"I've come to Moscow to seek out the man responsible for the biggest leak of top secret intelligence documents the world has ever seen." "Russia has given him sanctuary." "America wants him back." "His name is Edward" "Snowden." "Opinion is sharply divided on what he has done." "He's betrayed his work mates." "He's betrayed his institution and he's betrayed the secrets of his homeland." "He's a hero." "To me it seems clear that what he did was in the public interest." "Edward Snowden is a traitor." "What he has done has caused irreparable damage to our ability to protect the people we are sworn to protect." "Edward Snowden has raised the debate over privacy and national security to a new level, framing the agenda for this Autumn's Parliamentary debate over new legislation regulating the intrucive powers of the intelligence agencies." "It's taken us three months to try and secure Edward Snowden's first" "British television interview." "I've never spoken directly to Edward" "Snowden." "All we were told was come to Moscow, check into a hotel pro, vied the number of a room and Edward Snowden would come and knock on the door." "Ed, very nice to see you." "You found us!" "Come in." "Why did you decide to do what you did?" "When I was sitting at my desk at the NSA working with tools of mass surveillance every day, I saw that all of our communications were being intercepted all of the time in the absence of any suspicion of wrongdoing." "This was something that was occurring without our knowledge, without our consent." "Snowden worked as an analyst for America's all-seeing National Security Agency the NSA." "The national security operation centre." "The agency collects raw electronic data from around the world that is fed to" "America's spies and their Western partners." "The NSA has a reputed budget of over $10 billion a year, over 30,000 employees and it is the most powerful intelligence agency on the planet." "I had a special level of clearance called Priv Ac, privileged access." "I had access to everything." "That included documents from the British Government." "The UK's equivalent of the NSA is the Government Communications" "Headquarters or GCHQ based in Cheltenham." "GCHQ is the most secret and sensitive building in Britain." "It's the electronic nerve centre that Hoovers up vast amounts of data from all over the world and feeds it to MI5 and MI6 to help them identify and track terrorists, criminals and other threats." "GCHQ is for almost all intents and purposes a subsidiary of the NSA." "They provide technology." "They provide tasking and direction as what they should go after." "In exchange, the GCHQ provides access to communications that are collected in the United" "Kingdom." "Cornwall is where most of the data comes in and goes out via cables under beaches like Porthcurno." "There's little about the internet that Dr Joss Wright does not know." "The vast majority of the data is coming across physical cable that's run under the sea, across the" "Atlantic, several of which run under the beach that we're standing on, providing the data to the rest of the country." "It's much easier than travelling by satellite." "Cables have been snaking underneath Porthcurno sands for almost 150 years." "So what's this?" "This hut is the termination point for some of the telegraph cables from the early" "Twentieth Century." "You've got cables here, copper cord cable that's would have run to Spain, France, Portugal and they were located here and relayed the signal to the rest of the country." "Today it's still cable that's carry all our personal data and internet traffic, only now they travel along optical fibres in cables that lie beneath Cornwall's beaches." "So this is one of the modern fibre optic cables that carry internet traffic across the Atlantic." "What amount of data can these cables carry?" "A large internet company" "Cisco have a relatively recent estimate that there are equivalent to probably maybe 650,000 DVDs' worth of data transmit -- transiting the UK every hour as of last year." "That's a huge amount." "It's a huge amount of data." "Edward Snowden revealed how this bulk data was secretly collected by GCHQ via its top security station high on the cliffs of Cornwall above Bude." "The programme was called Tempora." "GCHQ's" "Tempora programme was shared with the NSA, as the information gleaned from it benefitted both." "The two agencies are extremely close and have been since World War II." "GCHQ also relies on the NSA to supplement its budget." "At the root of Edward Snowden's concern is the ability of the agencies to collect this bulk data." "It contains details of all our communications, like when and where they were made and where they were sent." "It's this meta data the agencies are interested in rather than content." "Privacy activist, Eric King, has studied bulk data collection." "Tempora was Edward Snowden's first major revelation." "It was the first ever confirmation that GCHQ are undertaking mass internet surveillance here in the UK." "Every single piece of information that's on that fibre optic cable is pushed through GCHQ's filtering analysis and processing system here at GCHQ Bude." "And it works both ways." "GCHQ taps into the incoming cables from" "America and elsewhere and into the cables that leave the UK with all our domestic communications." "Bulk data collection will be a central issue in the new legislation." "The Government believes it is vital." "They have particular targets, but to find out who those targets are they've got to collect mass data." "Why did that happen in secret?" "Why did that happen without the public's awareness?" "Why didn't we, the public, have a choice to vote on whether or not that's something that we agree with?" "And they say, and in many cases this is true, that they're not going to read your e-mail, for example, but they can." "If they did you would never know." "To access the information they need," "GCHQ uses sophisticated algorithms to help identify needles in this giant hay stack of data." "David Anderson QC, the Government's independent reviewer of terrorist legislation, was asked by the Prime" "Minister to recommend changes to the current surveillance laws." "GCHQ say that they only look at a tiny, tiny fraction of all the data that they collect, well if that's the case why do they need to collect all the data?" "Unfortunately, there is no way of predicting in advance exactly which packet of information on which cable contains the incriminating information, which may disclose the existence of a plot." "Bulk data can also be collected in a more intimate and personal way via hacking our smartphones." "They now account for an increasing amount of all internet traffic and are a God send for the agencies, the secret doorway to all our data and internet use. agencies, the secret doorway to all smartphone?" "Snowden told us about a secret GCHQ training programme code smartphone?" "Snowden told us about a named Smurfs, cartoon characters designed by Belgian artist Peyo." "Dreamy Smurf is the power management tool." "That means turning your phone on or off without you knowing." "tool." "That means turning your phone if I turn my phone off?" "Right." "Then tool." "That means turning your phone we have Nosey Smurf." "What's Nosey" "Smurf?" "Nosey Smurf is the hot miry-ing tool." "If it's in your pocket, they can turn the microphone on and listen to everything going on around you." "Even if my phone is switched off?" "Even if your phone is off because they have the other tools for turning it on." "What's" "Tracker Smurf?" "That's a geolocation tool which allows them to follow you with a greater precision than you would get from the typical triangulation of cell phone towers." "They want to own your phone instead of you." "Snowden reveals that GCHQ has another way of collecting bulk data, using what is known as computer network exploitation or" "CNE." "Authorisation governing its use is likely to figure in the new legislation." "Computer network exploitation is basically digital espionage." "You're trying to control things thaw don't own." "What the intelligence agencies like to do is they'll hack those network service providers and secretly take ownership of the device that's are affecting traffic." "Without the service providers knowing about it?" "Without the service providers ever knowing about it." "It's a posh word for hacking, sometimes called equipment interference." "It's done by the Government, by allowing them to attack directly the server or the terminal." "This is the camability that GCHQ have invested most heavily in in recent years." "It allows them to -- what it allows them to do is essentially limitless." "They can remotely attack core points of communications, of infrastructure, of companies, whatever, wherever there's a piece of technology that's where GCHQ can employ this." "Snowden showed how aggressive GCHQ are in using it." "One Snowden document revealed how" "GCHQ secretly used CNE to access vast amounts of communications data from inside Pakistan, presumably to help identify and track terrorists." "It did so by secretly hacking routers, digital junction boxes, manufactured by the American company Cisco." "GCHQ noted:" "Capability against Cisco routers allows us to reroute selected traffic across international links towards GCHQ's passive collection systems." "Cisco did not know it was being hacked by GCHQ." "The interception was legally signed off by the British Government." "Is it right that the" "Government should authorise GCHQ to hack into American routers to gain access to all the data from Pakistan?" "Well, I think anyone who knows anything about espionage or intelligence work knows that it is about authorising people to do things that would normally be against the law." "That's why you need people of the weight and seniority of judges to decide that it really is acceptable to authorise it in any particular circumstance." "At the moment, these warrants are authorised by ministers." "The role of the judiciary in authorising warrants for interception and intrucive surveillance will also be a prominent feature of the new legislation." "I don't think it works any more." "Last year, the Home Secretary authorised 2,345 warrants herself, personally." "Nobody else can do it for her." "That's a huge burden on somebody who has to run a vast department of state." "We need a system that could be operated by a judicial-led body, which is what they have in the US, where a court authorises those things." "In America, judicial authorisation is the norm." "General Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency an the CIA, believes the UK would be well advised to do the same." "I would suspect that GCHQ would welcome that kind of process as well, to show the broader British public that they have nothing to hide and that the grounds on which they pursue these warrants are actually very substantial." "And they would be signed off by a judge?" "They'd be signed off by a judge." "Rather than by a minister?" "Yes." "Would that increase public confidence?" "I think it would." "It increases public confidence in the" "American system." "The agencies say that Snowden's revelations have caused huge damage and in particular alerted terrorists, criminals and paedophile rings to the ways in which their communications are being intercepted." "The so-called Islamic State is a beneficiary." "We see the Islamic State putting out advice on how to cooperate securely." "That change of emphasis for them, I am sure, is caused by some degree by Snowden." "How do you regard Edward Snowden?" "As a traitor." "What he has done has caused irreparable damage to our ability and other agencies' ability to protect the people we sworn to protect." "He has given a road map to many foreign services and terrorist groups as to how we operate." "How do you think terrorist groups regard" "Edward Snowden?" "Bubbly as a hero, he has given them an edge that hurts us and our ability to protect those that we serve." "I have spoken to many intelligence agencies, both in the UK and in America, and senior individuals from those agencies." "They say, without exception, that you have done great damage." "Whenever we hear these claims, universally they have occurred without any evidence, there has never been a specific case of an individual who is harmed as a result of these disclosures, a specific case of a terrorist that got away or an attack" "that occurred." "I do not a traitor?" "Of course not." "If I was a traitor, who did I betray?" "I gave my information to American journalists and free society generally." "What you betrayed, I suggest, is the American people, because you betrayed the intelligence agencies whose prime responsibility is to protect the American people." "An argument could be made that I betrayed the government to protect the people." "The question is not, what is the individual who revealed this, good or bad?" "It is, how did these programmes come to be and how do we stop them from occurring again in the future?" "The new legislation will also cover another contentious issue." "Access to data held by social media companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter." "Platforms on which we now conduct most of our personal communications." "It is a question of free enterprise, who they work for, their customers all governments?" "Facebook is one of the global giants of the social media world." "With over a billion users a day and revenues of ?" "10 billion a year." "To Facebook, terrorist content on its pages is a highly sensitive issue." "It is tragically illustrated by the murder of Lee Rigby, hacked to death in Woolwich by two British jihadis in 2013." "The press blame" "Facebook." "We were all horrified by the vicious murder of Lee Rigby." "That case and others like it show how hard it is for the authorities whose job it is to try and detect this kind of activity before an incident like this happens." "We rely on reports from our users and request from the authorities to keep terrorist content and activity of" "Facebook." "Six months before the murder, one of the killers, Michael" "Adebowale, was Kim indicating on Facebook with an Al-Qaeda suspect in the Middle East, codenamed Foxtrot." "The exchange involved Michael" "Adebowale saying he wanted to murder a soldier, one of the ways discussed was use of a knife." "At the time, neither Facebook nor the intelligence agencies knew of the exchange." "It was only after Lee" "Rigby's murder that GCHQ became aware of the communication." "Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee investigated the case." "What might have happened if Facebook had notified the intelligence services?" "If their computers had identified this comment, which they all to have done, and if they had a procedure, involving somebody deciding if it should be reported, that could have prevented Lee Rigby's death." "I cannot comment on that individual case, but we take our responsibilities extremely seriously at this place." "Precisely how and why Facebook missed the exchange and failed to pick up the warning signs remains a mystery." "Facebook told us they were not prepared to go into detail." "We have made important strides in the last three years to ensure that Facebook is a hostile place for terrorists." "In rare circumstances where we find somebody organising activity which may pose an imminent risk to life, we can and do report this people to the authorities." "The issue of access to social media is equally sensitive in America, where most of the companies are based." "I would call the Snowden hangover, some people feel that it will hurt their brand name if they are seen to work with the government." "It has had an impact." "Is the priority of the social media companies not the bottom line?" "They have to stay competitive in a global market, there is this tension between us, responsible for public safety, and the companies that are responsible for providing a service to their customers and being responsive to their stockholders and" "board of directors." "Social media companies have to act as good citizens, just as the rest of us do." "You cannot try to end list the companies into being effectively detectives or agents of the state, because they are not that." "How does Facebook track and I'm -- identify terrorist content on its platform?" "Facebook does not track terrorist content or monitor people's messages, but we will I on reports from the 1.5 billion people using Facebook to let us know when they see things they should not be there, including terrorist activity, and we" "get requests for data from the police, in this country and elsewhere." "There is no algorithm that finds terrorist content." "Surprising, it has always been assumed Facebook had a mechanism for detecting terrorist content." "That is an example of the lack of proactive support that these companies are giving to us, in some cases." "Banks will tell us about what look like Crook money going through their system, I do not see why social media and comedic nations companies cannot adopt the same approach." "The problem is compounded by encryption, which means that when a message is sent, words become a jumble of impenetrable numbers and returned to words when they reach the recipient." "The data is undecipherable in transit." "Encryption is a massive problem, which are operating with increasing digital blindspot." "Whether it is about encrypted devices or files on devices, or about encrypted communications, those are big challenges for us, which makes our operation to protect the public much more difficult." "Edward Snowden is not responsible for the increasing use of encryption, but he may have accelerated the process." "There is a presumption that encryption is a problem." "It is the governments and agencies who want to access critical data that they cannot get because it is encrypted." "Only if they want to collected in disc in May." "Governments retain an ability to compromise targeted devices any time they want." "Another suggestion is that the companies provide the agencies with a key that would unlock encrypted messages." "How realistic is that?" "The scientific committee has arrived at a consensus that it cannot be done in a safe and secure way." "Are you saying it is technically impossible to devise a to encrypted comedic nations?" "Correct." "We have split the atom and put a man on the moon, we have some of the brightest people working for those companies, I have some bright people in government, and if the will was there, we could come up" "with a solution." "Do you think it is their?" "Not right now." "Facebook insist a back door key is not necessary." "There is no need for a key for the authorities, because they have a well-established mechanism to ask us for data and encryption does not invent them from asking us for the same data today as they did two years ago and will do" "in two years." "If they come to you and say, we want access to this piece of data which is an cryptic, Ken Duke decrypted for them?" "Yes." "How difficult is it for you to get the data that you require from social media companies?" "Some are helpful, some are extremely unhelpful." "They see themselves as having a social responsibility to help the police and intelligence agencies catch fraudsters, paedophiles, terrorists, or do they step back and say, we just run a secret system, it is not our business?" "Edward Snowden will follow the parliamentary debate he has helped inform from afar, but what is likely to happen to him?" "Is he doomed to remain in Moscow forever, or will he return home to America, stand trial and go to jail for what he has done?" "The charges against you and the Espionage Act, theft of government property, you stole top-secret information, or unauthorised communication of national defence information, what you did was authorised, well for communication of classified communications, intelligence communication, to an unauthorised" "person, and distributed to unauthorised individuals." "On those charges, are you not guilty as charged?" "Not in a fair trial." "The" "Espionage Act find anybody guilty who provide any information to the public, regardless of whether it is right or wrong." "You are not even an hour to explain to a jury what your motivations were for revealing this information." "It is a question of, did you reveal information?" "If yes, you go to prison for the rest of your life." "I want him to face the" "American court system and a jury of his peers." "He makes the claim that the entire purpose was to get it out to the American public." "Come on back and let the American public pass judgment." "Would you be prepared to do some kind of deal, the bulk and?" "Of course, I have volunteered to go to prison with the government many times." "I will not serve as a deterrent to people trying to do the right thing in difficult situations are." "You are preferred to face a jail sentence?" " prepared?" "Of course." "What would you be looking for from them?" "They have said they will not torture me, which is a start, I think!" "." "We have not got much further than that." "Is it something you are discussing with the government?" "We are still waiting for them to call us back." "Edward" "Snowden has done harm to the ability of this country to protect itself, particularly in the short-term." "You could also say that he has done us a service by ensuring that these intrusive powers will be publicly debated and properly provided for in law." "What is going to happen to" "Edward Snowden?" "If you are asking me my opinion, people die in Moscow, he is not coming home." "Do you have any regrets?" "I regret I did not come forward sooner." "The longer you wait with programmes like this, the more deeply entrenched they become." "I have paid a price, but I feel comfortable with the decisions I have made." "If I am gone tomorrow, I am happy with what I had, I feel blessed."