The British on intelligence: a collection (SIS, MI5, GCHQ & more)

[davidbfpo]

A consistent theme in domestic digital collection and surveillance is whether it is needed by the "agencies". Shining a spotlight into this murky area, with an agenda, is this report by The Intercept:https://theintercept.com/2016/06/07/...e-data-deluge/

Here is key section:

A top-secret 2009 study found that, in one six-month period, the PRESTON program had intercepted more than 5 million communications. Remarkably, 97 percent of the calls, messages, and data it had collected were found to have been “not viewed” by the authorities. The authors of the study were alarmed because PRESTON was supposedly focused on known suspects, and yet most of the communications it was monitoring appeared to be getting ignored — meaning crucial intelligence could have been missed.
“Only a small proportion of the Preston Traffic is viewed,” they noted. “This is of concern as the collection is all warranted.”

There is a long running thread, which started in 2005, Intelligence, Data, COIN and CT, with 40 posts and 32k views - into which this thread will be merged one day.