The Nation/AFP 8 Nov 2013
LONDON – Britain´s top spy chiefs said in a rare televised appearance Thursday that the intelligence leaks by Edward Snowden have left its enemies “rubbing their hands with glee” and caused terror groups to change the way they communicate.
The heads of foreign spy agency MI6, its domestic counterpart MI5 and electronic eavesdropping agency GCHQ also denied in their evidence to parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee that Britons were subject to mass surveillance.
In a hearing held under tight security and with a two-minute time delay to prevent accidental disclosures, MI6 boss John Sawers said Snowden’s revelations of mass US and British surveillance programmes were a gift to Al-Qaeda and other terrorists.
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