Edward Snowden’s revelations have done immense damage to the security of the West.

Guardian playing foolish game

 with British national security

by Anthony Glees

Only a complete fool could still deny that Edward Snowden’s revelations have damaged our national security and the security of the West more broadly. Apart from providing details of actual intelligence operations — and thereby suggesting how best to hide from them, both the Russians and the Chinese now have his data, or better our secrets, and will be subjecting it to the most assiduous analysis.

Small wonder that many of the major players in Britain’s security and intelligence community have spoken with one voice to condemn The Guardian. But such a massive level of official and expert anger shows that the impact of the Snowden affair may be even more devastating to this country but in a different way.

When Sir David Omand (the father of British counter-terrorism policy) suggests Snowden has done more harm to the UK than the Soviet moles, he amplifies the tough message from the head of the Security Service, MI5, Andrew Parker.

Although Parker didn’t mention either Snowden or The Guardian by name, but no one could doubt he was speaking of them when he said: “Making public the reach and limits of GCHQ techniques…hands the advantage to terrorists. It is the gift they need to evade us and strike at will.”

Alerting us to the “several thousand Islamists here who see the British people as a legitimate target”, he virtually begged the public to give MI5 and GCHQ the new laws that are needed: “We cannot work without tools” he said or “let shifts in technology erode our capabilities”.

...........

Read more: www.mercatornet.com