Intelligence Agency Heads To Be Quizzed Live

By Tim Marshall, Foreign Affairs Editor

The three heads of Britain's intelligence agencies will be questioned at a historic televised Parliamentary Committee later.

It is the first time they have appeared in public together and the first time the head of one of the agencies, GCHQ, has been seen in public.

The hearings come as the agencies are under fire following revelations by the NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden that the UK is monitoring communications on a vast scale.

The three intelligence chiefs are Sir Iain Lobban, Director of GCHQ; Andrew Parker, Director General of Security Service (MI5) and Sir John Sawers, Chief of Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).

They were originally scheduled to appear in the spring of this year but the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) workload did not allow this, and then members were busy talking to the agencies following the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich.

Anyone who follows intelligence affairs knew that modern agencies have the capability to monitor vast amounts of communications traffic, but Snowden gave details of how, and revealed that GCHQ was running a programme called Tempora.

This called into question whether the agencies were "overstretching" in their surveillance capabilities and intentions.

The MI6 building on next to Vauxhall Bridge on the River Thames

An inquiry found that Tempora falls within the UK laws governing monitoring, but the disquiet remains over "who guards the guards".

That is the framework for the ISC hearings.

In the UK, Parliament makes the laws the agencies should abide by and the newly empowered ISC tries to ensure they do just that.

This year it was given greater powers and a bigger budget.

Members are proposed by all major political parties and are then approved by the Prime Minister.

Sir John Sawers will appear at the committee

In the unlikely event he/she was to turn someone down, the ISC reserves the right to make this public. The ISC also now has powers to go into the headquarters of the agencies, look at documents and question officers.

It and the agencies are also overseen by two commissioners who are senior judges. They hold similar powers to the ISC.

The intelligence community is concerned that the UK public has the impression that millions of emails and phone calls are being listened to.

This is physically impossible, but what they are doing is monitoring vast amounts of digital traffic and using computers to try and track people they are already interested in, or to find patters of interest.

The GCHQ building in Cheltenham

Within that they may well come across an ordinary person's communications, but in law actually reading or listening to that requires another step.

When an agency wants to tap a phone, or read an email, it needs to apply to a secretary of state.

In the case of GCHQ and MI6 that is the Foreign Secretary, while the Home Secretary oversees MI5. A judge may be required to approve the request for monitoring.

Part of the job of the commissioners is to ask the agency chiefs to justify their applications.

There are more revelations to come from Snowden, and more public debate, which is part of the reason why the spies are emerging from the shadows and into the 21st century.

:: For live coverage of the Parliamentary Committee watch Sky News from 2pm.

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