The NSA failed with a frantic late-night phone call to pressure its British spy counterparts to speed up the release of Edward Snowden’s infamous 2013 leaks, a new book claims.
Sir Iain Lobban, the head of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), received a phone call in the early hours of June 6, 2013 with a request that would strain relations between the Five Eyes partners, the Guardian reports.
Britain’s The Guardian newspaper was set to reveal that the NSA and GCHQ had secretly collected bulk phone and internet communications, including the embarrassing revelation that they had been spying on G20 allies and partners.
But Lobban refused to give in to US pressure to use his agency to censor the press, regardless of the potential harm it could cause and endanger lives.
Those are the claims that will be published Thursday in a new book, The Secret History of Five Eyes, by filmmaker and investigative journalist Richard Kerbaj.
Edward Snowden, an NSA contractor, leaked highly damaging and embarrassing information to newspapers in 2013 and then fled to Russia
GCHQ chief Sir Iain Lobban, pictured before a parliamentary committee in 2014, refused to use his agency to investigate the newspaper articles publishing Edward Snowden’s leaks, a new book says
The incident was one of many disagreements between the Five Eyes partners that strained ties and caused rifts as they clashed over principles, methods and national security.
The book claims that Lobban, well aware of the importance of the “special relationship” between the UK and US intelligence agencies, nonetheless thought that “the suggestion of urging a newspaper to amplify the article in the interest of the NSA ‘even a step seemed far’.
“It was not the purpose of his or his own agency to take care of public relations for the NSA,” writes Kerbaj.
Pressure was evident from elsewhere in government, however, when in October 2013 then-Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to stifle the story with injunctions or other “tougher measures” to stop Snowden’s further publication of leaks about the activities of the NSA and the US to stop GCHQ .
Snowden’s blockbuster leaks included claims that US and UK intelligence agencies had successfully cracked much of the online encryption that millions of people rely on to protect their personal information and communications.
The book reveals other moments of tension between the allies, such as when Gen Keith Alexander, Lobban’s counterpart as head of the NSA, didn’t even inform the British that Snowden was the source of the Guardian stories.
Lobban, who initiated a mole hunt within his own organization GCHQ, only found out after Snowden, a Hawaii-based government contractor, voluntarily went public.
Britain’s signals intelligence agency, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), involved in the bulk of private data and communications
“It was a chilling reminder of how important you are and how important you aren’t,” a senior British intelligence insider is quoted as saying in the book.
The other Five Eyes members, the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand signals intelligence agencies, were also exposed by the leaks and also charged with spying by allies like then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
There was outrage among the Five Eyes that a contractor like Snowden, who works as a computer systems administrator, could have access to their embarrassing secrets.
It was also revealed that because of US government outsourcing, there were 1.5 million top security clearance Americans like Snowden.
In a rare interview about his retirement in 2014, Lobban explained that there would never be a British version of Edward Snowden because GCHQ treats contractors “as if they were people”.
When Five Eyes representatives met in Australia in the summer of 2013, it was only the British representative who dared to question US practices that led to the Snowden leaks.
But the power dynamic between the five countries was clear, as they all feared being cut off from the vital flow of NSA funds and intelligence.
Sir Kim Darroch, the former UK national security adviser, is quoted in the book as saying: “The US gives us more than we give them, so we just have to keep doing it.”