British Prime Minister David Cameron has defended the work of the intelligence agencies amid growing public anger over US spying activities.
Speaking after an European Union (EU) summit in Brussels on Friday, Cameron claimed that the tactics used by British intelligence agencies had helped to keep people “safe” and protect European citizens from “terrorist” attacks.
He also accused American whistleblower Edward Snowden and newspapers which publish his leaks of putting people’s lives at risk, warning that they were making it difficult to keep people safe.
“What Snowden is doing – and to an extent, what the newspapers are doing in helping him doing what he is doing – is frankly signaling to people who mean to do us harm how to evade and avoid intelligence and surveillance,” Cameron said.
This comes after Snowden revealed information about the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) espionage activities targeting friendly countries.
The daily Guardian reported on Thursday that the NSA had monitored the telephone conversations of 35 world leaders.
Earlier in June, Snowden leaked two top secret US government spying programs, under which the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are eavesdropping on millions of American and European phone records and the Internet data from major Internet companies such as Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.
The US intelligence whistleblower also admitted his role in the leaks in a 12-minute video recorded interview published by the Guardian.
The classified documents revealed that Britain’s eavesdropping agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was secretly accessing the network of cables, which carry the world’s phone calls and internet traffic and has been sharing the data with the NSA.
Cameron said last week the NSA files, leaked by Snowden to the paper, have damaged the UK’s national security.
Speaking during prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons, he also urged MPs to investigate whether the newspaper has broken the law by publishing secrets leaked by former CIA employee.
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UK PM defends work of spy agencies
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