The i Paper has been told that informal discussions have taken place between UK and US officials in order to steady nerves and maintain a long-standing agreement of intelligence sharing, according to two sources with knowledge of the talks.
“It comes down to the chiefs of both sides who will be talking about what you do and do not brief Trump,” they said. “The concern is that he will say something he shouldn’t.”
UK security fears over Trump’s intelligence chief and possible data leaks
Read MoreAlthough Thursday’s meeting between Keir Starmer and the US President has been widely regarded as a success in bolstering the special relationship between the two countries, the unpredictable nature of the evolving Trump administration is causing concern.
The Five Eyes alliance, which also includes the UK, Australia and New Zealand, is a beacon of unity on defence for the West against global adversaries that was established in 1941. It allows member nations to share highly-classified intelligence to identify and combat national security threats from terrorism to cybercrime.
White House officials have reportedly pushed to remove Canada from the Five Eyes alliance (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)Although Navarro later rowed back against these suggestions, the very fact it might have been considered sent shockwaves through intelligence circles.
They said: “Our relationship with Canada and the UK is closely tied to the entire NATO structure, and underpins decades of opposition to Soviet, and then Russian, expansion and aggression.
A second US intelligence official said if they were working for UK intelligence, they would be withholding “anything sensitive” from the current administration. They added: “Most of the US/UK information sharing is case specific and comes down to personal relationships. If the UK is just responding to a request for subscriber information to a phone number, for example, I don’t see things like that changing. But, sadly anything beyond routine I wouldn’t share.”
What is Five Eyes and why is it important?
Pine Gap, a CIA-led satellite station in central Australia (Photo: ABC)Five Eyes is an intelligence-sharing collaboration between the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand has been a stalwart of national security for the best part of a century.
Established in the aftermath of World War II, the partnership initially included only the UK and the US before expanding to include Canada, Australia and New Zealand to form one of the most complex and far-reaching alliances in Western history.
The agreement allows for the secure transfer of classified and non-classified information from multiple sources, including intercepted communications, military intelligence and geospatial data.
There are a number of Five Eyes listening posts across the globe including the Waihopai Station in New Zealand, Ayios Nikolaos Station in Cyprus and Pine Gap in Australia. The latter is a CIA-led satellite station critical for collecting intelligence on China.
The agreement has forged the basis for the “special relationship” between the UK and US and is signified by a large cohort of embedded US National Security Agency (NSA) officials working at the Government’s Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) to encourage a deep cooperation on sharing of signals intelligence.
In particular, the choice of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (DNI) – a role that involves preparing daily intelligence briefings for the President and overseeing all 18 US intelligence agencies – increased fears around intelligence sharing with the US.
Matthew Dunn, a former MI6 intelligence officer said that team Trump’s threatening of security arrangements with Canada will force the UK and other to treat the US with caution to protect sensitive information.
Dunn said the safety of sources run by UK intelligence will be a “major concern”, forcing officers to seek assurances from that their agent’s intelligence isn’t fed to US officials.
As part of intelligence agreements, a large contingent of officials from the US National Security Agency, NSA, are embedded in the UK Government’s Communication Headquarters (GCHQ). Dunn claims that fracturing relations between the two countries could lead to the US contingencies needing to temporarily to leave the spy headquarters in Cheltenham.
They said: “The UK/US intelligence sharing relationship has strengthened the security of both nations for many decades and our cooperation with our American partners will continue under the new US administration.”
Cheltenham headquarters of the Government Communications spy agency, GCHQ (Photo: David Goddard/Getty)John Foreman, the UK’s Defence Attache to Moscow until 2022, said Starmer will need to keep setting out the “mutual benefit” of the existing intelligence and defence relationship to convince Trump that a deeper alliance will increase the national security of both nations.
The US Embassy in London was approached for comment.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( UK security services’ concern over intelligence sharing with Trump administration )
Also on site :