British Inquiry Calls for Overhaul of Surveillance Laws but Clears Spy Agencies

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LONDON — A parliamentary inquiry in Britain called on Thursday for an overhaul of the country’s electronic surveillance laws, but it cleared British spy agencies of breaking any laws by monitoring vast amounts of communications.

The investigation, by an oversight panel of lawmakers, was set up after Edward J. Snowden, the American former intelligence contractor, leaked details about the huge scale of information-gathering by agencies in the United States and Britain.

Like many Western countries, Britain is struggling to reconcile the desire to preserve the privacy of individuals with the need to gather intelligence that could prevent terrorist attacks.

Since the inquiry began in 2013, the Intelligence and Security Committee has taken evidence, both in public and in secret, from a variety of senior figures, including the heads of Britain’s domestic and foreign security services, MI5 and MI6.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/world/europe/british-inquiry-clears-spy-agencies-but-calls-for-overhaul-of-laws.html?_r=0

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1. Edward Snowden GCHQ Revelations Show Spies Are Accessing Thousands Of Messages A Day

Thousands of our private communications are being read by GCHQ spies every day through 'bulk interception' methods, a government has report revealed - but we don't know exactly how many, because keys details have been redacted.

The long-awaited report sparked by the Edward Snowden revelations showed that thousands of messages - including innocent communications - are accessed by analysts every day.

But the report gives very few specific numbers. In one heavily-redacted section, a starred-out sentence says "around *** thousand items a day" are intercepted, meaning the number could be between 1,000 and 999,000 messages a day.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/03/12/gchq-snowden-spying-emails_n_6853844.html