Government Communications Headquarters

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Coordinates: 51.8994800703° N 2.12445950215° W

A model of GCHQ headquarters in Cheltenham
A model of GCHQ headquarters in Cheltenham

The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is a British intelligence agency responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance to the UK government and armed forces as required, under the guidance of the Joint Intelligence Committee. CESG (originally Communications-Electronics Security Group) is the branch of GCHQ which works to secure the communications and information systems of the government and critical parts of UK national infrastructure.

GCHQ was originally established after the First World War as the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS or GC&CS), by which name it was known until 1946.

GCHQ is the responsibility of the UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, but it is not a part of the Foreign Office, and its Director ranks as a Permanent Secretary.

Contents

[edit] Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS)

During World War I, Britain's Army and Navy had separate signals intelligence agencies, MI1b and NID25 (also known as Room 40) respectively.[1] In 1919, the Cabinet's Secret Service Committee, chaired by Lord Curzon, recommended that a peace-time codebreaking agency should be created, a task given to the then-Director of Naval Intelligence, Hugh Sinclair.[2] Sinclair merged staff from NID25 and MI1b into the new organisation, which initially consisted of around 25-30 officers and a similar number of clerical staff.[3] It was titled the "Government Code and Cypher School," a cover-name chosen by Victor Forbes of the Foreign Office.[4] Alastair Denniston, who had been a member of NID25, was appointed as its operational head.[2] It was initially under the control of the Admiralty, and located in Watergate House, Aldephi, London.[2] Its public function was "to advise as to the security of codes and cyphers used by all Government departments and to assist in their provision," but also had a secret directive to "study the methods of cypher communications used by foreign powers."[5] GCCS officially formed on 1 November 1919,[6] and produced its first decrypt on 19 October.[2]

By 1922, GCCS main focus was on diplomatic traffic, with "no service traffic ever worth circulating"[7] and so, at the initiative of Lord Curzon, it was transferred from the Admiralty to the Foreign Office.[8] GCCS came under the supervision of Hugh Sinclair, who by 1923 was both the Chief of SIS and Director of GCCS.[2] In 1925, both organisations were co-located on different floors of Broadway Buildings, opposite St James' Park.[2]

Messages decrypted by GC&CS were distributed in blue jacketed files that became known as "BJs."[9]

In the 1920s, GCCS was successfully reading Soviet Union diplomatic ciphers. However, in May 1927, during a row over clandestine Soviet support for the General Strike and the distribution of subversive propaganda, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made details from the decrypts public, prompting the Soviet to change their systems to more secure schemes, including the one-time pad.

Before World War II, GCCS was a relatively small department, and staff included Alastair Denniston, Oliver Strachey, Dilly Knox, John Tiltman, Edward Travis, Ernst Fetterlein, Josh Cooper and Hugh Foss.

During the Second World War, GCCS was based largely at Bletchley Park, reading, most famously, the German Enigma machine ciphers, but also a large number of other systems. In 1940, GCCS was working on the diplomatic codes and ciphers of 26 countries, tackling over 150 diplomatic cryptosystems.[10]

GC&CS was renamed the "Government Communications Headquarters" in June 1946.[11]

[edit] After World War II

Logo of GCHQ
Logo of GCHQ

GCHQ was at first based in London, but in 1953[12] moved to the outskirts of Cheltenham, setting up two sites there - Oakley and Benhall. Its existence was not officially acknowledged until 1983.

[edit] Public key encryption

Early in the 1970s the asymmetric key algorithm was invented by staff member Clifford Cocks, a mathematics graduate. This fact was kept secret until 1997.

[edit] Trade union disputes

The following year GCHQ was the centre of a political row when the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher prohibited its employees from belonging to a Trade Union. It was claimed that joining such a union would be in conflict with national security. The ban was eventually lifted by the incoming Labour government in 1997, with the Government Communications Group of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union being formed to represent interested employees.[13] In 2000, a group of fourteen former GCHQ employees, who had been dismissed after refusing to give up their union membership, were awarded £500,000 compensation from the government between them.[14]

[edit] Post Cold War

Since 1994, GCHQ activities have been subject to scrutiny by Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee.

Post-Cold War, the aims of GCHQ were set out by the Intelligence Services Act (1994).

At the end of 2003, GCHQ moved to a new circular HQ (popularly known as 'the Doughnut'), at the time the second-largest public sector building project in Europe with an estimated cost of £337 million.[15] The new building, which was constructed by Carillion, is the base for all of GCHQ's Cheltenham operations.

The public spotlight fell on GCHQ in late 2003 and early 2004 following the sacking of Katharine Gun after she leaked a confidential email from agents at the American National Security Agency to GCHQ agents about the wire-tapping of UN delegates in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war.

GCHQ gains its intelligence by monitoring a wide variety of communications and other electronic signals. For this a number of stations have been established in the UK and overseas which are run by the Composite Signals Organisation for GCHQ. The Composite Signals Organisation Station, at Morwenstow near Bude, Cornwall is directly subordinate to GCHQ.[citation needed] The listening stations are at Cheltenham itself, GCHQ CSO Morwenstow, GCHQ CSO Ascension Island, with the U.S.A. at Menwith Hill, and the Columbia Annex (CANX).[citation needed]

In addition to SIGINT, GCHQ provides assistance to Government Departments on their own communications security. This task is given to the Communications-Electronics Security Group (CESG) of GCHQ. CESG is the UK national technical authority for information assurance, including cryptography. CESG does not manufacture security equipment, but works with industry to ensure the availability of suitable products and services, while GCHQ itself can fund research into such areas, for example to the Centre for Quantum Computing at Oxford University.

[edit] ECHELON

GCHQ, in partnership with its equivalent agencies in the United States (National Security Agency), Canada (Communications Security Establishment), Australia (Defence Signals Directorate) and New Zealand (Government Communications Security Bureau), otherwise known as the UKUSA group, is believed to be responsible for the operation of the ECHELON system. Its capabilities are suspected to include the ability to monitor a large proportion of the world's transmitted civilian telephone, fax and data traffic, primarily by way of satellite intercepts.[citation needed]

[edit] GCHQ and the constitution

GCHQ actually determined the scope of judicial review on prerogative (residual powers from common law) in a very controversial case. This occurred in "Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service [1985] AC 347 (often known simply as the 'GCHQ case')". In this case, a prerogative order in council was used by the Prime Minister (who is the Minister for the Civil Service) to ban trade union activities by civil servants working at GCHQ. This order was issued without consultation. The House of Lords had to decide whether this was reviewable by Judicial Review. It was held that executive action is not immune from Judicial Review because it is carried out in the pursuit of power derived from common law (i.e. prerogative is reviewable). Controversially, they also held that though the failure to consult was unfair, it was overridden by concerns of national security.

[edit] Leadership

The following is a list of the heads of the operational heads of GCHQ and GC&CS [1], [2]:

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • John Johnson, The Evolution of British Sigint: 1653–1939, 1997
  1. ^ Johnson, p. 27
  2. ^ a b c d e f Johnson, 1997, p. 44
  3. ^ Johnson, 1997, p. 45 and Kahn, 1991, p. 82; these sources give different numbers for the initial size of the GCCS staff
  4. ^ Macksey, Kenneth (2003). The Searchers: Radio Intecept in Two World Wars. Cassell, p58. ISBN 0-304-36545-9. 
  5. ^ Michael Smith, "GC&CS and the First Cold War," p. 16-17 in Action this Day edited by Ralph Erskine and Michael Smith, 2001
  6. ^ Kahn, 1991, p. 82
  7. ^ Alastair G. Denniston, "The Government Code and Cypher School Between the Wars", Intelligence and National Security 1(1), January 1986, pp 48-70
  8. ^ Smith, 2001, pp. 20-21
  9. ^ Smith, 2001, pp. 18-19
  10. ^ David Alvarez, GC&CS and American Diplomatic Cryptanalysis
  11. ^ Smith, Michael (1998). Station X. Channel 4 books, p176. ISBN 0-330-41929-3. 
  12. ^ History of GCHQ Cheltenham. GCHQ website 'About Us' pages. Retrieved on June 29, 2006.
  13. ^ Union representation. GCHQ website. Retrieved on April 12, 2006.
  14. ^ "Sacked GCHQ workers win compensation", BBC News, 2000-02-01. Retrieved on April 12, 2006.
  15. ^ Industry projects: GCHQ. designbuild-network website. Retrieved on April 12, 2006.

[edit] External links


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