have seen a Minister for Defence travelling around the world with a non security vetted 'friend' and observe that umpteen MPs are members of 'Friends of wherever', the last people you'd tip off are the subjects of the surveillance.

		[vieuxcon]
		How fucking naive can you lot get? Of course the govt spied on the people. That's what governments do. Have been doing for hundreds of years. Obviously now they have means a million times more effective - and you expect us to be surprised and outraged!! And rabbit on about democracy!! In Britain!!

		[VSLVSL]
		OnSecondThoughts Councillor    06 October 2013 8:41pmRecommend1   &quot;Why would the security services inform the Cabinet?&quot;  Mr Huhne was a PM-selected cabinet member and was on the National Security Council. If he couldn't be trusted with confidential information, then our system of government is so broken that it can no longer be called a democracy in any way at all.    Government ministers (and their officers) are security vetted. You'll recall the recent controversy because Coulson allegedly had access to material beyond his level of vetting whilst acting as Cameron's press officer. Huhne would have been vetted as a matter of course. I suspect he had a lower vetting than his ex-wife.  In some respects, that he knew so little, is reassuring.

		[SummerLulstice]
		Because democracy depends on an informed public, that happens to include Cabinet members. Without an informed public democracy ceases to be, there's no two ways about it. So what you're saying is, the people can't be trusted, as they are the &quot;subjects&quot; in question? We can be trusted to vote and be taxed, stand for public office even, just so long as we refrain from questioning what it is we vote and pay for? This was a recipe for disaster, and worse yet the disaster has already happened but being secret by nature we had to find out what has transpired through whistle-blowers who are now fearful or their lives. You are arguing from a position of institutionalised paranoia, which is unquestioning in its belief that said institution and said paranoia are right and must be protected from public scrutiny at all costs (which seems to be a paradox). Everything that has happened demonstrates that in fact there is no public oversight and this is state dysfunction running out of everyone's control was how this apparatus has reacted to the publications; by bullying, making it a crime for journalists to do their jobs (D-Notice) and threatening or even persecuting everyone involved in the leaks, even barging in a major newspaper and demanding the destruction of information (entirely symbolic but thuggish intimidation meant to prevent papers everywhere conducting investigative journalism). These are the absurd acts of a cabal of secretive organisations and corporations who have grown altogether too fond of flexing their muscles, and have now got it into their heads that intimidation is an appropriate response to the public. Democracy cannot require that democracy be sacrificed, no matter how complex the world is now. Because if that were true then it is meant to self-destruct.

		[unaszplodrmann]
		Nah. Wherever itself probably knew in advance, though.

		[RustyGuillotine]
		The &quot;friends of whatever&quot; seem to of had the jump long before our ministers.

	[dee123]
	Well I'd like to move on from Huhne's past.And I welcome his more critical analysis of state apparatus,and it's seeming unaccountability.Of course everyone has a right to keep throwing the past at the man,but if you do so,you will lose the opportunity to see if the person has changed.

		[StrawBear]
		There's an awful lot of people round here who've led utterly blameless lives.

		[KallisteHill]
		That's not bottle, it's just the need for attention.

		[CompassionateTory]
		I agree. He's admitted his mistakes and taken a lot of vitriol by coming BTL on CiF. Not many disgraced MPs would have the bottle to that. If any. But I'm still never going to vote LibDem.

		[madasballoons]
		Leopard.Spots.

	[masaski]
	Mi5/6, FBI/CIA, The MOSSAD, and most secret services, are all totally outside the remit of governments. Much like the banks. They act with impunity, without the rule of law and with diplomatic immunity. And tomorrow we welcome the new National Crime Agency...another arm of this over-bearing surveillance state with a billion pounds of state funding to spend on lovely new toys; more domestic drones, facial recognition cameras, warrant-less digital snooping etc. Whilst cutting disability benefits and making single occupants homeless. The western world is fucked.

		[AnnmarieKinn]
		Time for people power to take over.

	[marsCubed]
	In 1987 I was a student in Aberdeen.I gave out leaflets to boats in Aberdeen harbour for a sea fairer-strike, the one where Elvis Costello did a free concert after his ferry was stranded on one of the islands.  When I got home after going around the harbour (barely found anyone to give a leaflet to), every time I picked up my phone that evening, previous conversations were played back to me. I discovered the next day that it had happened to other people involved with the strike, specifically at NUS (sea-men) offices. It was obviously intimidation and must have come through GCHQ as it was home phones as well as offices that were bugged.  I didn't think much of it for years.. except that it made me realize the Police were not neutral and attacked unions. Question is.. who ordered something like that and why.Would it be MI5 acting on their own to attack lawful union activity and strikers? Nobody I knew had any intention of breaking any laws.. why bother.. they were on strike. Or is it more likely that companies put pressure on ministers, who then instructed GCHQ to use military security apparatus to attack citizens engaged in disputes with employers. Bosses with all the power, enabled by conservatives to spy on and intimidate workers. Tory party in the 80s.. it seems unbelievable the cabinet would not have know. And if they knew then.. they're lying now.

	[xxxww999]
	Excuse me, but is it really such a good idea to give the power of oversight to the judges? In my opinion judges already have too much power. Besides, they're easy to corrupt. There is already talk of certain judges belonging to this or that political party. Oversight yes, but preferably by someone more transparent and accountable. At the moment it seems some newspapers and journalists should be best candidates for the job. ( Take a bow Guardian and Glenn Greenwald! ) Come to think of it it would not be a bad idea that oversight and transparency would be linked to a party that informs the public. Maybe new forms of oversight altogether should be dreamed up? Since these new forms of surveillance are so big and so wide, seems only fitting.

		[MajorGeek]
		Abso-f'ing-lutely spot on! You should put a spoiler warning in front of that... Theresa May spluttered her coffee all over her monitor and made an ugly mess.

	[blulight]
	I am sick to the back teeth with the lies and deception from these spy agencies. I want rid of those bloody programmes right now. Too much room for corruption.

		[antimutoid]
		I agree. And that's of course the problem. The system would be fine if we could trust them. However time and again history has shown this lot to be crooks, thieves and hypocrites.

		[diddoit]
		Don't blame the spy agencies. Blame the politicians for the lack of oversight . There are ~650 MPs. How many have spoke up? Yvette Cooper said it's time to look again at oversight, calling out the ISC. But she was in power long enough.

		[blulight]
		I blame the spy agency leaders. They knew full well that these programmes were attacking our privacy and should never have been installed. They probably made up a load of bs to get the funding for it using key phrases like thwarting terrorists, keeping us safe and saving lives.

	[BunchaTuesdays]
	Not just cabinet members kept in the dark, but members of the national security council !. I think Chris Huhne deserves praise for having the balls to speak up, and whatever his critics say about his personal life, it won't alter one jot what he has revealed. Mr Huhne's revelations should prove vital in helping to move this unhealthy secrecy surrounding GCHQ further out into the open. Thanks to Edward Snowden, Glen Greenwald & many unsung heroes, we know just how far reaching the intrusive capability of NSA/GCHQ is - &quot;Full Take&quot; !. If all this is kept secret from the cabinet & the NSC, then unquestionably the truth about the cloak & dagger world is less than wholesome, if they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear. Until Mr Huhne spoke out, Hague & Rifkind, would I'm sure, have carried on spouting the same old platitudes & denials, As I understand it the RIPA act 2000 - which essentially licences skullduggery with impunity - is so broad & vague that it's virtually impossible to break this law, so when Hague & co issue their &quot;assurances&quot;, they can be taken with a pinch of salt, they are &quot;baseless&quot;. Does anybody, anywhere, outside of tory hq believe a word Hague & Rifkind, and May for that matter, have to say ?. David Bickford is 100% correct when he suggests that a judge should be responsible for making decisions - based on reasonable evidence - that permission for surveillance is required, why should any minister be allowed to assume that responsibility, without any accountability or oversight.  Collosals sums of our money have been spent, without our knowledge or approval, on what is essentially a weapon that's being used against us, statements to the contrary are falsehoods. Who decided that was in our interests ?. Who gave them a blank cheque to spend ?. Nobody in their right mind would vote for, or approve this full scale intrusion into our personal lives and private affairs. The right to a private life is a basic human right, and should not be at the mercy of fuckwits like; the Hague's & Rifkind's of this world Fact; and for the record; &quot;Meta-Data&quot; is not covered by the RIPA act 2000, so it's a given, that, the hoovering up of our data is most definitely outside the law !. The myriad layers of security services & GCHQ were set up by the &quot;establishment&quot; to protect and further their interests, and is essentially it's raison d'etre. It's long overdue that the majority of us decided how and where our money is being spent, and ensure that it's not the &quot;ruling cabal&quot; who tell us how it's going to be. Thank you Chris Huhne for coming forward and giving us some idea of how things really are, it won't be quite so easy for the lying bastards to sweep it under the carpet now.

	[grahamgomeldon]
	Any oversight would be good! We are the most spied-on people in the world. Did anyone else note that the woman they locked up for having that mummified child in the cot - just before sentencing, there was that press release (from whom ???) saying she has phoned out for a pizza the day the child had died. Do they have that sort of information on you and me too? Every call we've made?

		[VSLVSL]
		Yes and no. The data is held by your telephone company and the police access it.

	[buckler]
	You get the Cabinet members you deserve if you allow coalesced comic capers in a democratic national environment.Britain's trite 'light touch' demeanour wants to be killed off and sharpish, in favour of uncovering the people at the heart of our so-called democracy who think that they can get away with murder - and given many a modern track record probably do.See Retail Consortium and Banking practices over at least 35 years!General Election Now!How much is a cabinet member paid for being a part of our safeguards of the rights and security of the people of Britain? One expects some large figure way out of the reach of all except crooked bankers and insider trading tossers in the City of London, that trusted institution.Should such highly placed people, supported by equally comfortable Civil Servants, not be required to do some simple security check of their own to the satisfaction of reasonably sound people? Of course this begs a separate question. Are there ANY reasonably sound and secure people left in the corridors of wiggly wangly power in the U.K.?

	[excathedra]
	Huhne wasn't told?  What a surprise! I doubt any of the LibDems were informed of anything important as the Tories didn't consider them as part of government except for the bits they needed support with and GCHQ wasn't one of them. Huhne and his cohorts should bury their faces in their hands with shame and embarrassment at how stupid they've been to trust the Tories and how, as a result, have all but destroyed their party. Good riddance!

	[SteB1]
	Cabinet ministers and members of the national security council were told nothing about the existence and scale of the vast data-gathering programmes run by British and American intelligence agencies, a former member of the government has revealed.    Chris Huhne, who was in the cabinet for two years until 2012, said ministers were in &quot;utter ignorance&quot; of the two biggest covert operations, Prism and Tempora. The former Liberal Democrat MP admitted he was shocked and mystified by the surveillance capabilities disclosed by the Guardian from files leaked by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.   This is incredibly serious, it says we live in a fake democracy. This mass surveillance programme is probably the biggest change to our society ever. Yet apparently it was implemented without the knowledge of some of the most senior politicians in govenrment.  It is incredibly sinister that some shadowy people, beyond the scrutiny of the Cabinet, can make such huge changes to our country and system. However, what is really serious is why such a huge programme, and such a major change to our society was kept secret from our ministers. This is clearly anti-democratic at the very least. Why would they keep it's existence secret from Ministers. You see the most sinister thing about this secrecy is that they kept the whole existence of this programme secret. There was no legitimate reason for keeping the existence of these programmes secret, aside from anti-democratic ones. For instance we know of the existence of the NSA and GCHQ, and have a rough idea what they do. However, that public knowledge is no use for circumventing them, without specific knowledge of how they work. Likewise, with PRISM etc, public of its existence would not of hampered its running without more specific information. In other words, whatever reason the existence of these programmes was kept secret, it wasn't for normal national security reasons. It was to defeat public and political scrutiny. That is not a legitimate reason for keeping something secret. This is a dishonest, anit-democratic, and possibly treasonable reason for keeping something secret. In short there needs to be a public inquiry to establish who authorized this programme, and whether they had the political authority to make such massive secret changes to our society. Of course I realise that hell would freeze over first, which is why this government is illegitimate. There is no legitimate way,that this government can evade properly explaining this to the public. That they haven't undermines their legitimacy to rule, because none of the public were aware of this at the last general election. People might and most certainly would have voted very differently if they had known about this. Many of the public would never vote for a party that justified this. It is this reason why this is anti-democratic. The lunacy and incredible stupidity of this programme, is that these fuckwits have just delivered us into the hands of future dictators. Even if the use of this programme is carefully monitored etc now, which I don't believe it is, it isn't in who's in charge of the system now that is the problem. The problem is who gets control of this system in the future. The idiots that run our society never seem to have stopped and thought about who might gain control of the system in the future. If any shady wannabe dictator gets into government, without the public realising what their agenda is, this control of society, could make it very difficult to get rid of them, and very easy for them to declare themselves a dictator. History shows that many people who became dictators, entered government through more legitimate ways. Yet once in power, they have siezed total control, and often prove difficult to remove.

	[RipVanDingle]
	Cabinet was told nothing about GCHQ spying programmes, says Chris Huhne They would not have understood it anyway Probably delegated some junior researcher the task of Sorting out all that wishy washy gobbledegook Cameron hasn't got a clue whats going on. Now there's a surprise

	[ID5677229]
	Those of you who are laying into Chris Huhne are pathetic. His revelation that the National Security Council is not briefed on the extent and power of state surveillance is hugely important. The government now owes us an explanation of exactly who knows what. Then the public will be better able to debate and decide whether it is prepared to put up with Tempora etc. for the sake of security. Good for Chris Huhne and good for the Guardian. (How many of you sanctimonious twats wouldn't lie about a frigging speeding offence on which a great deal seemed to depend. One in a hundred? One in a thousand?)

		[mespilus]
		@ID5677229 06 October 2013 10:16pm. Get cifFix for Firefox. Chris Huhne actually lost his license 9 months after the speeding offence when he was caught using his mobile phone while driving.

		[ID5677229]
		Well I wouldn't bully my spouse to take my points,  There I no evidence that Huhne did this; indeed, a court found that Huhne did not &quot;coerce&quot; his wife into taking the points. I would have thought that the depth of his wife's vindictiveness is evidence that were bullying part of their marriage she was the bully.     let her serve time alongside him  I guess the only way Huhne could have stopped her going to jail would have been to lie i.e. by saying he &quot;coerced&quot; her. In certain circumstances this would have been the noble thing to do, but not here: his wife had behaved like a cow.
