article_snippet: The claim that privacy should be put before national security was condemned as ‘unacceptable’ as a report revealed the extent of snooping by GCHQ.
article_snippet: Liberty, which campaigns on civil liberties and human rights issues, was at the forefront of the criticisms of the security and intelligence services when the claims from whistle-blower Edward Snowden broke in June 2013.
article_snippet: Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee found that agents at GCHQ, the government listening post, monitor 'large numbers of items' using 'bulk interception' powers to uncover terror threats.
article_snippet: But Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee dismissed the claims that GCHQ had ‘blanket coverage’ of web communications and was rooting indiscriminately through private messages.
article_snippet: Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee said GCHQ can access only a small part of the web and operatives see only a ‘tiny fraction’ of the messages collected after a sophisticated filtering process.
article_snippet: Privacy campaigners argue the security services already have too much power to gather and read personal communications.
article_snippet: The ISC report was ordered in the wake of when the claims from whistle-blower Edward Snowden broke in June 2013 .
article_snippet: All of these cables - carrying people's emails, Facebook messages and other communications - can potentially be hacked by GCHQ, the committee reveals.
article_snippet: ‘Instead of attempting to put words into the mouths of privacy campaigners, the ISC should have put the ISC efforts into scrutinising the agencies.
article_snippet: the committee's 18-month inquiry said Britain's spy agencies were not breaking the law – but called for a complete overhaul of the rules governing what Britain's spy agencies were allowed to do in the interests of national security.
article_snippet: The report says a single law is needed to keep in check the powers of Britain's spy agencies to snoop on private communications, because the current legal framework governing the likes of GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 is 'unnecessarily complicated' and 'lacks transparency'.
article_snippet: Shami Chakrabarti, director of rights campaign group Liberty, said: 'The ISC has repeatedly shown The ISC as - so clueless and ineffective that The ISC's only thanks to Edward Snowden that The ISC had the slightest clue of Britain's spy agencies antics. '
article_snippet: the committee calls The report a landmark for 'openness and transparency' - but how do we trust agencies who have acted unlawfully, hacked the world's largest sim card manufacturer and developed technologies capable of collecting our login details and passwords, manipulating our mobile devices and hacking our computers and webcams?'
article_snippet: Rachel Logan, Amnesty UK's Legal Programme Director, said: 'The oversight of the security services should be the responsibility of a properly independent body. '
article_snippet: Open Rights Group executive director Jim Killock added: 'The ISC should have apologised to the nation for their failure to inform Parliament about how far GCHQ's powers have grown. '