‘UK domestic spy agency harvesting British public’s phone data since 2001’

The British Home Secretary has acknowledged that the UK’s domestic spy agency, MI5 has secretly been collecting phone data under the pretext of searching terrorist connections.

According to May, the government’s terror watchdog has been running the secret data collection program for over a decade. The admission came as she outlined a new bill governing the online spying by authorities.

May said that the covert program, running under a law described as “vague”, has been in action since 2001. She added that the 1984 Telecommunications Act has been used by successive governments to access data from communications companies. Under the law, police and intelligence officers were able to see the names of sites without a warrant, May disclosed in her statement to the Commons.

It is the first formal admission security forces have been harvesting the British public’s data. It was previously supposed that data was only collected from individuals overseas.

It confirmed that Britain's secret listening post GCHQ has been intercepting internet messages flowing through Britain in bulk, as revealed by US whistle-blower Edward Snowden, "to acquire the communications of terrorists and serious criminals that would not otherwise be available".

Some analysts say the information has been an apparent disclosure how the UK’s spy networks and their sister organization in the US known as NSA have been doing mass surveillance activities.

“It’s not just entirely necessary but entirely counterproductive. Such measures have now proven the worst in combating terrorism. They would really to miscarriage of justice and wrong people being brought before the court”, John Rees from Stop the War Coalition told Press TV.   

May told MPs that the draft bill aims to give stronger legal cover to the activities of MI5, MI6 and the police and introduce judicial oversight of spying operations. She said the move is a "significant departure" from previous plans, dubbed the "snoopers' charter" by critics, which were blocked by the Lib Dems, and will "provide some of the strongest protections and safeguards anywhere in the democratic world and an approach that sets new standards for openness, transparency and oversight".

Under the new legislation, formally titled the Investigatory Powers Bill, the internet history of Britons would be stored and available for security services for up to a year. May says the proposed powers are needed to fight crime and terrorism but civil liberties groups warn it represented to a "breathtaking" attack on the internet security of everyone living in the UK.

The proposed legislation will be consulted on before a bill is formally introduced to Parliament in the New Year, May said. It will then have to pass votes in both houses of Parliament.

Labour's shadow home secretary Andy Burnham backed the draft bill, saying it was "neither a snoopers' charter nor a plan for mass surveillance".

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