Ex spy: Snowden leaks catastrophic for UK intel.<\/p>\n
A former British spy chief says the leaked details of illegal spying by the Government Communication Headquarters have been the “most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever”.\n<\/p>\n
The former GCHQ director David Omand said the leaks by US whistleblower Edward Snowden and published by The Guardian<\/i> were even worse than the Cambridge spy ring™s in the 1950™s.\n<\/p>\n
“You have to distinguish between the original whistleblowing intent to get a debate going, which is a responsible thing to do, and the stealing of 58,000 top-secret British security documents and who knows how many American documents, which is seriously, seriously damaging,” Omand told The Times<\/i>.\n<\/p>\n
“It’s the most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever, much worse than Burgess and Maclean in the 1950s,” he added.\n<\/p>\n
Snowden began disclosing information jointly collected by the GCQH and its American counterpart the National Security Agency (NSA) back in May.\n<\/p>\n
He said their Tempora and Prism operations could have targeted almost anyone acros the world ranging from the most senior politicians to the ordinary people.\n<\/p>\n
This comes as The Guardian<\/i> has recently pledged to continue publishing Snowden leaks after the security services raided the paper™s headquarters and destroyed all Snowden files back in August.\n<\/p>\n
AMR\/HE<\/p>\n<\/div>\n