GCHQ

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Group.png GCHQ  Rdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
GCHQ-benhall-2006.jpg
Government Communications Headquarters logo.svg
Formation1919
Parent organizationUK
HeadquartersBenhall, Cheltenham
LeaderIain Lobban
TypeIntelligence agency.png intelligence agency
Interest ofRichard M. Bennett, Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, UK/Home Office/Investigatory Powers Tribunal
Exposed byJohn Ashley Berry, Duncan Campbell
The UK equivalent of the NSA, which carries out mass surveillance on a lot of the world's internet traffic

Origins

GCHQ was originally established after World War 1 as the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) and was known under that name until 1946. During World War 2 it was located at Bletchley Park.

Information Sharing

Full articles: UKUSA, Echelon

GCHQ routinely shares information with other signatories of the UKUSA agreement, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and USA. This agreement assists all member countries in circumventing laws about spying on their own citizens.

Tapping Submarine Cables

In 2014, revelations from Edward Snowden revealed how GCHQ acquired taps on internet lines. Whenever GCHQ wanted to tap a new fiber optic cable, they called engineers from BT (codename:REMEDY) to plan where to physically connect to the taps to the cable, and agree how much BT should be paid. GCHQ has Internet data feeds from "more than 18 submarine cables coming into different parts of Britain either direct to GCHQ in Cheltenham or to its remote processing station at Bude in Cornwall"[1].

Mass Surveillance

Full article: Mass Surveillance

In 2014, the Guardian reported that documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden about project Optic Nerve showed that GCHQ recorded millions of images from Yahoo webchats. To avoid overloading their computers while recording streams of so many users simultaneously, they recorded one image every five minutes from the users' feeds.[2]


 

Related Quotations

PageQuoteAuthorDate
"Philip Cross"“My view is that Philip Cross probably is a real person, but that he fronts for a group acting under his name. It is undeniably true, in fact the government has boasted, that both the MOD and GCHQ have “cyber-war” ops aiming to defend the “official narrative" against alternative news media, and that is precisely the purpose of the “Philip Cross” operation on Wikipedia. The extreme regularity of output argues against “Philip Cross” being either a one man or volunteer operation. I do not rule out however the possibility he genuinely is just a single extremely obsessed right wing fanatic.”Craig Murray
"Philip Cross"
21 May 2018
Intelligence agency“There is something very wrong indeed with the UK security services, which are most certainly not a force for freedom or justice. That MI6 can be headed by as extreme a figure as Dearlove, underlines the threat that the security services pose to any progressive movement in politics.”Craig Murray11 January 2019

 

Employees on Wikispooks

EmployeeJobAppointedEndDescription
John AdyeDirector of GCHQDecember 1989July 1996
Arthur BonsallDirector of GCHQDecember 1973December 1978
Leonard HooperDirector of GCHQDecember 1965December 1973
Iain LobbanDirector of GCHQJuly 200824 October 2014
Peter MarychurchDirector of GCHQDecember 1983December 1989
David OmandPermanent Secretary of the Home Office1 January 19982002
David OmandDirector of GCHQJuly 199631 December 1997
David PepperDirector of GCHQ2003July 2008
Francis RichardsDirector of GCHQJuly 19982003
Kevin TebbitDirector of GCHQ1 January 1998July 1998
Brian ToveyDirector of GCHQDecember 1978December 1983
Gareth WilliamsSpookFound dead, naked, and locked in a sports bag in 2010 - allegedly a suicide

 

Related Documents

TitleTypePublication dateAuthor(s)Description
Document:Dag Hammarskjöld - US, UK and South Africa still withholding crucial informationArticle10 October 2019Ludwig De Braeckeleer“Communications sent from the CX-52 cryptographic machine used by Dag Hammarskjöld appear to have been intercepted by British and United States signals and intelligence agencies as a result of a secret interception and decryption setting that those agencies held that enabled them to intercept surreptitiously.”
Document:GCHQ and Me: My Life Unmasking British EavesdroppersArticle3 August 2015Duncan CampbellNo one at the May 2015 conference on intelligence, security and privacy argued against greater openness. Thanks to Edward Snowden and those who courageously came before, the need for public accountability and review has become unassailable.
Document:Getting it Rightarticle2011Lobster MagazineA realistic appraisal of the functioning and lack of EFFECTIVE political oversight of the UK Secret Intelligence Services
Document:How British journalists are seduced by the Ministry of Defence and spooksArticle28 September 2021Richard Norton-TaylorIn the world of the spooks, few in the media raised questions about the root causes of terror attacks in Britain even when Eliza Manningham-Buller, then head of MI5, warned that the invasion of Iraq would increase the terrorist threat in Britain.
Document:How To Spot A Twitter TrollWikispooks Page2 July 2019Craig MurrayExposure is the simple way to nullify the vast state propaganda programmes on social media
Document:How to spot a Twitter trollblog post2 July 2019Craig MurrayExposure is the simple way to nullify the vast state propaganda programmes on social media
Document:Huawei Hypocrisyblog post7 May 2019Craig MurrayFormer Deputy PM Nick Clegg said GCHQ's ability "to hack anything from handsets to whole networks … needs to be much better understood".
Document:Senior spy appointed to lead UK’s joint biosecurity centreArticle5 June 2020Helen Warrell
Sarah Neville
Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at Edinburgh University, says: “The virus is not worried that you’re tracking its progress, it’s not going to change its tactic. Cybersecurity is not your worry with a virus. It’s a biological phenomenon.”
Document:The Massive PSYOP Employed against Ukraine by GCHQ and NSAarticle28 February 2014Wayne MadsenThe rapidly developing internet and electroic communications-based PSYOPS capabilities of US-UK intelligence agencies and their targeted use against the government of the Ukraine
Document:The Woman who nearly Stopped the Wararticle19 March 2008Martin BrightIn January 2003 Katharine Gun, a translator at GCHQ, learned something so outrageous that she sacrificed her career to tell the truth. Martin Bright on a brave deed that should not be forgotten.
Document:UK Intelligence And Security Report, 2003reportJune 2003Richard M. Bennett
Katie Bennett
A compendious summary of the UK Intelligence And Security agencies, including people, events and places.
Document:Whitehall Farcebook review12 October 1989Paul FootJames Rusbridger: "Secrecy turns otherwise rational people into fascistic nutters; secrecy allows untold billions of pounds and endless energies to be wasted in unnecessary intelligence; secrecy pollutes the political process, muzzles what is left of the independent press and makes a mockery of Parliament and elections."
File:Osp8.pdfreportNovember 2005The selection criteria and process for deciding on the selection of Intelligence records for declassification and inclusion in the National Archive
File:Security Services Act 1989.pdflegal documentThe Security Services Act 1989
File:Ukintell0809.pdfreport2008UK Intelligence and Security Committee Annual Report 2007-2008
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References

External Links


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