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(U) GCHQ Perspective on Annual Bilat
FROM: Iain Lobban
Director of SIGINT Operations, GCHQ
Run Date: 02/11/2005
(U) Last month saw the annual bilateral meeting held between SID and GCHQ's Operations
Directorate. Iain Lobban, GCHQ's Director of SIGINT Operations, sent the following summary to
the GCHQ work force and has given his permission for us to share it with the Foreign Affairs
Digest audience [reprinted here on SIDtoday].
(U) In mid-January we had our annual Bilat with NSA's Sigint Directorate, led by Major General
Dick Quirk. It was one of the best that I can remember so is probably worth a few words.
(U) The Bilat brings together the leads for each element of Sigint Operations. Over two days we
covered:
(S//SI) The strategic missions we each faced -- lots in common as you would expect, so
we focused on areas of divergence -- China perhaps the most striking, where GCHQ
devotes much less effort than NSA. This is something we are looking at given its
strategic significance both now and in the future;
(S//SI) The need for balance across the board - although CT and SSMO are obviously
high priorities, if something goes seriously wrong with Russia or WMD they have worldchanging potential!
(U) Opportunities as a result of the 'Big Idea' - seeking to minimise the use and
unintended effect of Eyes Only classifications, to mutual advantage.
(U) The continuing importance of working with Humint partners: when we get this right,
the whole really is greater than the sum of the parts.
(U) Coherent planning and practice across all elements of the Sigint system; this is
actually a strong 5-Eyes, not simply bilateral, push.
(U) Touchpoints between our own SigMod [SIGINT Modernisation] and NSA equivalents.
(S//SI) The drive for effective geolocation capability whatever personal comms our
targets may be using (GSM, Internet, etc).
(U) The need to produce more reporting in write-to-release form to allow more usability
by our customers and allies.
(S//SI) Increasingly collaborative working across Sigint and Information Assurance right
across the 5-Eyes community as we see more electronic attacks (from both Sigint and IA
detection) against our national governmental systems.
(U//FOUO) Clearly all of the above was important but I think the last item was the most
rewarding discussion. Huw Rees and Paul Chichester joined us from CESG [Britain's national
technical authority on Information Assurance] as did
from NSA's IAD, and we had
a rich discussion about what we are seeing, the challenges it presents and next steps. Aligning
ourselves within the UK is hard enough -- magnify that by five across our wider community. So
the actions we agreed were very focused on the international dimension where we have already
had good working level progress: we must build on that urgently and have key milestones set
for February, April and July.
(U//FOUO) Since I'm finishing this piece on a 5-Eyes theme, looking ahead to February I'll be
visiting DSD and GCSB for a strategic review of Sigint collaboration, while in April we have a
formal Sigint Ops Bilat with CSE. So staff whether within or outside Ops should expect to hear a
lot more about what we are up to -- our key drivers, our challenges, our successes. And please
ask questions, absorb messages and help spread the word.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108