U.K. Spy Chief Says Tech Firms in Denial About Terrorism

By Emma Ross-Thomas and Gregory Viscusi  

Photographer: Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images

Robert Hannigan, director of the U.K.’s surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters.

The director of the U.K.’s spy listening post said on his first day in office that Internet giants such as Facebook Inc. (FB) and Twitter Inc. (TWTR) are “in denial” about their role in spreading terrorism.
Robert Hannigan, head of surveillance agency GCHQ, called on U.S. technology companies to support the fight against terrorism, saying in an editoral-page article in today’s Financial Times that the largest firms have become the “command-and-control networks” of terrorists.
Hannigan’s missive is the latest warning shot from European officials concerned about the Internet’s role in luring an estimated 3,000 young Europeans to join Islamist militants in Syria and Iraq. European Union interior ministers met informally with executives from Facebook, Twitter, Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in Luxembourg on Oct. 8 to discuss ways to
combat Islamic State’s use of websites for glossy recruitment publications and for posting videos of executions.
“To those of us who have to tackle the depressing end of human behavior on the Internet, it can seem that some technology companies are in denial about its misuse,” Hannigan said. “GCHQ and its sister agencies, MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service, cannot tackle these challenges at scale without greater support from the private sector, including the largest U.S. technology companies which dominate the web.”

Beheadings Filmed

Islamic State is the first terrorist group whose “members have grown up on the Internet,” Hannigan said. The group, which controls large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, posts videos of its leader’s sermons and the beheadings of hostages, including the killings of British and American journalists and aid workers by a man with a London accent. Militants have also hijacked popular Twitter hashtags such as #WorldCup to ensure a wider audience for their messages.
Hannigan said technology allows militants to encrypt messages, as techniques that “were once the preserve of the most sophisticated criminals or nation states now come as standard.” Foreign fighters have learned from Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor who leaked details about surveillance programs carried out by U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies, he said.

‘Difficult Decisions’

GCHQ should “enter the public debate” about how data is used, Hannigan said. Still, “privacy has never been an absolute right and the debate about this should not become a reason for postponing urgent and difficult decisions,” he wrote.
Nu Wexler, a spokesman for Twitter, had no comment on the article. Jodi Seth, a spokeswoman for Facebook, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Klaas Flechsig, a spokesman for Youtube owner Google in Germany, declined to comment.
Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France’s top anti-terrorist magistrate until retiring in 2007, said in a September interview that almost all militant recruitment is now done online, as opposed to in fringe mosques as it was just 10 years go. Whereas police were able to infiltrate and monitor the underground mosques, they are having a harder time keeping up with fast-paced websites, he said.
Gilles de Kerchove, the EU’s counter-terrorism co-ordinator, has said about 3,000 Europeans have joined Islamic militants in Syria.
In July, the U.K. government pushed emergency legislation through Parliament to ensure communications companies kept records of e-mails, texts and phone calls for a year to help law-enforcement agencies track and catch terrorists and other criminals.
“Unless we act now, companies will no longer retain the data about who contacted who, when and where, and we will no longer be able to use this data to keep our country safe,” Prime Minister David Cameron said then.