MPs voting on the Snooper’s Charter next week might be swayed to oppose Theresa May’s anti-privacy laws by the revelation that GCHQ are already accessing their emails. New documents released by Edward Snowden show GCHQ not only intercepts MPs’ communications – it also scans them in bulk using security software installed to supposedly filter spam emails. GCHQ has been able to skirt around strict rules governing the interception of internal UK communications due to parliament’s decision to switch to Microsoft Office for its email service. This means private emails sent by MPs are routed through servers in Ireland and the Netherlands, with each one being scanned and recorded by GCHQ. MPs should remember they’re governed by the laws they create…

H/T Computer Weekly

The Guardian’s Ed Snowden coverage in 2014 led to a series of high-profile awards, notably a Pulitzer Prize and an Emmy. So what on earth was this gong doing on sale in a Richmond Oxfam?

Guido dispatched a roving reporter to find out…

Apparently an unidentified benefactor turned up at the Oxfam on Friday afternoon and handed the Pulitzer in. It was quickly snapped up for a fiver by a mysterious telephone bidder just before the store closed, though Guido managed to get his hands on the Guardian‘s Emmy for just £4.99.

The prizes were most likely wall hangings for senior journalist’s offices. Guido’s new intern has only been here a week and he’s already landed an Emmy…

Tom Harper, who co-authored the Sunday Times splash “British Spies Betrayed to Russians and Chinese”, had a bit of a ‘mare when he tried to defend the story to CNN‘s George Howell yesterday. It turns out the story was spun off the back of a single government source.  Harper’s CNN interviewer gently deconstructed his explanation for the provenance and veracity of the story in the manner of a concerned parent getting a confession from a toddler who has raided the biscuit tin and left a trail of crumbs…

GH: “So essentially you’re reporting what the Government is saying but as far as the evidence, to you know, substantiate it, you’re not able to comment or explain that?”

TH: “No. Obviously when you’re dealing with intelligence, you know, it’s the toughest nut to crack. And, um, unless you actually have leaked intelligence documents, like Snowden had, it’s very difficult to say anything with certainty.“

Guido thought we had learnt not to base intelligence news reports on intelligence community sources. They are after all spies – paid to lie – this was always going to go embarrassingly badly…

The US House of Representatives has overwhelming voted to back the USA Freedom Act which would end the bulk surveillance of American phone records and emails. The backing of the bill which seeks to amend notorious sections of the USA Patriot Act, will embolden privacy advocates and comes on the back of US Court of Appeals ruling last week that the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone metadata is unlawful.

Seen as a compromise between real reform and keeping national security hawks happy, the Freedom Act has emerged as having the most realistic change of curbing the NSA.

Convincing the Senate to back the legislation is another thing…

Rand Paul, who sued the NSA last year is delighted that the US Court of Appeals has ruled that much of the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone metadata is unlawful.

“The government has to live within rules that are set, and if we have a government or intelligence community that thinks they can do anything, that’s a real problem for freedom”

Do you stand with Rand?

“Those things do happen in reporting. In journalism we have to accept that some mistakes will be made.”

There were more than a million of them…