Britain’s Parliament questioned the chiefs of the three main intelligence agencies GCHQ, MI5, and MI6, who told the MPs that the West’s “adversaries were rubbing their hands with glee” in the wake of the revelations from the cache of intelligence documents smuggled out of the US by fugitive leaker Edward Snowden.

“The leaks from Snowden have been very damaging, they've put our operations at risk,” said MI6 chief Sir John Sawyers before an unprecedented public hearing of the UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee.

The head of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) Sir Iain Lobban upped the ante, claiming that activists in the Middle East and “closer to home” had been monitored discussing ways of switching away from communications they “now perceived as vulnerable.”

Despite the gentle, 90-minute cross-examination, the three intel chiefs expressed their concern at the legal oversight of the intelligence agencies.  Sawers and Lobban were unwilling to give the committee any specific details about their claims, but they promised to be “very, very specific” in a future private session.