100-536: Tempora is the codeword for a formerly-secret computer system that is used by the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). This system is used to buffer most Internet communications that are extracted from fibre-optic cables , so these can be processed and searched at a later time. It was tested from 2008 and became operational in late 2011. Tempora uses intercepts on the fibre-optic cables that serve as
200-537: A KGB mole within it, created considerable media interest. In 1984, GCHQ was the centre of a political row when, in the wake of strikes which affected Sigint collection, the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher prohibited its employees from belonging to a trade union, asserting that membership of a union was in conflict with national security . The government offered £1,000 to each employee who agreed to give up their right to union membership. Following
300-446: A FOX media segment. The US government formally apologised for the unfounded allegations and promised they would not be repeated. British intelligence did gather information relating to Russian contacts made by Trump's campaign team in the run-up to his election, which were passed on to US intelligence agencies. On 31 October 2018, GCHQ joined Instagram . GCHQ personnel are recognised annually by King Charles III (formerly
400-556: A US court order before disclosing data. However the head of the UK technology industry group techUK rejected these claims, stating that they understood the issues but that disclosure obligations "must be based upon a clear and transparent legal framework and effective oversight rather than, as suggested, a deal between the industry and government". In 2015, documents obtained by The Intercept from US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that GCHQ had carried out
500-779: A case Leutheusser herself brought to the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany , the judges eventually rejected a core piece of security legislation that requires data on telephone calls and e-mail traffic to be stored for up to six months for possible use by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. As part of the draft of a law governing workplace privacy , she proposed placing restrictions on employers who want to use Facebook profiles when recruiting. She also expressed her support for legislation that would punish officials who purchase illegally obtained data of German tax evaders in Switzerland. In response to
600-584: A conference slideshow presented by the GCHQ. Soon after becoming Director of GCHQ in 2014, Robert Hannigan wrote an article in the Financial Times on the topic of internet surveillance , stating that "however much [large US technology companies] may dislike it, they have become the command and control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals" and that GCHQ and its sister agencies "cannot tackle these challenges at scale without greater support from
700-728: A confidential DA-Notice to the BBC and other media asking the media to refrain from running further stories related to surveillance leaks including US PRISM program and the British involvement therein. The US Army has restricted its employees' access to the Guardian website since the beginning of the NSA leaks of PRISM and Tempora "in order to prevent an unauthorized disclosure of classified information." German Federal Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger tweeted that she considered
800-839: A critical report on the country's judicial system. In 2008, she presented a report to the Parliamentary Assembly on the investigation of the Gongadze case and other crimes of the Kuchma era in Ukraine. Titled Allegations of Politically Motivated Abuses of the Criminal Justice System in Council of Europe Member States , her 2009 report examined alleged abuses in Britain, Germany, France, and Russia. Much of
900-532: A domestic debate on anti-terrorism legislation , Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger in 2010 warned that passenger profiling in German airports where passengers are categorized as high or low risk based on, among other things, their ethnic background, might fall foul of German and European law. In the Federal Security Council [ de ] ( Bundessicherheitsrat ), Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger
1000-491: A frequent commentator on human rights and data protection in German media. In 2014, she was appointed to an advisory council established by Google on implementing the right to be forgotten . Since 2014 Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger has been a Member of the executive board of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom. In 2018, she was also appointed to the honorary office of State Commissioner for
1100-501: A group of 14 former GCHQ employees, who had been dismissed after refusing to give up their union membership, were offered re-employment, which three of them accepted. The legal case Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service is significant beyond the dispute, and even beyond trade union law, in that it held for the first time that the royal prerogative is generally subject to judicial review , although
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#17327795864721200-454: A mass-surveillance operation, codenamed KARMA POLICE , since about 2008. The operation swept up the IP address of Internet users visiting websites, and was established with no public scrutiny or oversight. KARMA POLICE is a powerful spying tool in conjunction with other GCHQ programs because IP addresses could be cross-referenced with other data. The goal of the program, according to the documents,
1300-665: A member of the German parliament ( Bundestag ), she worked as a lawyer in Munich since 1997. In 1978 Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger became a member of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Since 1991 she has been a member of federal board of the FDP. From 12 December 1990 Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger was a member of the German Bundestag. On 18 May 1992 she was sworn in as Federal Minister of Justice of Germany, following
1400-465: A peacetime codebreaking agency should be created, a task which was given to the Director of Naval Intelligence , Hugh Sinclair . Sinclair merged staff from NID25 and MI1b into the new organisation, which initially consisted of around 25–30 officers and a similar number of clerical staff. It was titled the "Government Code and Cypher School" (GC&CS), a cover-name which was chosen by Victor Forbes of
1500-476: A regional court for adulating radical rightist leader Günter Deckert after handing him a light sentence for Holocaust denial , calling the judges’ decision "a slap in the face to all victims of the Holocaust ". When Denmark agreed to extradite Gary Lauck , an American neo-Nazi charged with being the main supplier of illegal fascist propaganda to German authorities in 1995, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger called
1600-472: A result of the cuts. The cuts had been mostly reversed by 2000 in the wake of threats from violent non-state actors , and risks from increased terrorism, organised crime and illegal access to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. David Omand became the Director of GCHQ in 1996, and greatly restructured the agency in the face of new and changing targets and rapid technological change. Omand introduced
1700-472: A three-year trial at GCHQ Bude in Cornwall. GCHQ had probes attached to more than 201 Internet links by mid-2011; each probe carried 10 gigabits of data a second. NSA analysts were brought into the trials, and Tempora was launched in 2011, with data shared with the NSA. Ongoing technical work is expanding GCHQ's capacity to collect data from new super cables that carry data at 100 gigabits a second. The data
1800-465: Is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom . Primarily based at " The Doughnut " in the suburbs of Cheltenham , GCHQ is the responsibility of the country's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Foreign Secretary), but it
1900-471: Is co-located with GCHQ for administrative purposes. In 2013, GCHQ received considerable media attention when the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the agency was in the process of collecting all online and telephone data in the UK via the Tempora programme. Snowden's revelations began a spate of ongoing disclosures of global surveillance . The Guardian newspaper
2000-679: Is led by the Director of GCHQ, Anne Keast-Butler , and a Corporate Board, made up of executive and non-executive directors. Reporting to the Corporate Board are: During the First World War, the British Army and Royal Navy had separate signals intelligence agencies, MI1b and NID25 (initially known as Room 40) respectively. In 1919, the Cabinet's Secret Service Committee, chaired by Lord Curzon , recommended that
2100-584: Is less free the more intensively its citizens are watched, controlled and observed. Security is not an end in itself in a democratic society, but rather serves the security of freedom." Shortly after, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger sent two letters to the British justice secretary, Chris Grayling , and the home secretary, Theresa May , stressing the widespread concern the disclosures about the GCHQ Tempora programme triggered in Germany and demanding to know
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#17327795864722200-716: Is made in the gathering of data between public citizens and targeted suspects. Tempora is said to include recordings of telephone calls, the content of email messages, Facebook entries and the personal Internet history of users. Snowden said of Tempora that "It's not just a U.S. problem. The U.K. has a huge dog in this fight...They [GCHQ] are worse than the U.S." Claims exist that Tempora was possible only by way of secret agreements with commercial companies, described in Snowden's leaked documents as "intercept partners". Some companies are alleged to have been paid for their co-operation. Snowden also alleged that GCHQ staff were urged to disguise
2300-740: Is not a part of the Foreign Office and its director ranks as a Permanent Secretary . GCHQ was originally established after the First World War as the Government Code and Cypher School ( GC&CS ) and was known under that name until 1946. During the Second World War it was located at Bletchley Park , where it was responsible for breaking the German Enigma codes . There are two main components of GCHQ,
2400-462: Is preserved for three days while metadata is kept for thirty days. TEMPORA comprises different components, like the actual access points to fibre-optic cables, a sanitisation program codenamed POKERFACE, the XKEYSCORE system developed by NSA, and a Massive Volume Reduction (MVR) capability. In May 2012, GCHQ had TEMPORA systems installed at the following locations: UK Defence officials issued
2500-428: Is taking another big step towards becoming a flawless dictatorship in ostracizing homosexuals." Unlike German chancellor Angela Merkel and foreign minister Guido Westerwelle at the time, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger later suggested that the newly enacted law, which discriminates against gays and lesbians, could be grounds for boycotting the 2014 Winter Olympics . On 3 March 2015, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger attended
2600-732: Is that GCHQ and its US equivalent, the National Security Agency (NSA), share technologies, infrastructure and information. GCHQ ran many signals intelligence (SIGINT) monitoring stations abroad. During the early Cold War , the remnants of the British Empire provided a global network of ground stations which were a major contribution to the UKUSA Agreement; the US regarded RAF Little Sai Wan in Hong Kong as
2700-533: The 2012 Munich artworks discovery , Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger refused to retroactively extend the statute of limitations in order to prosecute Cornelius Gurlitt , the 80-year-old who hoarded artworks for half a century, urging him instead to acknowledge he has "moral as well as legal obligations." Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger lives in Feldafing . She is widowed, after her husband, Ernst Schnarrenberger, died of cancer in 2006. Her father, Dr. Horst Leutheusser,
2800-429: The 2012–13 Cypriot financial crisis , Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger broke new ground by calling directly on European Union leaders to do more to defend Germany's role in helping the weaker Eurozone members . She noted that although all Eurozone member countries were involved in deciding on aid packages when a country applied for help, Germany always ended up as the target of anger. During the period of Reunification in
2900-615: The 2013 mass surveillance scandal , Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, in a guest editorial for the Web site Spiegel Online , called the revelations about the U.S. surveillance "deeply disconcerting" and possibly "dangerous." A week before President Barack Obama 's visit to Berlin in June 2013, she rejected Obama's earlier statement that "you can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience." In her commentary she wrote: "I don’t share this assessment. A society
3000-584: The British Army for GCHQ. In March 2010, GCHQ was criticised by the Intelligence and Security Committee for problems with its IT security practices and failing to meet its targets for work targeted against cyber attacks. As revealed by Edward Snowden in The Guardian , GCHQ spied on foreign politicians visiting the 2009 G-20 London Summit by eavesdropping phonecalls and emails and monitoring their computers, and in some cases even ongoing after
3100-609: The Communications-Electronic Security Department (CESD). In October 1969, CESD was merged into GCHQ and becoming Communications-Electronic Security Group ( CESG ). In 1977 CESG relocated from Eastcote to Cheltenham. CESG continued as the UK National Technical Authority for information assurance , including cryptography . CESG did not manufacture security equipment, but worked with industry to ensure
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3200-778: The Federal Fiscal Court (BFH), the Federal Labour Court (BAG), and the Federal Social Court (BSG). Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger was also active in the Council of Europe . From 2003 to 2009 she was member of the German delegation at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe . As member of the Council of Europe's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, she conducted an investigative trip to Russia and authored
3300-528: The Foreign Office . Alastair Denniston , who had been a member of NID25, was appointed as its operational head. It was initially under the control of the Admiralty and located in Watergate House, Adelphi, London. Its public function was "to advise as to the security of codes and cyphers used by all Government departments and to assist in their provision", but also had a secret directive to "study
3400-471: The RSA algorithm had been developed (equivalent to Cocks's system) and by 1997 was extremely well established. Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger [zaˈbiːnə ˈlɔʏthɔʏsɐ ˈʃnaʀənˌbɛɐ̯ɡɐ] ( née Leutheusser ; born 26 July 1951) is a German politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party and a prominent advocate of human rights in Germany and Europe. Within
3500-733: The Suez War led to the eviction of GCHQ from several of its best foreign SIGINT collection sites, including the new Perkar, Ceylon site and RAF Habbaniya , Iraq. The staff largely moved to tented encampments on military bases in Cyprus, which later became the Sovereign Base Area . During the Cuban Missile Crisis , GCHQ Scarborough intercepted radio communications from Soviet ships reporting their positions and used that to establish where they were heading. A copy of
3600-633: The backbone of the Internet to gain access to large amounts of Internet users' personal data, without any individual suspicion or targeting . The intercepts are placed in the United Kingdom and on the UK military base at Ayios Nikolaos in the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia . The intercepts are placed with the knowledge of companies owning either the cables or landing stations. The existence of Tempora
3700-606: The 1920s, GC&CS was successfully reading Soviet Union diplomatic cyphers. However, in May 1927, during a row over clandestine Soviet support for the General Strike and the distribution of subversive propaganda, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made details from the decrypts public. During the Second World War, GC&CS was based largely at Bletchley Park , in present-day Milton Keynes , working on understanding
3800-534: The 1990s', Leutheusser Schnarrenberger, as Minister of Justice, refused to return eight buildings in East Germany belonging to six Austrian Jewish citizens. Allgemeine Judische Wochenzeitung; 10 September 1992; "Expropriation through the back door; German Government adds to its coffers / Loopholes in German bureaucracy make Injustice permanent." ("Enteignung durch die Hintertur. Der Bund bereichert sich / winkelzuge deutscher burokratie schreiben unrecht fest"). In
3900-849: The Army and RAF codebreakers went to the Wireless Experimental Centre in Delhi, India. The Navy codebreakers in FECB went to Colombo , Ceylon, then to Kilindini , near Mombasa , Kenya. GC&CS was renamed the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in June 1946. The organisation was at first based in Eastcote in northwest London, then in 1951 moved to the outskirts of Cheltenham , setting up two sites at Oakley and Benhall . One of
4000-592: The Composite Signals Organisation (CSO), which is responsible for gathering information, and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is responsible for securing the UK's own communications. The Joint Technical Language Service (JTLS) is a small department and cross-government resource responsible for mainly technical language support and translation and interpreting services across government departments. It
4100-592: The FDP and high-profile civil rights campaigner. From 1999 to 2000 she was a member of an international inquiry commission of the United Nations to examine allegations of human rights violations in East Timor and submitted its report to secretary general Kofi Annan . During the 16th Legislative Term of the Bundestag between 2005 and 2009, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger was spokeswoman on legal policy for
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4200-654: The FDP in Bavaria – successfully ran the party's election campaign in the Bavarian state elections that year, where the FDP reentered the state parliament after 14 years of absence. In the negotiations to form a coalition government of the FDP and the Christian Democrats (CDU together with the Bavarian CSU ) following the 2009 federal elections , Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger led the FDP delegation in
4300-609: The FDP parliamentary group, chairwoman of the FDP in the parliamentary committee on legal affairs and alternate member in the parliamentary Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid . From 2009, she also served on the parliamentary body in charge of selecting the judges of the Highest Courts of Justice, namely the Federal Court of Justice (BGH), the Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG),
4400-523: The FDP's pro-civil liberties agenda, but frequently encountered resistance from a conservatives-controlled interior ministry led by Thomas de Maizière and later Hans-Peter Friedrich . In 2010, former president of the Federal Constitutional Court Jutta Limbach in an interview proposed that Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger be made a judge at the court, praising her "intellectual honesty"; instead, Andreas Voßkuhle
4500-470: The FDP, she is a leading figure of the social-liberal wing. She served as Federal Minister of Justice of Germany from 1992 to 1996 in the cabinet of Helmut Kohl and again in the second Merkel cabinet from 2009 to 2013. In 2013, the new German government announced Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger's candidacy for the office of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe . Sabine Leutheusser
4600-548: The Fight against Anti-Semitism in the government of Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia Armin Laschet . Soon after taking office in 2009, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger demanded that US courts could not seek the death penalty for terrorists Zacarias Moussaoui and Ramzi Binalshibh in return for receiving evidence provided by German investigators. In order to verify that the US government keeps its word, she teamed up with
4700-530: The Foreign Ministry to send German observers to monitor the trial in New York. Under legislation introduced by Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger following a wave of revelations about Catholic priest abusing minors in 2011, Germans who were sexually abused as children today have as long as 30 years after they turn 21 to bring accusations in court; the previous statute of limitations on civil abuse cases
4800-558: The German Enigma machine and Lorenz ciphers . In 1940, GC&CS was working on the diplomatic codes and ciphers of 26 countries, tackling over 150 diplomatic cryptosystems. Senior staff included Alastair Denniston , Oliver Strachey , Dilly Knox , John Tiltman , Edward Travis , Ernst Fetterlein , Josh Cooper , Donald Michie , Alan Turing , Gordon Welchman , Joan Clarke , Max Newman , William Tutte , I. J. (Jack) Good , Peter Calvocoressi and Hugh Foss . The 1943 British–US Communication Intelligence Agreement, BRUSA , connected
4900-420: The Hong Kong stations operations were moved to Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station in Geraldton in Western Australia . Operations that used GCHQ's intelligence-gathering capabilities in the 1990s included the monitoring of communications of Iraqi soldiers in the Gulf War , of dissident republican terrorists and the Real IRA , of the various factions involved in the Yugoslav Wars , and of
5000-434: The House of Lords ruled in favour of the Crown in this instance. The Intelligence Services Act 1994 formalised the activities of the intelligence agencies for the first time, defining their purpose, and the British Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee was given a remit to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the three intelligence agencies. The objectives of GCHQ were defined as working as "in
5100-528: The Internet " (MTI) and " Global Telecoms Exploitation " (GTE). He claimed that each is intended to collate online and telephone traffic. This contradicts two original documents, which say that Tempora is only for Internet traffic, just like the XKeyscore system of the NSA, components of which are incorporated in Tempora. It is alleged that GCHQ produces larger amounts of metadata than NSA. By May 2012, 300 GCHQ analysts and 250 NSA analysts had been assigned to sort data. The Guardian claims that no distinction
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#17327795864725200-411: The Prince of Wales) at the Prince of Wales's Intelligence Community Awards at St James's Palace or Clarence House alongside members of the Security Service (MI5), and Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Awards and citations are given to teams within the agencies as well as individuals. As well as a mission to gather intelligence, GCHQ has for a long time had a corresponding mission to assist in
5300-428: The Security Service and SIS (MI5 and MI6). In December 1994 the businessman Roger Hurn was commissioned to begin a review of GCHQ, which was concluded in March 1995. Hurn's report recommended a cut of £100 million in GCHQ's budget; such a large reduction had not been suffered by any British intelligence agency since the end of World War II. The J Division of GCHQ, which had collected SIGINT on Russia, disappeared as
5400-409: The U.S. should he set foot on their soil, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger refused to sign because she was not certain that Snowden had broken any laws and because he might make a good witness in a German parliamentary inquiry. Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger long sought to make LGBT rights in Germany a key plank in the Free Democrats' platform. In 2012, she had her office prepare a "draft of a law to revise
5500-442: The availability of suitable products and services, while GCHQ itself funded research into such areas, for example to the Centre for Quantum Computation at Oxford University and the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research at the University of Bristol . In the 21st century, CESG ran a number of assurance schemes such as CHECK, CLAS , Commercial Product Assurance (CPA) and CESG Assisted Products Service (CAPS). In 1970
5600-402: The breakdown of talks and the failure to negotiate a no-strike agreement, a number of mass national one-day strikes were held to protest against this decision, believed by some to be the first step to wider bans on trade unions. Appeals to British courts and the European Commission of Human Rights were unsuccessful. An appeal to the International Labour Organization resulted in a decision that
5700-693: The concept for public-key encryption ( public key infrastructure ) was developed and proven by GCHQ's James H. Ellis . Ellis lacked the number theory skills required to build a workable system. In 1974 GCHQ mathematician Clifford Cocks had developed a workable public key cryptography algorithm and a workable PKI system. Cocks's system was not available in the public domain until it was declassified in 1997. By 1997 broader public key cryptography commercial technologies had been independently developed and had become well established, in areas such as email security , digital signatures , and TLS (a fundamental TCP/IP security component) etc. Most notably in 1977
5800-431: The concept of "Sinews" (or "SIGINT New Systems") which allowed more flexible working methods, avoiding overlaps in work by creating fourteen domains, each with a well-defined working scope. The tenure of Omand also saw the construction of a modern new headquarters, intended to consolidate the two old sites at Oakley and Benhall into a single, more open-plan work environment. Located on a 176-acre site in Benhall, it would be
5900-453: The court decided that gays and lesbians should be allowed to adopt children already adopted by their partners, the minister argued that "[t]he decision to put civil unions and marriage on level footing needs a big push"; however, her party's efforts failed due to opposing views of her conservative coalition partner. After a Russian court found deceased lawyer Sergei Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion in 2013, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger condemned
6000-413: The criminal Kenneth Noye . In the mid-1990s GCHQ began to assist in the investigation of cybercrime . At the end of 2003, GCHQ moved in to its new building. Built on a circular plan around a large central courtyard, it quickly became known as the Doughnut . At the time, it was one of the largest public-sector building projects in Europe, with an estimated cost of £337 million. The new building, which
6100-406: The decision a "great victory against right-wing extremism." In 1995 there was a broad public discussion in Germany about the invulnerability of the private domain by means of acoustic observation ( Großer Lauschangriff , literally "big eavesdropping attack"). In this argument Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger strongly objected to expanding the state's right to interfere in citizens' private domain. After
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#17327795864726200-605: The document focused on Russia, detailing several recent cases that "give rise to concerns that the fight against ' legal nihilism ' launched by President Medvedev is still far from won." During an April 2009 visit to Ukraine, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, co-rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, cautiously encouraged reform of the parliamentary system in Ukraine. She also expressed regret that those who ordered Georgiy Gongadze 's murder had still not been brought to justice. In 2008, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger – in her role as chairwoman of
6300-426: The extent to which German citizens have been targeted. At the same time, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger demanded that the German intelligence service BND provide a full explanation after it admitted to passing on massive amounts of so-called " metadata " to the NSA . When the United States approached E.U. justice ministers in October 2013 about signing an agreement to extradite former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to
6400-689: The funeral of Russian politician Boris Nemtsov , who had been shot and killed on 27 February 2015. Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger called chancellor Angela Merkel to show commitment to convince Russian president Vladimir Putin to release jailed Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov . After then-Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble confirmed in late 2005 that, under the previous government led by Gerhard Schröder , German agents had interviewed Mohammed Haydar Zammar , Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger condemned these methods: "If you're not allowed to torture, then you're not allowed to profit from information that may have been obtained through kidnapping and torture." During
6500-403: The government's actions were in violation of Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention . A no-strike agreement was eventually negotiated and the ban lifted by the incoming Labour government in 1997, with the Government Communications Group of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) being formed to represent interested employees at all grades. In 2000,
6600-564: The handling of this issue was becoming essential to their credibility as an organisation. The Internet had become a "cyber commons", with its dominance creating a "second age of Sigint". GCHQ transformed itself accordingly, including greatly expanded Public Relations and Legal departments, and adopting public education in cyber security as an important part of its remit. In February 2014, The Guardian , based on documents provided by Snowden, revealed that GCHQ had indiscriminately collected 1.8 million private Yahoo webcam images from users across
6700-445: The intelligence agencies should "investigate whether all the functions that GCHQ carries out today are still necessary." In late 1993 civil servant Michael Quinlan advised a deep review of the work of GCHQ following the conclusion of his "Review of Intelligence Requirements and Resources", which had imposed a 3% cut on the agency. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury , Jonathan Aitken , subsequently held face to face discussions with
6800-460: The intelligence agency directors to assess further savings in the wake of Quinlan's review. Aldrich (2010) suggests that Sir John Adye , the then Director of GCHQ performed badly in meetings with Aitken, leading Aitken to conclude that GCHQ was "suffering from out-of-date methods of management and out-of-date methods for assessing priorities". GCHQ's budget was £850 million in 1993, (£2.19 billion as of 2023) compared to £125 million for
6900-482: The interests of national security, with particular reference to the defence and foreign policies of His Majesty's government; in the interests of the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom; and in support of the prevention and the detection of serious crime". During the introduction of the Intelligence Agency Act in late 1993, the former Prime Minister Jim Callaghan had described GCHQ as a "full-blown bureaucracy", adding that future bodies created to provide oversight of
7000-410: The largest building constructed for secret intelligence operations outside the United States. Operations at GCHQ's Chung Hom Kok listening station in Hong Kong ended in 1994. GCHQ's Hong Kong operations were extremely important to their relationship with the NSA, who contributed investment and equipment to the station. In anticipation of the transfer of Hong Kong to the Chinese government in 1997,
7100-441: The major reasons for selecting Cheltenham was that the town had been the location of the headquarters of the United States Army Services of Supply for the European Theater during the War, which built up a telecommunications infrastructure in the region to carry out its logistics tasks. Following the Second World War , US and British intelligence have shared information as part of the UKUSA Agreement . The principal aspect of this
7200-854: The members of the FDP decided in a poll to support the conservative lead of the CDU in this matter, she resigned from her office on 1 January 1996. From May 1997 Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger was a member of the Steering Committee of the FDP ("Präsidium"). On 2 December 2000 she also became FDP chairwoman for the Federal State of Bavaria . She served twice as Deputy Chairwoman of the FDP parliamentary group, from 2 February 2001 to 2 October 2002 and from 27 September 2005 until 28 October 2009. Following her time in government, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger sharpened her profile as deputy parliamentary leader of
7300-413: The methods of cypher communications used by foreign powers". GC&CS officially formed on 1 November 1919, and produced its first decrypt prior to that date, on 19 October. Before the Second World War, GC&CS was a relatively small department. By 1922, the main focus of GC&CS was on diplomatic traffic, with "no service traffic ever worth circulating" and so, at the initiative of Lord Curzon, it
7400-541: The most valuable of these. The monitoring stations were largely run by inexpensive National Service recruits, but when this ended in the early 1960s, the increased cost of civilian employees caused budgetary problems. In 1965 a Foreign Office review found that 11,500 staff were involved in SIGINT collection (8,000 GCHQ staff and 3,500 military personnel), exceeding the size of the Diplomatic Service . Reaction to
7500-463: The nomination of incumbent Klaus Kinkel as Foreign Minister in the government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl . She had previously won an internal vote against Burkhard Hirsch and became the first woman to hold this office. Upon taking office, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger pushed for police receiving new training and equipment to counter extremism and tougher court sentences for those found guilty of extremist violence. In 1994, she publicly condemned
7600-754: The organisation at Eastcote later that year. From 1952 to 1954, the intelligence mission of GCHQ relocated to Cheltenham; the Security section remained at Eastcote, and in March 1954 became a separate, independent organisation: the London Communications Security Agency (LCSA), which in 1958 was renamed to the London Communications-Electronic Security Agency (LCESA). In April 1965, GPO and MOD units merged with LCESA to become
7700-508: The origin of material in their reports for fear that the role of the companies as intercept partners would cause "high-level political fallout". The companies are forbidden to reveal the existence of warrants compelling them to allow GCHQ access to the cables. If the companies fail to comply they can be compelled to do so. Lawyers for GCHQ said it would be impossible to list the total number of people targeted by Tempora because "this would be an infinite list which we couldn't manage". GCHQ set up
7800-597: The posthumous verdict, saying on Twitter : "The conviction of the dead Magnitsky is further evidence of the Sovietization of Russia." A presidential human rights commission headed by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev had found in 2011 that the charges against the lawyer had been fabricated. With regard to the Russian LGBT propaganda law introduced in 2013, she commented in Welt am Sonntag that "Russia
7900-399: The private sector", arguing that most internet users "would be comfortable with a better and more sustainable relationship between the [intelligence] agencies and the tech companies". Since the 2013 global surveillance disclosures , large US technology companies have improved security and become less co-operative with foreign intelligence agencies, including those of the UK, generally requiring
8000-606: The processing of personal data under Article 16 of the Treaties of the European Union . In September 2018, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK's mass data interception and retention programmes, including TEMPORA, "was unlawful and incompatible with the conditions necessary for a democratic society". Government Communications Headquarters Government Communications Headquarters ( GCHQ )
8100-555: The program an "Alptraum" ("nightmare") and demanded that European Union institutions investigate the matter. Jan Philipp Albrecht , German Member of the European Parliament and spokesperson for Justice and Home Affairs of the Greens/EFA parliamentary group, called for an infringement procedure against the United Kingdom for having violated its obligations relating to the protection of individuals with regard to
8200-531: The protection of the British government's own communications. When the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) was created in 1919, its overt task was providing security advice. GC&CS's Security section was located in Mansfield College, Oxford during the Second World War. In April 1946, GC&CS became GCHQ, and the now GCHQ Security section moved from Oxford to join the rest of
8300-490: The report was sent directly to the White House Situation Room, providing initial indications of Soviet intentions with regards the US naval blockade of Cuba. Duncan Campbell and Mark Hosenball revealed the existence of GCHQ in 1976 in an article for Time Out ; as a result, Hosenball was deported from the UK. GCHQ had a very low profile in the media until 1983 when the trial of Geoffrey Prime ,
8400-465: The rights of domestic partners," which would have put gays and lesbians on equal footing with married couples in all conceivable spheres of life, including adoption . When the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany ruled in 2013 that excluding same-sex couples from a tax benefit available for married partners is unconstitutional and said the government must retroactively change the 12-year-old legislation, she pressed for legislative action. Again, after
8500-466: The run-up to the 2003 Iraq war . GCHQ gains its intelligence by monitoring a wide variety of communications and other electronic signals. For this, a number of stations have been established in the UK and overseas. The listening stations are at Cheltenham itself, Bude , Scarborough , Ascension Island , and with the United States at Menwith Hill . Ayios Nikolaos Station in Cyprus is run by
8600-906: The signal intercept networks of the GC&;CS and the US National Security Agency (NSA). Equipment used to break enemy codes included the Colossus computer . Colossus consisted of ten networked computers. An outstation in the Far East, the Far East Combined Bureau , was set up in Hong Kong in 1935 and moved to Singapore in 1939. Subsequently, with the Japanese advance down the Malay Peninsula,
8700-470: The state of Bavaria. In 2013, the new German government announced Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger's candidacy for the office of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe . From December 2013, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger visited more than 20 member states. In the first round of the election on 24 June 2014, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger lost against incumbent Thorbjørn Jagland who obtained an absolute majority. Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger continues to be
8800-478: The summit via keyloggers that had been installed during the summit. According to Edward Snowden, at that time GCHQ had two principal umbrella programs for collecting communications: GCHQ has also had access to the US internet monitoring programme PRISM from at least as far back as June 2010. PRISM is said to give the National Security Agency and FBI easy access to the systems of nine of
8900-561: The working group on internal and legal affairs; her counterpart of the CDU/CSU was Wolfgang Schäuble . Between 2009 and 2013, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger served as Federal Minister of Justice again, this time in the second Merkel cabinet . Alongside four men, she was the only female FDP member in Merkel's cabinet and the only FDP member of the cabinet to have previously held government office. During her time in office, she would often push
9000-457: The world's top internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, and Skype. From 2013, GCHQ realised that public attitudes to Sigint had changed and its former unquestioned secrecy was no longer appropriate or acceptable. The growing use of the Internet, together with its inherent insecurities, meant that the communications traffic of private citizens were becoming inextricably mixed with those of their targets and openness in
9100-593: The world. In the same month NBC and The Intercept , based on documents released by Snowden, revealed the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group and the Computer Network Exploitation units within GCHQ. Their mission was cyber operations based on "dirty tricks" to shut down enemy communications, discredit, and plant misinformation on enemies. These operations were 5% of all GCHQ operations according to
9200-444: Was "either (a) a web browsing profile for every visible user on the internet, or (b) a user profile for every visible website on the internet." In 2015, GCHQ admitted for the first time in court that it conducts computer hacking. In 2017, US Press Secretary Sean Spicer made allegations that GCHQ had conducted surveillance on US President Donald Trump . These unfounded claims were based on statements made during an opinion piece in
9300-814: Was born in Minden , North Rhine-Westphalia. After graduating from gymnasium in Minden in 1970, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger started studying law in Göttingen and Bielefeld . In 1975, she passed the first state exam in Hamm , in 1978 the second state exam in Düsseldorf . From 1979 to 1990, she worked at the Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt in Munich , eventually as managing director. In addition to her mandate as
9400-409: Was designed by Gensler and constructed by Carillion , became the base for all of GCHQ's Cheltenham operations. The public spotlight fell on GCHQ in late 2003 and early 2004 following the sacking of Katharine Gun after she leaked to The Observer a confidential email from agents at the United States' National Security Agency addressed to GCHQ officers about the wiretapping of UN delegates in
9500-602: Was forced to destroy computer hard drives with the files Snowden had given them because of the threats of a lawsuit under the Official Secrets Act. In June 2014, The Register reported that the information the government sought to suppress by destroying the hard drives related to the location of a "beyond top secret" GCHQ internet monitoring base in Seeb , Oman, and the close involvement of BT and Cable & Wireless in intercepting internet communications. GCHQ
9600-460: Was nominated by the SPD . In 2011, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger became one of the first prominent Free Democratic politicians to suggest a change in the party's top leadership. She recommended that the incumbent Guido Westerwelle be replaced by Christian Lindner , then the party's general secretary. Ahead of the 2013 elections , Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger was elected to lead her party's campaign in
9700-483: Was one of the most vocal critics of German arms exports to Saudi Arabia . In 2011, she initially opposed Merkel when the Council discussed Saudi Arabia's request for up to 270 Leopard 2 tanks, but then she deferred to the cabinet's decision. Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger did not attend a Council meeting in December 2012 when the ministers voted on the purchase of a few hundred "Boxer" armed transport vehicles . During
9800-550: Was revealed by Edward Snowden , a former American intelligence contractor who leaked information about the program to former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald in May 2013 as part of his revelations of government-sponsored mass surveillance programs . Documents Snowden acquired showed that data collected by the Tempora program is shared with the National Security Agency of the United States. According to Edward Snowden , Tempora has two principal components called " Mastering
9900-457: Was three years. The minister also urged the church to compensate victims and participate in a "round table" with their representatives. In 2010, talking about issues like privacy and copyright, she complained about Google 's instinct for "pressing ahead" and its "megalomania". That same year, she asked Apple Inc. to tell state data protection officials about the kind of data the company was gathering on individual iPhone users in Germany. In
10000-515: Was transferred from the Admiralty to the Foreign Office . GC&CS came under the supervision of Hugh Sinclair , who by 1923 was both the Chief of SIS and Director of GC&CS. In 1925, both organisations were co-located on different floors of Broadway Buildings, opposite St. James's Park . Messages decrypted by GC&CS were distributed in blue-jacketed files that became known as "BJs". In
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