WHISTLEBLOWER Edward Snowden has been criticised by Cheltenham MP Martin Horwood for what he believes is "threatening national security".
Mr Snowden, a 29-year-old former CIA technical assistant, claims he leaked documents to The Guardian.
The newspaper says documents allege GCHQ has been tapping into internet and telephone cables, accessing personal information and sharing it with America's National Security Agency (NSA).
The Lib Dem MP believes Mr Snowden has been "incredibly irresponsible".
The latest claims, printed in The Guardian on Saturday, suggest the spybase taps into phone calls, emails, Facebook entries and website-viewing history through fibre-optic cables and stores the information for up to 30 days, so it can be sifted through and analysed.
Mr Horwood said the intelligence hub answered to a Parliamentary committee, which had vowed to investigate the claims. But he said the listening post had acted legally.
He said: "I don't think it has come as a surprise they use phone lines and the internet to gather intelligence. It is quite proper that questions are asked, but that should be done in a private setting or else they cannot do their job.
"For this information to be put into the public domain is incredibly irresponsible and a threat to national security.
"People should also be reassured by the maths – there are billions of communications in this form every day and GCHQ and NSA could not possibly be tracking all of them. They are desperately trying to find a needle in a haystack, people that are a threat, and not trying to monitor ordinary people."
International defence analyst Tony Mason believes a review of the Benhall doughnut's powers is needed because of the changes in technology.
The retired Air-Vice Marshal said: "There is fortunately still great confidence in the political control of GCHQ activities.
"But it is questionable that when there has been an enormous expansion of electronic capabilities whether the rules and guidance do need to be re-evaluated to insure political control is as it should be in a democracy. Questions do arise when any information is being shared internationally because you have a shared interest in reducing a security risk, but with that comes no control over methods and processes used."
