ABSTRACT
This chapter examines relationships of influence between intelligence elites and civil society in the mass surveillance issue during periods of national security whistleblowing to the press. It examines relationships of influence between intelligence elites and civil society in both Britain and America. The chapter focuses on Edward Snowden's whistleblowing, also relevant is Thomas Tamm, who leaked the existence of a pre-cursor US mass surveillance programme in 2004. Snowden initiated a wide range of Accountability Demands, many demanding real world change, across whistleblowing press outlets spanning multiple countries. The published Snowden leaks evidence that the data bulk collected by intelligence agencies includes communications content. The chapter addresses the legislative and oversight issues in the United States of America and United Kingdom raised by Snowden's challenges, first in terms of communications content and then communications data/metadata. The intelligence elites' strategies of influence involving silencing and information provision appear to have influenced wider American and British press.
