The newly anointed chief of Government Communications Headquarters — one of Britain’s intelligence and security organization — is placing the blame squarely at Silicon Valley’s feet for fostering an atmosphere that serves and aids terrorists.
Specifically, Robert Hannigan said Islamic State terrorists have “embraced the web” as a way to inspire “would-be jihadists” from around the world to join in their ranks, The Telegraph reported.
And that means Facebook and Twitter and other like techie firms have become “the command and control networks of choice” for terrorists — though executives are “in denial” about the scope of the problem, he said, The Telegraph reported.
Mr. Hannigan said it’s high time these companies face “some uncomfortable truths,” and they should work in closer partnership with government security officials.
Privacy, he added, was not an “absolute right,” The Telegraph reported.
“I understand why [U.S. tech firms] have an uneasy relationship with governments,” he wrote in the Financial Times. “They aspire to be neutral conduits of data and to sit outside or above politics. But increasingly, their services not only host the material of violent extremism of child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism.”
He went on, The Telegraph reported: “However much they may dislike it, they have become the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals, who find their services as transformational as the rest of us.”
Mr. Hannigan said GCHQ wanted to maintain privacies for software and computer users, too.
“But privacy has never been an absolute right,” he wrote, “and the debate about this should not become a reason for postponing urgent and difficult decisions.”
Mr. Hannigan assumed director duties at GCHQ a month ago.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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