Clegg defends spy snooping as ‘proportionate’ to threat

Mr Clegg said the security and intelligence services could not arbitrarily access communications data, following reported links between UK eavesdropping agency GCHQ and the US’s controversial Prism internet monitoring programme.

The Deputy Prime Minister said there were “exacting checks and balances” but it was necessary for the agencies to access the information “to keep us safe”.

But Mr Clegg restated his opposition to the proposed Communications Data Bill – the so-called “snooper’s charter” – arguing that it was “disproportionate”.

On his phone-in radio show, Mr Clegg said he could give the “fullest assurance” that “there are some really exacting checks and balances in the way in which all the intelligence agencies access information”.

He said: “They can’t just arbitrarily access information. Certainly if they want to look at the contents of any communications they have got to get Ministerial permission to do that.”

Mr Clegg said that after three years in Government, “I’m actually coming round to the view that the checks and balances of how the system works, including, by the way, scrutiny in Parliament by the Intelligence and Security Committee, is much stronger than it is in most other jurisdictions I’m aware of”.

He said he was “absolutely persuaded” that the use of communications data by intelligence agencies was legal and proportionate.

He added: “Yes, of course, intelligence agencies get hold of information on how people communicate with each other in order to go after terrorists and to keep us safe. That’s what intelligence gathering is about ... it’s whether the information that is accessed is done in a way that is proportionate, (and) is obviously legal.”

But Mr Clegg remained opposed to the “wide-ranging” powers in the Communications Data Bill.

He said: “I think a much wider-ranging snooper’s charter in which all the websites you visit ... would be recorded and we would be able to keep an eye on the traffic that comes from internet service providers in other parts of the world, I think those two things, which are the other bits that were proposed in the so-called snooper’s charter, have proved to be either disproportionate in my view or not workable.”

Foreign Secretary William Hague and his US counterpart John Kerry touched on the Prism controversy during talks in Washington on Wednesday night.

The Foreign Secretary insisted UK and US citizens should have “confidence” that intelligence agencies were operating within the law.

“The intelligence-sharing relationship between the UK and the US is unique in the world, it’s the strongest in the world and it contributes massively to the national security of both countries,” he said.