UK intelligence chief warns of threat, seeks more powers

Parker says much of the reason the UK is currently facing a “Severe” risk of terrorist attack (defined as “an attack is highly likely’) is related to technology, both in terms of the sophistication of today’s terrorists in using technology, and in the lack of cooperation with authorities by some internet companies”.

In the first broadcast interview by a serving MI5 boss, Mr Parker did not single out any of the companies by name.

Last week, British police said they had arrested a record number of people on suspicion of terrorism offences, although Parker said his agency was not overly concerned about the thousands of migrants fleeing the ongoing Syrian conflict.

Parker added that, despite concerns that the security agencies already have wide-ranging monitoring powers, as revealed by the leaks by Edward Snowden in 2013, its focus is on stopping terrorists and other crimes, not using surveillance on the public. Some analysts say the call by the MI5 chief has nothing to do with the safety and security of the general people but are only aimed at well-being of commercial enterprises.

He told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme he shared the experience of predecessor Baroness Manningham-Buller, who has described her stepchildren’s disappointment on discovering she was the person in charge of MI5. But that’s not come about from the mass-scanning of everyone, with Parker keen to kill off suggestions that everyone’s having their emails scanned for bomb-making tips, explaining: “We do not have population-scale monitoring, or anything like that”.

“We need to be able to do in the modern age what we’ve always done through our history, in being able to find and stop people who threaten the UK”, said Parker.

“It is not actually as we speak today the main focus of where the threat is coming from”.

Prime Minister David Cameron has criticized social-media companies after a report into the 2013 murder of Lee Rigby, a British soldier, found one of the killers had talked about his intentions online.

The Internet Services Providers’ Association (ISPA), the voice of the UK internet industry, said the authorities should have access to communications data so long as there were proper safeguards and oversight, and it did not harm investment.

“In that case, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) concluded that had that happened it might have made a material difference to the outcome”, he said.

Amid the takeover of large parts of the Middle East by Islamic State (ISIS) militants, Andrew Parker warned the threat of a terror attack against the UK was “continuing to grow”. “That means we need to be able to monitor the communications of terrorists, spies and others”.

He said MI5 had seen people “radicalised to the point of violence within weeks” by the internet.