Hague added that it was “fanciful” and “nonsense” to suggest that GCHQ would work with an agency in another country to circumvent the law.
The foreign secretary declined to say whether he had authorised GCHQ’s use of the Prism system on the grounds that he never comments on intelligence. But he indicated that he may have done so, though only a modest scale, when he said that the law allowed “targeted” monitoring of terrorists, criminal networks and hostile foreign intelligence agencies.