UK intelligence chiefs get off scot-free in grilling on NSA leaks
In their carefully choreographed first public session, MPs and peers on the parliamentary's intelligence and security committee ranged predictably, and thinly, over the work of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.
Andrew Parker, the new head of MI5, had the air of someone who wanted to go on, and on, emphasising the (genuine) threats posed by potential terrorists. Sir Iain Lobban, head of GCHQ – the electronic eavesdropping agency at the heart of the Edward Snowden allegations, seemed full of venom towards the leakers and the newspapers, notably the Guardian, which revealed the enormous capabilities of his agency and its close partner, America's NSA, but unable to spit it out.
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Asked why the intelligence agencies had not foreseen the end of the cold war, the 9/11 attacks and the Arab spring, Sawers said the agencies were "not crystal-ball gazers".
The witnesses thus got off scot-free. They did reveal, however, that whether the line between secrecy and transparency should be redrawn was being "actively considered". In private, of course.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/defence-and-security-blog/2013/nov/08/uk-intelligence-grilling-nsa-leaks