The UK intelligence agencies promised to a parliamentary committee today that ordinary people’s secrets are safe with them. The outfits sought to defend criticism that their powers were too great and that everyone’s privacy was threatened.



The representatives of the intelligence agencies claimed that “secret is not sinister” and that they don’t spend their time listening to phone calls and reading emails of every person in the globe. Besides, the Internet remains a great way to anonymize data. They say that if you think of the worldwide web as an enormous hay stack, the agency is trying to find needles even though much of the data is innocent. In the meantime, they pay no attention to the surrounding hay and don’t want to delve into innocent phone telephone calls and emails.

The agents explain that a government’s first duty is to protect the people, and some of its work can be secret. As a result, certain methods should also remain secret, but that doesn’t mean sinister. Anyway, all intelligence agencies are subject to the law. Of course, if you are a terrorist or a criminal, then your communications can be monitored. But if you are not, then they will leave you alone.

In the meantime, the representatives of the spying agencies admitted there were examples of terrorists talking to each other and discussing ways to change their methods after Snowden’s revelations. They complain that Edward’s leaks will make the spy agencies’ jobs far harder over the next few years. Various threats from different sources were all taking advantage of files published following the former NSA contractor’s leaks. However, not all experts agree that Snowden leaks had been very damaging.