An overview of some of the key documents released to Privacy International following their US freedom of information challenge, which offered previously unseen details on the development of Five Eyes intelligence sharing in the postwar era.
These previously-classified documents were released to our partner Privacy International following their US freedom of information challenge in 2017, which sought ‘records relating to the British-United States Communication Intelligence Agreement (now known as the “UKUSA Agreement”).’ The disclosures relate to various aspects of the UKUSA Agreement: a remarkably wide-ranging agreement which lies at the heart of the intelligence sharing practices of the Five Eyes alliance, comprising intelligence services from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Covering the period between 1945 and 2016, the documents – many of which remain heavily redacted – shed new light on the development of Five Eyes Intelligence sharing over the last 80 years. This includes the degree to which the framework has had approval from the topmost levels of US government, the degree to which it continues to operate as a foundational touchstone to contemporary practices, and the degree to which intelligence sharing presents challenges as well as benefits to both parties.
Presidential approval for Five Eyes intelligence sharing
Among the documents released as part of the NSA disclosures is a short memo sent by President Harry Truman to the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of the Navy on 12 September 1945. The memo provides official authorisation for the continuation of US-UK ‘collaboration in the field of communications intelligence,’ granting permission ‘to extend, modify or discontinue this collaboration, as determined to be in the best interests of the United States.’
The significance of the document is highlighted in a Memorandum for the Record, produced by a historical officer at the NSA in October 1972 and released in the same tranche of documents. The memo notes that: ‘The question occasionally arises as to the governmental levels at which the UKUSA COMINT Agreement was authorized or approved,’ and points to Truman’s memo and a number of other documents as evidence that the establishment of the US-UK intelligence sharing alliance after the Second World War received ‘approval at the highest level.’
The disclosures also include a memo produced by the NSA to provide President Bill Clinton with background information on the UK-US Cryptologic relationship in advance of a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair in May 1997. The document speaks to the strength of the UK-US partnership, noting that, ‘NSA’s and GCHQ’s intelligence priorities are largely convergent and GCHQ’s SIGINT collection and processing capabilities often complement our own.’ However, it also suggests that the US agency was outsourcing some roles to its UK counterpart, with the memo admitting that ‘Some GCHQ [redacted] exist solely to satisfy NSA tasking.’
Also disclosed are copies of letters sent in July 2004 by President George W. Bush to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Australian counterpart John Howard, discussing the subject of intelligence sharing. While they contain no explicit reference to the UKUSA Agreement, Bush makes clear that, ‘My primary objective is to ensure the broadest possible sharing of relevant defense and intelligence information in the areas of planning and executing military and counterterrorism operations,’ noting that he had directed Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and Acting Director of the CIA, John Mclaughlin, to implement changes to enhance intelligence sharing between the allies.
UKUSA framework in practice
The disclosures confirm that the original UKUSA Agreement continued to provide the framework for intelligence sharing long after intelligence officials stopped updating the terms of the agreement and its various appendices. For example, a heavily redacted report from December 1985, discussing ‘SIGINT Relations Between NSA and GCHQ,’ notes that that ‘The UKUSA Agreement, dated 5 March 1946, has twelve short paragraphs and was so generally written that, with the exception of a few proper nouns, no changes to it have been made.’ Indeed, the report goes on to suggest that, while ‘there are many MOAs [Memoranda of Agreement] and MOUs [Memoranda of Understanding] between the parties… a significant amount of division of effort [DOE] is accomplished without any formal DOE or MOU and has evolved through cooperation engendered by personal contact and exchange.’
These arrangements are also confirmed in another document from March 1990, discussing the ‘Division of Effort’ on cryptological cooperation between various divisions of GCHQ and NSA. Though heavily redacted, the memo notes that ‘The DOE concept shared by both organizations does not necessarily reflect a formal arrangement, but rather a series of informal working arrangements agreed to by managers of both agencies since the UKUSA COMINT Agreement.’
Other documents speak to the importance of UK-US intelligence sharing, particularly after the end of the Cold War. A heavily redacted memo from 23 April 1993 discussing the ‘UKUSA Relationship’ notes that ‘The roots of the UKUSA SIGINT agreement go back more than 50 years…[and] throughout these five decades it has been without question the most valuable partnership for both NSA and GCHQ.’ However, the memo goes on to note that the ‘unexpected and rapid collapse of European communism has had a profound affect [sic] on NSA,’ as ‘the “peace dividend” has led to budget cuts, base closures, and manpower reductions.’ While NSA continued to be considerably larger than GCHQ in terms of personnel and resources, ‘GCHQ…continues to have key real estate, some very talented technical people, and (at least at present) a greater degree of financial flexibility.’ The memo concludes by noting that ‘The UKUSA relationship is so broad and so important that it may be inappropriate to treat it in the same way as other foreign relationships… it is the most important and productive one we have.’
The deeply integrated, but also ad hoc, arrangements for intelligence sharing between GCHQ and the NSA also emerge in an operational review of the UKUSA Agreement in November 1993. The review noted that ‘no single document exists in sufficient detail to serve as such an agreement,’ and that ‘to list what IS shared would be extremely expensive in terms of required man-hours.’ The memo suggests that to understand the scope of intelligence sharing between the US and the UK, it would be better ‘to break the task into three parts,’ with part one consisting of ‘listing in sufficient detail those things that are not (to the best of your knowledge) exchanged with the UK today,’ part two consisting of ‘those things that managers and senior technical experts believe may well need to be altered or declared unexchangeable in the near future (5-8 years out or less),’ and part three consisting of ‘those new things that should be exchanged with the UK in the future.’
The review of these sharing practices formed part of a broader foreign relations review carried out by the NSA, with an accompanying memo from 31 January 1994 reminding the recipient to ‘be extremely sensitive to the fact that NSA is conducting this review and that it is NOFORN’ (i.e., ‘Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals’).
Challenges of intelligence sharing
Most of the documents released highlight the benefits of UK-US intelligence sharing and the successes of combined working parties, joint operations, and the exchange of liaison officers. However, the disclosures also include a heavily redacted and undated report written by the NSA’s Senior US Liaison Officer in London, An Assessment of the UKUSA Relationship: Where We Go From Here. According to the author, the report represents ‘an honest effort… to describe the strengths and weaknesses of the UKUSA relationship so that NSA might better be able to make some hard decisions about the future of the relations.’ With this in mind, the report raised some concerns about the use of integrees, namely personnels from one agency working inside the other.
In one particularly interesting passage, the report notes that ‘some operational and staff elements in GCHQ have begun to use integrees as their representatives, and some integrees have assumed liaison-like functions. Making matters worse has been a recent trend to send integrees to function as special assistants, sometimes to alpha plus-one components working sensitive missions. While they are no doubt of great help to NSA managers, they also serve as lobbyists for GCHQ seniors in policy matters.’ Indeed, the report goes on to provide some examples of this issue, noting that: ‘Recently GCHQ/K1 lobbied hard to place an integree in the G2/SA position. G2 rightly rejected this as it would give GCHQ insight into certain sensitive operations we do not share. In another instance a strategically placed GCHQ integree drafted an MOA that committed [redacted] assistance from NSA to GCHQ – without addressing the correctness of this assistance, the propriety of this situation is disturbing.’
