Government Communications Headquarters
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is a British signals intelligence (sigint) agency.
Contents
History
Government Code & Cypher School
The Government Code & Cypher School (GC&CS) was founded in 1919 as Britain's first integrated cryptographic agency.[1]
GC&CS was redesignated the London Signals Intelligence Centre in 1946, following a move from its wartime centre at Bletchley Park to Eastcote.[1]
GCHQ
The organisation formally took the name Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), previously in use as a cover name, on 1 November 1948.[1]
ABC Trial
GCHQ's activities received little publicity until 1976, when Duncan Campbell probed its activities in Cyprus for Time Out magazine. The subsequent prosecution under the Official Secrets Act became known as the ABC Trial.[2]
Geoffrey Prime affair
A former GCHQ employee Geoffrey Prime was convicted of spying for the KGB in 1982.[3]
Union ban
Trade unions were bannned from GCHQ by the Thatcher government in January 1984, prompting a long-running dispute.[4]
Personnel and Organisation
Directors
- Sir Edward Travis - 1944-1952
- Sir Eric Jones - 1952-1960
- Sir Clive Loehnis - 1960-64
- Sir Leonard Hooper - 1965-1973
- Sir Arthur Bonsall - 1973-1978
- Sir Brian Tovey - 1978-1983
- Sir Peter Marychurch - 1983-1989
- Sir John Adye - 1989-1996
- Sir David Omand - 1996-1997
- Sir Kevin Tebbit - 1998
- Sir Francis Richards - 1998-2003
- Sir David Pepper - 2003-2008
- Sir Iain Lobban - 2008-
SIGINT Missions
According to a diagram of GCHQ's 1998 organisation in Richard Aldrich's book on the agency, SIGINT Missions was one of four major divisions of its work under the corporate board.[5] it encompassed:
- Maths and Cryptanalysis.
- IT and Computer Services.
- Linguists and Translation.
- Intelligence Analysis Unit & Open Source Joint Working Group.[5]
Enterprise
According to Aldrich, Enterprise was a major division of GCHQ's 1998 organisation under the corporate board.[5] It included:
- Applied Research and Emerging Technologies.
- Corporate Knowledge and Information Services.
- Commercial Supplier Relationships.[5]
- Biometrics.
Corporate Management
According to Aldrich, Corporate management was a major division of GCHQ's 1998 organisation under the corporate board.[5] It encompassed:
- Enterprise Resource Planning System.
- Human Resources (Broadreach).
- Internal audit.
- SINEWS Architecture Team.[5]
Communications-Electronics Security Group
According to Aldrich, the Communications-Electronic Security Group was a major division of GCHQ's 1998 organisation under the corporate board.[5]
Website
External resources
- Nick Hopkins, UK gathering secret intelligence via covert NSA operation, guardian.co.uk, 7 June 2013.
- Richard Norton-Taylor, Intelligence-gathering by British state out of control, guardian.co.uk, 11 June 2013.
- Ewen MacAskill, Nick Davies, Nick Hopkins, Julian Borger and James Ball, GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications at G20 summits, The Guardian, 17 June 2013.
