Project Tempora

Lord Strasburger Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Strasburger]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government which Minister first authorised GCHQ’s Project Tempora; when that happened; and why they did not disclose the existence of Project Tempora to the Joint Committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill.

[The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will understand that it would not be appropriate to discuss the specifics here. However, I can say that GCHQ and all other security and law enforcement agencies operate within a strict legal and policy framework, as set out by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary in the other place on 10 June.

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

I thank my noble friend for the Answer that she was required to give. In a democracy, wholesale untargeted state intrusion into the private lives of all the people, such as Project Tempora, is unacceptable unless it has the informed consent of the people via their Parliament. However, Parliament has not been informed and has not given its consent to Tempora; nor has the Cabinet, the National Security Council or even, it seems, the ISC. Will the Government acknowledge that the much vaunted oversight of the security services has failed spectacularly, as underlined last week by the feeble public performance of the ISC? When will the Government at last join the global debate about limiting state surveillance of its innocent citizens?

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Lord makes an important point but I assure him that secret does not mean unaccountable. We have a system where any intrusion of the sort to which he refers has to be necessary, proportionate and carefully targeted. We have a number of oversight mechanisms, including political and judicial, the commissioners and of course Parliament through the Intelligence and Security Committee.