…decisions taken in the next few months and years about how the State may use these powers, and to what extent, are likely to be irreversible. They will be with us forever. And they in turn will be built upon. So we should take very great care to imagine the world we are creating before we build it. We might end up living with something we can’t bear.40
Such ominous warnings from the Director of Public Prosecutions are rare, and should give us real pause for thought.
GCHQ has travelled a long and winding road. That road stretches from the wooden huts of Bletchley Park, past the domes and dishes of the Cold War, and on towards what some suggest will be the omniscient state of a Brave New World. As we look to the future, the docile and passive society described by Aldous Huxley in his Brave New World is perhaps a more appropriate analogy than the starkly totalitarian predictions offered by George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Bizarrely, many British citizens are quite content in this new climate of hyper-surveillance, since it is their own lifestyle choices that have helped to create it. GCHQ and its partners at NSA did not invent our current ‘wired world’ – or even wish for it, for as we have seen, the new torrents of data have been a source of endless trouble for the overstretched secret agencies. As Ken Macdonald rightly points out, the real drivers of our wired world have been private companies looking for growth, and private individuals in search of luxury and convenience at the click of a mouse. The sigint agencies have merely been handed the impossible task of making an interconnected society perfectly secure and risk-free, against the background of a globalised world that presents many unpredictable threats, and now has few boundaries or borders to protect us.
Who, then, is to blame for the rapid intensification of electronic surveillance? Instinctively, many might reply Osama bin Laden, or perhaps Pablo Escobar. Others might respond that governments have used these villains as a convenient excuse to extend state control. At first glance, the massive growth of security activity, which includes not only eavesdropping but also biometric monitoring, face recognition, universal fingerprinting and the gathering of DNA, looks like a direct response to new kinds of miscreants. However, the sad reality is that the Brave New World that looms ahead of us is ultimately a reflection of ourselves. It is driven by technologies such as text messaging and customer loyalty cards that we are free to accept or reject as we choose. The public debate on surveillance is often cast in terms of a trade-off between security and privacy. The truth is that luxury and convenience have been pre-eminent themes in the last decade, and we have given them a much higher priority than either security or privacy. We have all embraced the world of surveillance with remarkable eagerness, surfing the internet in a global search for a better bargain, better friends, even a better partner.
GCHQ’s vast new circular headquarters is sometimes represented as a ‘ring of power’, exercising unparalleled levels of surveillance over citizens at home and abroad, collecting every email, every telephone call and every instance of internet access. It has even been asserted that GCHQ is engaged in nothing short of ‘algorithmic warfare’ as part of a battle for control of global communications. By contrast, the occupants of Cheltenham’s ‘Doughnut’ claim that in reality they are increasingly weak, having been left behind by the unstoppable electronic revolution with its unimaginable volumes of communications that they cannot hope to listen to, still less analyse or make sense of. In fact, the frightening truth is that no one is in control. No person, no intelligence agency and no government is steering the accelerating electronic processes that may eventually enslave us. Most of the devices that cause us to leave a continual digital trail of everything we think or do were not devised by the state, but are merely symptoms of modernity.41 GCHQ is simply a vast mirror, and it reflects the spirit of the age.
Appendix 1
Directors of Government Communications
Headquarters
Sir Alastair Denniston 1921–1944
Sir Edward Travis 1944–1952
Sir Eric Jones 1952–1960
Sir Clive (‘Joe’) Loehnis 1960–1964
Sir Leonard (‘Joe’) Hooper 1965–1973
Arthur (‘Bill’) Bonsall 1973–1978
Sir Brian Tovey 1978–1983
Sir Peter Marychurch 1983–1989
Sir John Anthony Adye 1989–1996
Sir David Omand 1996–1998
Kevin Tebbit 1998
Sir Francis Richards 1998–2003
Dr David Pepper 2003–2008
Iain Lobban 2008–
Directors of Communications-Electronics Security Group and its predecessors
Director of the Cypher Policy Committee
Sir Stewart Menzies 1942–1944
Director of the Cypher Policy Board
Sir Stewart Menzies 1944–1952
Secretary to the Cypher Policy Board
Captain Edmund Wilson RN 1944–1947
Captain T.R.W. Burton-Miller RN 1947–1952
Directors of London Communications Security Agency
General William Penney 1953–1957
Captain R.F.T. (‘Fred’) Stannard RN 1957–1963
Director of London Communications-Electronics Security Agency
Captain R.F.T. (‘Fred’) Stannard RN 1964–1965
Director of the Communications-Electronics Security Department
Captain R.F.T. (‘Fred’) Stannard RN 1965–1969
Directors of Communications-Electronics Security Group 1969–
Air Vice Marshal Arthur Foden 1969–1975
Brian Tovey 1975–1978
Dr John Johnson 1978–1980
Major Gen Alistair Anderson 1980–1985
Paul Foster 1985–1989
Air Vice Marshal John Porter 1989–1991
Andrew Saunders 1991–1998
Richard Walton 1999–2002
Huw Rees 2002–2005
Dr John Widdowson 2005–
Appendix 2
GCHQ Timeline
1 Nov. 1919 GC&CS formed from a merger of the Army’s MI1b and the Navy’s Room 40
1921 Alastair Denniston becomes Director of GG&CS
Aug. 1939 GC&CS moves to Bletchley Park to avoid wartime bombing
1942 Holden agreement on Anglo-American naval sigint
1943 BRUSA agreement on Anglo–American military sigint
1944 Revised Holden agreement on Anglo–American naval sigint
1944 Edward Travis becomes Director of GC&CS
Feb. 1944 Cypher Policy Board created due to penetration of Allied cyphers
15 Sept. 1945 US Army code-breakers redesignated Army Security Agency (ASA)
22 Feb. 1946 Commonwealth sigint cooperation conference in London begins
5 Mar. 1946 Revised BRUSA agreement on Anglo–American sigint cooperation
May 1946 Revised BRUSA technical appendices on Anglo–American sigint cooperation
Jul. 1948 UK–USA Communications Intelligence Agreement
1 Aug. 1948 Captain Edmund Wilson and his team are shown over Oakley and Benhall sites
29 Oct. 1948 ‘Black Friday’ – a major change occurs in Russian cypher procedures
1 Nov. 1948 The term ‘London Signals Intelligence Centre’ is abolished in favour of GCHQ
20 May 1949 US Armed Forces Security Agency created, a weak forerunner of NSA
Aug. 1949 Loss of the USS Cochino
1949 Vienna tunnel operations begin
10 Mar. 1950 US Communications Intelligence Board created
Mar. 1952 Eric Jones becomes Director of GCHQ, taking over from Edward Travis
Jul. 1952 Move from Eastcote to Cheltenham begins
24 Oct. 1952 President Truman signs order to create NSA, following failure to warn of Korean War
1953 LCSA created with Major General William Penney as Director
12 Mar. 1953 Loss of an RAF Lincoln over the Inner German Border
Feb. 1954 Move from Eastcote to Cheltenham completed
2 Sept. 1954 Work on the Berlin tunnel begins
21 Apr. 1956 Eastern Bloc troops break into the Berlin tunnel
1956 NSA moves to new headquarters at Fort Meade
1957 RAF Hambuhren handed over to German communications units
1957 Move from HMS Anderson sigint site to Perkar on Ceylon
1957 Government White Paper suggests coming end of National Service
1957 Karamursel NSA station built in Turkey to the south of Istanbul
11 Oct. 1957 Jodrell Bank, the first radiotelescope, is completed and is also used for sigint
1 Nov. 1957 Captain Robert Stannard RN becomes Director of LCSA, taking over from William Penney
21 Aug. 1958 The RAF’s sigint unit, 192 Squadron, is renumbered as 51 Squadron
2 Sept. 1958 US Sigint C-130A Hercules shot down over Armenia with loss of seventeen crew
1958 Berlin tunnel translators move from SIS to GCHQ as London Processing Group
1958 Comet sigint aircraft enter service with 51 Squadron
1959 1 Special Wireless Regiment renamed 13 Signals Regiment
May 1959 RAF Habbaniya in Iraq closed and sigint personnel moved to Cyprus
3 Jun. 1959 One of 51 Squadron’s new Comets destroyed by fire
1 Sept. 1959 2 Wireless Regiment at Ayios Nikolaos renamed 9 Signals Regiment
12 Nov. 1959 The first dedicated US sigint-gathering ship, USS Oxford, is authorised
1 May 1960 Shooting down of Gary Powers’ U-2 spy plane
1960 Clive Loehnis becomes Director of GCHQ, taking over from Eric Jones
Sept. 1960 Joe Hooper introduces joint sigint equipment purchase with services
Dec. 1960 Templer Report on integration of service interception
1961 George Blake arrested and early compromise of Berlin tunnel realised
1961 Collection begins from Teufelsberg in Berlin operating out of ASA vans
Nov. 1961 Project Sandra receives Treasury approval
1962 Perkar sigint site on Ceylon closed
Jul. 1962 Sir Stuart Hampshire’s review of GCHQ
Dec. 1962 Hampshire visits NSA for three weeks
Mar. 1963 LCSA becomes London Communications–Electronics Security Agency
May 1963 Hampshire review of GCHQ completed
Jun. 1963 Permission for a communications facility on Diego Garcia requested
1963 MC 74/1 – NATO Cryptographic Policy agreed
1963 Project Sandra begins operations on Cyprus
1 Jan. 1964 Little Sai Wan station in Hong Kong passes from RAF control to GCHQ
Sept. 1964 Cypher clerks at the British Embassy in Moscow repel KGB ‘firemen’
1965 Joe Hooper becomes Director of GCHQ, taking over from Clive Loehnis
1965 LCSA takes over SCDU and JSRU and is renamed CESD
Nov. 1965 Diego Garcia agreement completed and 2,300 inhabitants removed
1966 Pine Gap station opened in Australia
Oct. 1966 Decision taken to replace sigint Comets with Nimrod R1s
1967 Scharfoldendorf station near the Inner German Border closed
7 Jun. 1967 USS Liberty AGTR ship attacked off Israel
1967 Chapman Pincher and the ‘D-Notice affair’ exposes cable vetting
1967 Teufelsberg sigint site in Berlin begins operations
Dec. 1967 First voyage of the USS Pueblo
Jan. 1968 Geoffrey Prime offers his services to the KGB
23 Jan. 1968 USS Pueblo ALGER-2 ship captured by North Korea
24 Jan. 1968 HMS Totem, now renamed Dakar, sinks off Cyprus
20 Aug. 1968 Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia takes GCHQ and NSA by surprise
Late 1968 Dick White review of DIS and JIC in the wake of Czech invasion
Late 1968 Dick White inquiry into rising sigint costs
9 Sept. 1968 Geoffrey Prime begins work at GCHQ’s London Processing Group
1969 GCHQ’s nuclear-powered sigint ship project abandoned
Jun. 1969 Decision to merge CESD with GCHQ and change its name to CESG
1969 Arthur Foden becomes Director of CESG, taking over from Robert Stannard
30 Mar. 1972 Kizildere incident: eight GCHQ staff taken hostage and three killed by TPLA terrorists
Apr. 1972 JIC (A) delegation meets Groupe de Synthèse et Prévision in Paris
1972 Skynet III decision
6 Mar. 1973 Ryolite satellite launched to verify the SALT 1 arms control treaty
18 Jun. 1973 Closure of Cobra Mist facility at Orford Ness announced
Aug. 1973 Arthur Bonsall becomes Director of GCHQ, taking over from Joe Hooper
Aug. 1973 Nixon–Kissinger ‘cut-off’ of intelligence cooperation attempted
1973 Transfer of London Processing Group to Cheltenham begun
1973 James Ellis discovers the asymmetric algorithm, later the foundation of RSA
3 May 1974 First operational flight by a Nimrod R1
1974 Cyprus invasion by Turkey
1974 US sigint bases in Turkey shut down
Feb. 1975 Government Secure Speech Network cancelled
Jul. 1975 Ivy Bells undersea cable-tapping operation begins using USS Halibut
Aug. 1975 Work on Diego Garcia expansion begins
1975 GCHQ Mauritius station closed
1975 NSA takes delivery of its first Cray computer
Sept. 1975 Brian Tovey becomes Director of CESG, taking over from Arthur Foden
22 Mar. 1976 Geoffrey Prime moved from London to Cheltenham
1976 ‘ABC trial’ of Aubrey, Berry and Campbell begins
1976 Geoffrey Prime promoted to Section Head in J Division
1977 Transfer of London Processing Group to Cheltenham completed
1977 14 Signals Regiment (Electronic Warfare) formed
1977 GCHQ’s Wincombe station closed
1977 GCHQ’s Flowerdown station closed
28 Sept. 1977 Geoffrey Prime resigns from GCHQ
1978 GCHQ’s Gilnahirk station in Northern Ireland closed
1978 Special Collection Service, a joint NSA–CIA black-bag unit created
1978 GCHQ station at Two Boats on Ascension Island reactivated
1978 Brian Tovey becomes Director of GCHQ, taking over from Arthur Bonsall
Jan. 1979 Iranian revolution – NSA and GCHQ listening posts in Iran are lost
23 Feb. 1979 One-day strike triggers Brian Tovey’s thinking on union removal at GCHQ
1980 Alastair Anderson becomes Director of CESG, taking over from John Johnson
1980 Ivy Bells submarine tapping operation blown by Ronald Pelton, KGB agent in NSA
9 Mar. 1981 One-day strike at GCHQ, then disruptive action to April
16 Nov. 1981 Geoffrey Prime makes his last contact with the KGB in East Berlin
1982 Gordon Welchman threatened with OSA over Hut Six Story
1982 GCHQ’s Little Sai Wan closed down and moved to Chum Hom Kok
26 Jun. 1982 Geoffrey Prime confesses
15 Jul. 1982 Prime remanded in custody on OSA charges
23 Sept. 1982 James Bamford’s Puzzle Palace published
10 Nov. 1982 Geoffrey Prime pleads guilty
1983 STU-III secure speech unit introduced by NSA
Sept. 1983 Peter Marychurch becomes Director of GCHQ, taking over from Brian Tovey
1 Dec. 1983 Pilot polygraph machine arrives at R12 at Cheltenham
Dec. 1983 Decision on de-unionisation taken by ad hoc Cabinet committee
25 Jan. 1984 GCHQ staff receive GN 100/84 letter on unions
17 Apr. 1984 WPC Yvonne Fletcher shot outside the Libyan People’s Bureau in London
1984 GCHQ’s Brora station in Sutherland closed
1985 Paul Foster becomes Director of CESG, taking over from Alastair Anderson
1985 Interception of Communications Act
1 Aug. 1985 KGB officer Vitaly Yurchenko defects and reveals NSA spy Ronald Pelton
5 Jun. 1986 Pelton convicted of espionage
for the KGB
6 Jun. 1986 Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for Mossad
1986 Joint Speech Research Unit at GCHQ amalgamated with Speech Research Group at RSRE to form Speech Research Unit
20 Jan. 1987 European Commission for Human Rights declares GCHQ trade union case inadmissible
31 Jul. 1988 Hawklaw station in Fife closed
1989 Hilltop station at Teufelberg in Berlin closed
1989 John Porter becomes Director of CESG, taking over from Paul Foster
1989 John Adye becomes Director of GCHQ, taking over from Peter Marychurch
Mar. 1991 Andrew Saunders becomes Director of CESG, taking over from John Porter
Late 1993 Sir Michael Quinlan asked to look at government spending on intelligence
22 Dec. 1993 T of R for Quinlan’s ‘Review of Intelligence Requirements and Resources’ agreed
Jun. 1994 ‘Review of Intelligence Requirements and Resources’ completed
1994 GCHQ’s Earl’s Court station at Empress Building closed
Oct. 1994 Operations at GCHQ’s Chum Hom Kok station end
2 Nov. 1994 Intelligence Services Act
12 Dec. 1994 Roger Hum Special Study of GCHQ commissioned
Jan. 1995 Chum Hom Kok closed down and operations move to Geraldton in Australia
Jan. 1995 Operations at Cheadle end and station closed in June
25 Mar. 1995 Roger Hum Special Study completed
Mar. 1995 13 Signals Regiment in Germany disbanded, some move to JSSU at RAF Digby
16 May 1995 XW666, one of the three sigint Nimrod R1s, ditches in the Moray Firth
1995 RAF 51 Squadron moves from RAF Wyton to RAF Waddington
16 Oct. 1995 New high-level post created to represent GCHQ in London
6 Nov. 1995 J, K and V Divisions abolished. M, Q, U and W Divisions created
10 Nov. 1995 GCHQ’s Central Training School at Taunton closes
23 Nov. 1995 Impending appointment of David Omand announced
Jan. 1996 Sideslip/Caid/Cental and Yardage introduced for Radio Operators/RDs