14 DAY TRIAL // British intelligence agency GCHQ is losing its chief, Sir Iain Lobban. The 53-year-old has been director at the agency since 2008 and according to official statements, his departure has been long planned.
The Foreign Office said that Iain Lobban was doing an outstanding job as director of the GCHQ, The Guardian reports. “Today is simply about starting the process of ensuring we have a suitable successor in place before he moves on as planned at the end of the year."
None of the statements given out so far indicates that his departure is in any way related to the reports based on the Snowden files.
Of course, it’s rather a coincidence that both the chief of the GCHQ and the director of the NSA have announced their “planned” departures from their respective agencies just months after the entire scandal began.
It is known that General Keith Alexander, NSA director, has actually tried to quit the job when the leaks began, but the Obama administration refused to accept it. He will, however, leave the job by March or April, according to reports.
Iain Lobban made a rare appearance last year, as he made a statement in front of the parliamentary committee, claiming that The Guardian reports on the NSA files have damaged the country’s fight against terrorism.
The GCHQ has gotten its fair share of attention over the past months as more and more NSA files have been used for media reports.
Since the British intelligence agency is one of the main allies of the NSA, the data exchanges between the two agencies have made headlines.
Most recently, it has been revealed that the GCHQ has managed to turn smartphones into small spies via advertisements that get delivered with several popular apps, including Angry Birds, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Google Maps and Flixter.
It then went and taught the NSA everything it knew.